Wk 7
The semester proceeds. My classes have gelled into what they are going to be. The early class is sleepy. The later class is rowdy. Oddly, we rip through material more quickly in the rowdy class.
I have added a few new tricks this semester. Since so many students (including me) are wicked procrastinators, I have begun to require that the brainstorm and fastwrite steps of each essay be done in class. I have learned that this helps students leave class feeling as though they have at least begun their papers, and are able to get to the next draft more easily, even put aside small blocks of time for each draft, with time lapses between steps in order to foster objectivity and enable structural change. That works for some students, others demonstrate by the lack of any real change between their drafts, that they probably proofread on the screen, printing out nearly identical versions of their essays and blithely hand in 5 nearly identical drafts or else just hand in the brainstorm, fast write and final, claiming that they accidentally left the others on their desks and vow to bring them in “next class”.
Wk8
Alek gets sick and is out of school for an entire week. Because he is so sick, he climbs into my bed at night. Consequently, I have no prep time without kids around, no time for schoolwork without kids around, and so I pull all-nighters—which I had not anticipated being a part of my daily routine after my kids began sleeping through the night. Hah.
Because of lack of sleep and a sick kid sharing my bed, by Wed. I have inconveniently caught whatever illness the kid has been suffering. Because of missing class during the treed cat incident, I cannot miss any more classes, and so I drag into class mustering enthusiasm for the fun awaiting my students: Argument essays and how to structure one.
I have decided this semester to assign two argument essays, the first focusing on structure, the second addressing and adding the elements of correct MLA citation, in and out of text. And so, we discuss researching a debatable question in order to develop a thesis, rather than starting with a thesis and looking for information to support it. We discuss presenting info relating to the history of an issue, multiple contemporary perspectives, the presentation of an expected objection of readers and how to overcome and/or neutralize it. We address how to present supporting information and the fact that using the opinions of experts is, in this case, a good thing when correctly cited and not something to be hidden-- as it was in high school, when everyone reworded information found in the encyclopedia, trying to pass it off as his or her own writing.
We discuss how a conclusion should pack a punch and seal the persuasive deal, rather than parrot information already presented in the body of the essay. Unfortunately, few students have read the essays assigned, I find after springing a pop quiz, and this is annoying, as one of the essays, The New Prohibition, by Charles Krauthammer, packs just such a punch when, after presenting the argument that since tobacco ads are banned from television, so should be ads for alcoholic beverages.
The concluding sentence of his essay, is to me, perfect. “Would you rather have your children addicted to alcohol or tobacco?” he asks after, in the body of his essay, mentioning the nearly victimless aspect of smoking vs. the danger to families, other drivers, etc. by someone who is drunk. I am quite annoyed that we are unable to discuss this essay and its conclusion and structure without my first reading it aloud to a college class! I have administered 3 quizzes in a row after assigning readings. It seems as though they don't care, projecting the attitude we have all taken: When no written work is due, it means there is no homework.
It will be interesting to see how the Spring Break has manifested itself in terms of researching and writing this first argument paper, which is due next Thurs.
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Thursday, March 8, 2007
Kittens
The shift key on my laptop is working erratically. If something is not capitalized it is because I do not have the time or inclination to write the same words over and over again.
Sometimes spellcheck is merciful and corrects the error, as seems to be the case right now.
Our kitten is trapped up high in a 40 foot, lanky tree behind the garage. The kids, in their fourth day of testing for the standardized CT exams designed to accommodate the NCLB act of the Bush administration, are so stressed they left the back door open behind them as they sped out to meet the bus. When I emerged to ready myself for class, the two big cats ran in the door. I could not find the kitten, finally heard her meowing and felt relief, assuming that she was trapped inside the garage, an easy situation to remedy.
But, no. She is up in the tree, so high up that the branches wave in the bitter wind, and when I climb on top of the garage to coax her down, she is so scared that she climbs farther away, up and up. I drag old ladders I cannot lift by myself, and sit on the roof, helplessly holding an open can, redolent with the aroma of tuna, up towards Junie, who meows piteously, afraid to move. I dare not leave my house for fear she will fall and get hurt with no one to attend to her needs.
For the second time in the four years I’ve been teaching at CCSU, I call in to cancel my classes. The only other time this happened was in the fall of 2005, when I was vomiting. Even then I felt guilty. Now I feel like an idiot, but know how delighted my students will be when the English Department secretary tells them they can leave. I know this, not only because no teenager wants to sit in a class so early in the morning, but also because one of the semester’s four major papers is due today.
As I suspected, Min tells me that very few students were actually in the room when she arrived to announce that class was cancelled. I am secretly relieved I will not have to deal with my classes. I was up until 5am, doing schoolwork; I haven’t taken a shower; my house is warm and in need of cleaning. But really, I am truly scared about the cat, can feel her fear and pain and hunger
I check every few minutes to insure that the she is still up in the tree.while I post gigs on Craig’s List, Freedomcycle. I call equipment rental places, looking for extension ladders. The fire department no longer rescues treed animals; the Humane Society blithely tells me the cat will come down when she is hungry, tired, and cold. No, they cannot guarantee that she will land unharmed.
It strikes me that I am reacting as would a student in a similar situation. A student who would get a disappointed look from me upon her return to class next Tues. When I was a student, I thought professors had a cakewalk job. When I was merely professor, I realized how easy students have it. Now that I am both professor and student with a full load of classes and a thesis to write, I recognize that it is not easy on either side of the desk, and so I am much less harsh than I was as a new teacher, caught up in seemingly fair repercussions for slackers.
It is interesting that student cite a teacher who never gives them homework and lets them leave early as being ‘nice”. As a teacher myself, I know that she is making her own life easier by being that particular brand of nice. I’d like to be nice ALL the time, but unfortunately, I feel obliged to help my students improve their writing skills. In order to do so, I have implemented a few new strategies this semester. I make obligatory one on one meetings. I demand students do the brainstorms and fastwrite steps of their essay process in class, knowing that they will be less inclined to procrastinate, knowing that at least the seeds of their papers have been planted, and will hopefully propel them towards feeling less hopeless and floundering than they would by postponing every step of the essay until 2am on the day the paper is due. I hope to make them aware that they need not put off starting their papers because of having only a spare half hour, that a fast write can be done, and should be done, in ten minutes. They can set the alarms on their phones anywhere and write for ten minutes.
The most important pieces of information that I have thus far imparted to students revolve around voice and being able to write a reade-based paper. These two concepts seem to be new ideas for the students with whom I conference. I tell them to write the way the character would speak. Since the character is essentially their ownselves, I tell them to decide whether they are telling that particular story to a peer or a grandmother. When I say that, they get it. They had been confused by rules they learned in high school, the ones that demanded they write intros and conclusions that say exactly what is in the body of the essay, the one that told them they could not use “I’ in an essay-- one of the causes of an illogical shift in person and number that run rife as a virus through the essays.
I hate five paragraph essays, I tell them, I want to hear your story, the way you can best tell it. Just remember that by the final draft of the paper, any information I need, should be on the page. I point out areas in their essays where they have omitted necessary information, forgetting the reader is clueless about certain details that have come seemingly out of thin air
We have covered all the forms of illogical shifts, faulty parallelism and misplaced or dangling modifiers. They have done the exercises fairly easily, even edited pretty well the chapter review paragraph, identifying errors explored in that chapter. When it comes to handing in their own essays, however, many of the issues remain, staring me baldly in the face.
In our conferences, I ask about this phenomenon. Mostly they shrug helplessly that they can see the errors when working with me, but it’s harder on their own. One student informs me that he hadn’t realized they were supposed to incorporate the grammar lessons into their own essays.
The kitten is still stranded in the tree, and I cannot get her down.
Sometimes spellcheck is merciful and corrects the error, as seems to be the case right now.
Our kitten is trapped up high in a 40 foot, lanky tree behind the garage. The kids, in their fourth day of testing for the standardized CT exams designed to accommodate the NCLB act of the Bush administration, are so stressed they left the back door open behind them as they sped out to meet the bus. When I emerged to ready myself for class, the two big cats ran in the door. I could not find the kitten, finally heard her meowing and felt relief, assuming that she was trapped inside the garage, an easy situation to remedy.
But, no. She is up in the tree, so high up that the branches wave in the bitter wind, and when I climb on top of the garage to coax her down, she is so scared that she climbs farther away, up and up. I drag old ladders I cannot lift by myself, and sit on the roof, helplessly holding an open can, redolent with the aroma of tuna, up towards Junie, who meows piteously, afraid to move. I dare not leave my house for fear she will fall and get hurt with no one to attend to her needs.
For the second time in the four years I’ve been teaching at CCSU, I call in to cancel my classes. The only other time this happened was in the fall of 2005, when I was vomiting. Even then I felt guilty. Now I feel like an idiot, but know how delighted my students will be when the English Department secretary tells them they can leave. I know this, not only because no teenager wants to sit in a class so early in the morning, but also because one of the semester’s four major papers is due today.
As I suspected, Min tells me that very few students were actually in the room when she arrived to announce that class was cancelled. I am secretly relieved I will not have to deal with my classes. I was up until 5am, doing schoolwork; I haven’t taken a shower; my house is warm and in need of cleaning. But really, I am truly scared about the cat, can feel her fear and pain and hunger
I check every few minutes to insure that the she is still up in the tree.while I post gigs on Craig’s List, Freedomcycle. I call equipment rental places, looking for extension ladders. The fire department no longer rescues treed animals; the Humane Society blithely tells me the cat will come down when she is hungry, tired, and cold. No, they cannot guarantee that she will land unharmed.
It strikes me that I am reacting as would a student in a similar situation. A student who would get a disappointed look from me upon her return to class next Tues. When I was a student, I thought professors had a cakewalk job. When I was merely professor, I realized how easy students have it. Now that I am both professor and student with a full load of classes and a thesis to write, I recognize that it is not easy on either side of the desk, and so I am much less harsh than I was as a new teacher, caught up in seemingly fair repercussions for slackers.
It is interesting that student cite a teacher who never gives them homework and lets them leave early as being ‘nice”. As a teacher myself, I know that she is making her own life easier by being that particular brand of nice. I’d like to be nice ALL the time, but unfortunately, I feel obliged to help my students improve their writing skills. In order to do so, I have implemented a few new strategies this semester. I make obligatory one on one meetings. I demand students do the brainstorms and fastwrite steps of their essay process in class, knowing that they will be less inclined to procrastinate, knowing that at least the seeds of their papers have been planted, and will hopefully propel them towards feeling less hopeless and floundering than they would by postponing every step of the essay until 2am on the day the paper is due. I hope to make them aware that they need not put off starting their papers because of having only a spare half hour, that a fast write can be done, and should be done, in ten minutes. They can set the alarms on their phones anywhere and write for ten minutes.
The most important pieces of information that I have thus far imparted to students revolve around voice and being able to write a reade-based paper. These two concepts seem to be new ideas for the students with whom I conference. I tell them to write the way the character would speak. Since the character is essentially their ownselves, I tell them to decide whether they are telling that particular story to a peer or a grandmother. When I say that, they get it. They had been confused by rules they learned in high school, the ones that demanded they write intros and conclusions that say exactly what is in the body of the essay, the one that told them they could not use “I’ in an essay-- one of the causes of an illogical shift in person and number that run rife as a virus through the essays.
I hate five paragraph essays, I tell them, I want to hear your story, the way you can best tell it. Just remember that by the final draft of the paper, any information I need, should be on the page. I point out areas in their essays where they have omitted necessary information, forgetting the reader is clueless about certain details that have come seemingly out of thin air
We have covered all the forms of illogical shifts, faulty parallelism and misplaced or dangling modifiers. They have done the exercises fairly easily, even edited pretty well the chapter review paragraph, identifying errors explored in that chapter. When it comes to handing in their own essays, however, many of the issues remain, staring me baldly in the face.
In our conferences, I ask about this phenomenon. Mostly they shrug helplessly that they can see the errors when working with me, but it’s harder on their own. One student informs me that he hadn’t realized they were supposed to incorporate the grammar lessons into their own essays.
The kitten is still stranded in the tree, and I cannot get her down.
Sunday, March 4, 2007
week 4
We have finished week four of English 099. It has not been a smooth progression of classes. Students have been absent, classes frequently sparse. Some students submitted decent writing sample and placed into 110, replaced by new, sullen students who have missed as much as the first two weeks of classes. Not everyone has purchased books. Many submit homework late, or neglect to do it entirely.
I have handed back a set of narrative essays. Though I required each essay to be only one page in length, part of the assignment was to submit all six drafts: brainstorm, fastwrite, rough draft, 1st draft, 2nd draft, final perfectly proofread draft. Only one student out of both classes has followed the assignment to the letter and utilized the middle draft as an opportunity to more effectively restructure the page. The others have either submitted a few scrawled pages with the final proofread, typed page, or else have submitted a string of typed pages, identical but for a progression of slightly altered grammatical or spelling issues.
I have decided to make individual appointments with each student, early on in the semester, and so I have met with each, attempting to connect, and to more clearly articulate their errors than I could in margin notes. They are largely a nice bunch, decent writers for an 099 class.
I have been reading to them from rich narrative passages I admire, then requesting them to do a fast write immediately afterwards. “Water seeks its own level,” I tell them. “Don’t worry about writing properly, concentrate on sensory details, on the flow of words. Don’t stop writing. Write about the ceiling if you get stuck. Write that you don’t know what to write, over and over again, but don’t remove the pen from the paper. It’s kinesthetic, it’s like fishing. If you leave your pole in the water long enough you’ll catch a decent fish. No one ever caught a fish without actually putting a pole in the water.”
Many seem to have fun doing this. I’ve told them that on the formal papers, I will primarily point out areas that need improvement, but that on these fast writes, I will only point out gems, things they’ve written that strike me as valuable. I’ve not yet read the fast writes. I’ve been hoarding them as my own treats. Such a relief not to have to figure out how to communicate to 099 students methods to improve their essays.
I want them to like to write, just as I want them to like to read. It is easier to sit captive in a classroom, ordered to write badly about stuff that is fun to write about than it would be for them to do the same at home.
We have played games, formed teams to compete in grammar exercises. I’ve pulled out all my tricks to help the class congeal. Nothing has really brought everyone together yet. It is still relatively early. Perhaps this coming week will change that. We will be focusing on compare and contrast essays, and in grammar, faulty parallelism. It is important that we mesh soon, and that attendance improves. Damn 9am classes. Never did like early classes
I have handed back a set of narrative essays. Though I required each essay to be only one page in length, part of the assignment was to submit all six drafts: brainstorm, fastwrite, rough draft, 1st draft, 2nd draft, final perfectly proofread draft. Only one student out of both classes has followed the assignment to the letter and utilized the middle draft as an opportunity to more effectively restructure the page. The others have either submitted a few scrawled pages with the final proofread, typed page, or else have submitted a string of typed pages, identical but for a progression of slightly altered grammatical or spelling issues.
I have decided to make individual appointments with each student, early on in the semester, and so I have met with each, attempting to connect, and to more clearly articulate their errors than I could in margin notes. They are largely a nice bunch, decent writers for an 099 class.
I have been reading to them from rich narrative passages I admire, then requesting them to do a fast write immediately afterwards. “Water seeks its own level,” I tell them. “Don’t worry about writing properly, concentrate on sensory details, on the flow of words. Don’t stop writing. Write about the ceiling if you get stuck. Write that you don’t know what to write, over and over again, but don’t remove the pen from the paper. It’s kinesthetic, it’s like fishing. If you leave your pole in the water long enough you’ll catch a decent fish. No one ever caught a fish without actually putting a pole in the water.”
Many seem to have fun doing this. I’ve told them that on the formal papers, I will primarily point out areas that need improvement, but that on these fast writes, I will only point out gems, things they’ve written that strike me as valuable. I’ve not yet read the fast writes. I’ve been hoarding them as my own treats. Such a relief not to have to figure out how to communicate to 099 students methods to improve their essays.
I want them to like to write, just as I want them to like to read. It is easier to sit captive in a classroom, ordered to write badly about stuff that is fun to write about than it would be for them to do the same at home.
We have played games, formed teams to compete in grammar exercises. I’ve pulled out all my tricks to help the class congeal. Nothing has really brought everyone together yet. It is still relatively early. Perhaps this coming week will change that. We will be focusing on compare and contrast essays, and in grammar, faulty parallelism. It is important that we mesh soon, and that attendance improves. Damn 9am classes. Never did like early classes
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