Sherwin Tjia

Wes Folkerth

Department of English

Louis Dudek Teaching Award (Department of English Students' Association)

I suppose I've got two favourite classes. I've really enjoyed teaching the Introduction to Shakespeare course for non-majors, because I realize that reading and studying those seven or eight plays is going to be the most sustained engagement with poetry that many of those students will have for the rest of their lives. I feel honoured to be a participant in that experience. The second would be a course on comedy that I've taught three times now. Many of the perspectives and ideas that we discuss in that class seem to have a strong relevance to what's happening in people's lives on a day-to-day level. Comedy and laughter are great healers, and it's a treat to get to teach works that have that kind of important, real effect on people.