Give Me A "G" (for grading)

I found these essays very interesting but largely improbable. You can't tear down a system without replacing it with something else--and neither author had a convincing assertion about what that replacement should be.

Like Tamar, I wasn't a huge fan of the Baumrind essay. I do agree with Baumrind that students will not automatically soar to success without the weight of grading to hold them down. Ha! Take away the grading system--or something like it--and you take away motivation for 99.9% of them. Baumrind suggests a grade based on the amount of work completed by the end of the term, but what quality of work will you be receiving? Will they actually do any of the reading they say they're going to?

One of my undergrad English classes was set up much this way. Our grade consisted of two essays, both handed in the last night of class, combined with the amount of reading we had done. We simply told the professor on the last night of class what we had completed. I've always been obsessive about my grades, yet I did the minimum required for my A. I didn't kill myself off writing the papers, either. It just didn't matter. Sure there was less stress, but I think I was capable of much better work. At the very least I would have liked more guidance.

Another professor graded solely on the length of the essays handed in. To him, more was better. This class drove me insane, especially because I suspected (and still do) that he didn't read the writing at all. I was so tempted to insert random sentences just to test him, but never did. My grade was tied to wordiness, and I learned how to perform.

I liked the Elbow essay much better than Baumrind. Evaluation takes more time, but seems more fair. Writing is a complicated business--it only follows that a single letter grade is too simple to account for all that goes into the process. Written comments can offer guidance and support toward better writing. If only we could ensure that students would read the comments! I'm sure, like me, you can tell which students in your class read what you write on their assignments.

Elbow mentions the need for an evaluation-free zone, or unevaluated assignment. This has a lot of merit. One student in my class was struggling with the in-class writing until I told her I was not grading her on her spelling or grammar skills. I wanted her to grab hold of the ideas we had talked about in class, but she was so worried about spelling she couldn't even complete a sentence. This experience changed the way I respond to in-class writing. If they give me an honest effort, they get credit for the writing. I limit my comments to the positive things that I see happening in their writing. I've noticed they write a lot more now.

Elbow argues that successful writing teachers like their students and their writing. He's on to something here. I do not want to turn into the grouchy teacher that everyone avoids and invents stories about. I do love a good story, though.

Elbow was uncomfortable with the power grading gave him, and I see his point. As a teacher, grading scares me to death. It is so arbitrary--but it does help motivate some students to work harder. There's a fine line between motivation and discouragement. Taylor, my complainer, can whine about the assignment, but he's still going to do it so he doesn't have to take 1010 for a third time (he told me this today). But what about the student who progresses from the "absolute train wreck" to "minor accident" paper? The Collective Brain on my front row are such examples. They are working so hard--and still falling far short of the ideal "A". Do I give them the grade I should and discourage them? Or do I take into account the progression and hard work I've seen? Which is most fair? Grades can never reflect determination, and these girls have it in spades. Grading is the best option for Taylor; evaluation would be best for The Collective Brain. As with most complicated questions, maybe the answer lies somewhere in the middle.

In The World We Live In

I think if I had read these articles a few years ago I might have completely agreed with what they were saying. I have frequently thought grades were a poor system to rank someone because they are not fair, at least not in the academic system. But then I read the articles and I did not like what they had to say.

First, as discussed last night, you cannot eliminate the grading system. So even if you go to Evergreen and you end up with an essay for a transcript you will still be ranked. This is how our graduate school and career system works. When you get into a career your salary becomes your ranking. Once again it's just a number that does not really tell you how you are doing something wrong, or how you can make it better. Could we reform the entire world? Maybe. But I think we would still have a type of ranking system it would just includ more evaluation. We like to know how we are doing in comparison with others. It's our nature and when we get a better grade or a better salary than someone that somehow makes us feel like we are better people.

Second, everyone has a different learning style. Emily or Cheyney mentioned that we need to have motivating factors to get us to do something. For many people those motivating factors come from grades. When you have someone in a position of authority tell you you are not measuring up it can spark some improvement. This may not work for all people, but why can't we accommodate different types of learners? We could keep grades for some people, give others more evaluation, and see who responds to what the best.

Third, these authors may be uncomfortable with authority, but they need to realize that someone has to fill that role. While students are not customers they are paying for something that is important to them. Some, not all, are finding a way to pay for their education and they expect to be paying for someone in a position of authority to give them guidance. Entirely student-led peer reviewing is not going to satisfy the requirement of having someone in a position of authority. Peer reviewing is great, but their peers may think something is great when in reality it's not. For example I had a student peer reviewing another student's paper today. I did not have a chance to read the paper but I know it was probably good because the writer is a strong writer. The reviewer wanted to know if a paragraph had too much opinion but when I looked it over it was a great paragraph that made a claim, used a quote to back up the claim, and then re-stated the claim and the conclusion that should be drawn from the evidence. There was no passive voice, the claims were not unfounded, and the quote was great. The structure worked well, and there was no "I believe" or "I hope" or "I think;" it was all based off the text. But the reviewer did not see that. He thought the paper was wrong and the claim had too much "opinion." I tried to help the reviewer see it as a good paragraph, but this this type of student is my worry. If these students are the evaluators how is anyone ever going to improve? In this example the paper would have become worse with the reviewer's suggestions.

Finally, I think we should try to encourage students to learn, but elminating grading completely may not accomplish this. There should be a good combination of evaluation and ultimately a grade. I will give you one last example. I had many opportunities for peer reviews in my English classes. I got some good feedback and some feedback I disregarded. I had teachers who gave me just a letter grade and little else. I had a teacher that everyone dreaded and avoided, and my first paper was one of my first B's ever. It was devastating. All of my peers had said I was great and my other teachers just gave me A's so I was confused. No one had really evaluated me as Elbow suggets. This professor had given me some comments, but upon further conferencing with her I was able to create that evaluation zone and by the end of the quarter I believe I was a much better writer. Her grade motivated me and the evaluation helped me know what to fix. Not everyone will work this way, but we need to take Elbow (disregard Baumrind because I did not like her) and find what works to help maximize our students' desires to learn and to maximize what they learn from our classes.

NOT GRADING?!

I'm interested in hearing your responses to the two essays this week about not grading.  What do you think about this idea?

Very Tiny Victory

Okay, I'm the last to post. Oh well. My victory is small and so this will be short and sweet. I had 21 of my 24 students in class on Thursday!!! It's pretty impressive. I've never had that many before. And one of the ones missing was a girl who has never showed up, so I consider there were only two people missing. I wanted to do a little dance.

My other victory of the day? It all just felt really relaxed. I have one student who I think is growing to hate me and he just sat and stared at everyone while we drafted, but everyone else was really engaged. They were writing, asking questions, coming up with ideas. I talked to everyone and they were willing to share what they had come up with. We told stories as I walked around and talked to them about their reading and their assignments. It was a lot of fun. I felt like I connected to them finally.

I asked one of my students if I could put his paper on the overhead today so we'll see how that goes. If his goes well I'll ask for volunteers afterwards. I'm a little nervous that he'll hate me for doing it, but I thought he would have a good draft because he is the only one who really gets what we're trying to do.

Oh, another small victory? I got one of my students to promise he'll turn in some of his reading responses. We talked about the fact that almost everyone is missing at least one so I decided to give them a bit more time (I know I talk all bad, but I'm nice at heart), and he actually came up to me after class and talked to me about them. Victory!

We'll see how today goes. They always have a way of making you feel like progress is being made and then you show up the next day and they destroy all your hopes.

I'll keep you posted.....

Small Victories

My teaching victory is small yet I am willing to count it. After we did all the in-class writing for their first essay on Thursday, I told them to write their thesis on a separate piece of paper and pass it in. They all did so willingly, not realizing that I had the evil plan to put them on the overhead camera thingy. So, as soon as I had all their thesis statements in my clutches, I announced what I was about to do. Their passiveness turned to horror and they groaned collectively. I promised not to show anybody's names to make the process less humiliating.

I began putting the thesis statements up for all to see. To my surprise, one after another had a point, was well written, and did what I had asked them to do. I only had one or two that needed to be narrowed. My victory is that they are actually pretty good little writers and that they have understood what I am asking of them in their upcoming essay. I am impressed with their ability to take two texts and figure out an intelligent larger point to be made. I am hoping that the drafts they bring to class tomorrow will be just as successful.

On the same note, I worried that they would all be so angry with me after betraying their trust like that that they would not like me. I know, I know. I suffer from that hideous disease most women suffer from. I want everybody to like me, even though it is humanly inpossible and I already know of 2, maybe 3, people that hate me for sure because they have yelled it into my face as I cried and begged for friendship and leniency. Anyway, my point is that I then ran into a student of mine at the Kaysville post office the next day. He was the guy who questioned most of what I asked them to write on Thursday and who gave me the most eye rolls and blank stares. However, he saw me and immediately greeted me with warmth. I felt relieved that I can still be liked despite putting their spur-of-the-moment work up on the overhead for all to see and despite being the slave driver who made them write for one hour. The most clock-checking and yawning occurred that day!

I am actually looking forward to tomorrow because of all of this. I am excited to work with their drafts and to direct their workshopping. I cannot wait to see how their theses have played out in text and if they have had any problems. I think this week of class is going to be bonding week. At least, I hope so.

Assive and Pactive Voice

I have to confess that I, too, had an R-rated slip today (although technically, I think it's just PG-13, or maybe even PG the way movies are going these days. Those young hoodlums!) I was answering questions about the differences between active and passive voice and said, "When you use ass....pactive...passive voice..." Nice. I seem to trip over my tongue quite a bit at eight o'clock in the morning. Slip your disk in, everyone!

So, regarding victories, I have to say, like Cheyney, mine have been somewhat small (other than not turning bright red and crying when I tripped over the desk the other day--my glasses rather limit my peripheral vision, and my classroom is pretty cramped). I read the first seven or eight reading responses this weekend, and I was almost in tears, I was so delighted with what I was reading. They were citing correctly, backing up their claims with examples and quotations from the text, and even breaking their assignments into three discrete sections! Well, it was all downhill from there. I found myself sticking the worst ones in the bottom of the pile, trying to put off the pain. And painful they were. More vague generalizations, trite opinions, and more really random incomprehensible stuff from my concurrent enrollment kid. The silver lining is that I actually felt better equipped to comment on some of these issues, thanks to the discussion in our class last Wednesday. I spent a good chunk of time on each one, writing really helpful stuff that they probably won't read (look who's turning cynical now!), but at least feeling that I was doing something constructive. And I *do* think they're getting better at supporting their claims, or at least understanding that they need to support them.

I also sense that everyone's getting more comfortable speaking up in class--today, swapping stories about digging out of the snow, getting car doors unstuck, and doing 360s on the freeway really broke the ice (so to speak) and the discussion throughout class was more interactive than any we've had. We broke into groups of three, read each others' introductions, and evaluated thesis statements. I had only asked them to write comments on the papers, but they ended up discussing their comments as a group. It seemed to be pretty productive.

Okay, so, on this same topic, what workshopping techniques are working for everyone else? Has anyone put papers on the overhead yet? How are your students responding to that? I haven't tried it yet and am guessing that my students will be completely freaked out by it, but I also sense that they would really benefit from it. Soooo....maybe I'll work up the courage by Wednesday.

Small Victories and Some Medium-Sized Defeats

Maybe it's the rain, my mounds of unfinished homework, or this pile of ungraded reading responses sitting on the table in front of me, but I don't feel much like celebrating any sort of teaching victory for this week. Blah. And since tonight is the only chance I'll have at posting a blog, I can't wait for my mood to improve before writing. Sorry! Don't read any further unless you want to hear some quality whinin'.

1. Ah, the reading responses. Like Tamar, I'm expecting a sudden windfall of latecomers expecting a decent grade. I gave them the inch--told them that the first two weeks would not be counted as late until last Friday (many students still didn't have books). Ha! You'd not believe the rash of computer problems currently plaguing my class. Today I finally put my foot down and told Thomas, who was the fifth in line with a computer excuse, that his printer was not my problem. Frankly, I thought he was lying. (Doubting Thomas, if you will.) If he wanted extra time, he was going to lose points. He handed it in on the spot. He was being completely honest--every other line in his paper was totally cut in half.

2. I spoke with four students after class that haven't handed anything in to date. After speaking to the first, I realized he just didn't understand the reading responses at all and was scared to hand them in. Nevermind that we've been over this. I gathered the students all together, and we mapped it out on the board, AGAIN. They said they understood, felt better, and were going to get busy on them this weekend. We'll see...

3. Taylor started a one-man revolt during the in-class drafting today. "I don't like this at all," he said. "I don't see the point of all this stuff. The assignment sucks. I don't know why we have to write crap like this." Welcome to the university. I patiently explained how the questions were gearing him toward the paper, and in a larger sense toward English 2010. He settled down and wrote a few paragraphs before getting up to leave twice. After class, he met with me to complain again. To his credit, he was not directing his anger toward me personally. Still, it was a bummer. (And I just got him coming to class on time, too! What now?)

4. The class has not quite recovered from the long weekend or my scary skirt--I've not decided which. They were so fun last week! The discussions were very lively and the students were interacting and enjoying themselves. This week they've been very quiet and reluctant. They practice 50 minutes of "mouth breathing" and evasive eye maneuvers, and then run out of class like their hair is on fire. What happened?

5. Did I mention that the prep time is killing me? What is sleep? My daughter told me today that I look like a vampire with my red eyes, dark circles, and white skin. No sparkles, either. Maybe that's what has my class so scared...

OK, I feel better. Life is not all bad, really. Tomorrow I'll probably be able to name any number of small teaching victories. The good outweighs the bad; it was just a rough day in the trenches. I can't wait to read about all of your victorious moments. I'm counting on you to make me feel better. :)

Celebrate!

I'd like to see you celebrate a small teaching victory. What have your students done that makes you happy? Hopeful? Proud?

Lessons Learned, Laughs Shared, and R-Rated Words Blurted

I have learned that my students do not like to talk, except one girl in the front row who always tells a really long, boring, and pointless story about a member of her family or her boyfriend. I am not quite sure how these stories relate to the topic of writing, if they relate at all, or if the student thinks that they relate. However, each time she raises her hand, I feel like I have to call on her because she actually volunteers to talk. I admit I have felt the temptation to ignore her, and did so successfully for about 20 seconds until I felt guilty and caved in yesterday.

Although they are quiet, they have forced me to come up with ways to get them to participate. I have not tried anything elaborate yet, but I did find one successful technique. I asked a discussion question and the room was silent. I sat for a few moments, contemplating the sweat accumulating under my arms and hoping that Dr. Rogers would not walk in, and then it came to me. I said, "I don't know the answer, you guys. I really want to know what you think. Help me out." Those were the magic words. Instantly, hands shot into the air and the less well-mannered of them just began blabbing at me. I guess a little self-deprecation helps them to build their confidence.

My other techniques for getting them to talk are not quite as successful or popular (I suspect). After some in-class writing, nobody volunteered to share. I waited a good minute for them to respond, but all was still and quiet. So, in a tiny moment of anger and a huge moment of desperation, I made them ALL share what they had written. I went around the room from front to back and made everyone participate. They gave me some icy glares after that.

I also randomly call on people, especially those I know are smart. I have read enough of their reading responses to know who has intelligent thoughts coursing through their brains. So, I pick on them. Sometimes I pick on the person who is talking to his neighbor or the guy who just rolled his eyes at me or the girl who makes eye contact with me.

The most wonderful part of teaching is the way the kids have opened up when not under pressure to speak. They tease me, joke with me, and yes, even plot to get me to let them watch the inauguration on YouTube during class. I had to remind them that I am a student too, so I knew exactly what they were trying to do.

The most embarrassing moment? They got me to say "orgasm" in class. Yeah, it was in one of the readings. In my BYU innocence, I transcribed that sentence into my notes without that word, then we talked about that quote. The boys immediately noticed my deletion (which I had completely forgotten about) and said, "What comes before that part? You left a really important part out." I stupidly believed them, searched the text, found the word and blurted it out. They all laughed, but I felt kind of dirty. They accused me of teaching an R-rated class. I'm not going to fall for that again! (Hopefully.)

Grading can be a Scary Thing

This past week I was really struggling with grading. It's like Cheyney said, if you give them an inch they will take it. For example, I had a student who came up to me the first Thursday of the semester. He said he had a reading response, but he needed to print it and he wanted to drop it off to me in my office during my office hours, which are directly after class. Unfortunately, I don't have an office and I didn't really want to stick around because I didn't really know where to stick around. I told him to give it to me on Tuesday and it would be okay. On Tuesday he shows up to class with a story about the printer breaking and he doesn't have an ID card to print on campus. Yada Yada. So I told him to email it to me right then. Go find a computer lab and send it to me. He said he had class until 2 but he would do it as soon as he got out of class. Guess what? I didn't get it until Thursday and then I got both reading responses and some story about a family emergency and that's why he wasn't in class. The email had some defensive language like, "I'm sorry if you can't accept this, but that's the choice I made." So then I had two reading responses and one was definitely late. What do I do? Part of its being late was my fault, the other part was the stories he kept feeding me. He's a good student in class, one of the only ones that reads, and I felt bad giving him a poor grade when some students haven't even turned in a single reading response. After much soul searching I decided to dock him points anyway. It's late and he has no excuse for not emailing it to me on Tuesday like I asked. I gave him credit, but not full credit. That was the best I could come up with.

That's a lecture I'm going to have this morning. I have students in my class who have not yet turned in one reading response, even after I gave them a week's grace period to do it. I have one girl who has consistently turned in two reading responses late. So today I'm going to march in there and explain that I will no longer accept late work. If they don't turn it in when I ask for it at the beginning of the class it won't count. I understand the flux of the first week. There are new students, and they forget things. They're not used to reading they syllabus, but late work is no longer acceptable. I don't want to be pushed over, and I want them to take responsibility for their work. If that means they get a bad grade, it's their responsibility.

It was hard for me to come to this conclusion though because I feel bad giving them fewer points, or no longer accepting papers. I want everyone to go home feeling happy and I don't want to be an ogre. But I also want the students to learn, and that's a fine line. I think I'll still be learning that line as the semester goes on, but I'm getting better at wanting to march in there and explain to them (again) that they need to turn in their responses or I will no longer accept them.

Who knew teachers had it so rough?

Learning to "Crack the Whip"

By far the most wonderful thing I've discovered so far is that my door DOES stay open! I just have to lift on the handle while pushing it. See ya lateh, trash can! Also, I've found that if I sit in the corner of the Writing Center and look really busy and a little grumpy, people *will* leave me alone long enough to grade papers.

As far as teaching goes, I've discovered (like Cheyney) that prep and grading are much harder and more time consuming than I imagined. I've learned that I'm really not very good at (how do you say?) cracking the whip. It seems like a pretty fine line between trying to encourage them in their efforts and laying down the law about what is expected. I'm almost tempted to draw little smiley faces at the tops of their papers and write "Good Job!" when I feel like they've made an effort, even if it's not exactly measuring up to the work of some of the better writers.

I'm also discovering how difficult it is to play devil's advocate (as Emily wrote) -- you'd think it would be pretty simple to argue the opposite point of view, but it's turning out to be harder than it seems. I really struggled on Friday, and wasn't getting much of a response from my class. I'd really like to try Cheyney's idea of making *them* take the other side of the issue and try to argue it convincingly.

One thing that worked well for me last week was breaking the class up into three groups, assigning each group a different discussion question, and asking them to form an opinion on the question and back it up with some examples from the text. I usually hear from the same three or four people in class, so this was a chance for others to join in the discussion in a less-intimidating format. It also gave them an opportunity to practice supporting their claims with examples from the reading, since this is something that seems to be lacking from their writing.

Like Cheyney, I was discouraged after last week's reading responses, so I spent about twenty minutes in class last Monday on the main issues. It seemed like only my fabulous nontrad in the front row was even listening. But so far, the responses I've read this weekend have been 100 times better than last week's. So that's encouraging -- let's hope it translates over to their essay writing next week!

Give 'em an Inch

I've learned so much these first two weeks! I should be earning credit for English 1010 on my transcript, I'm thinking. The prep time is a killer--but I'm so much more comfortable when I can walk in feeling fully prepared (helps with the spots, too). As far as the teaching goes--I've noticed that when I'm relaxed, the students are, too. They mirror my attitude toward the readings. We had some very animated discussions this week, especially when I asked them to turn it around and argue the opposite position. Very fun--and informative, too. They don't like to let go of their first impressions...

The most important thing I learned about teaching this week is that if you give them an inch, they're going to take it. Big surprise, eh? I'm learning.

I was so frustrated after collecting the first reading response. I had gone over the requirements in excruciating detail four times, clarified it via e-mail to a few other students, and still had 48-point headings, quadruple spacings, and one-and-a-quarter page responses. No staples, either. I went home completely discouraged, but when I started reading them carefully, I was so relieved. Only one student had completely missed the boat--and he had been absent the first two days of class. Despite the obvious length issues, these responses were honest attempts at summary, evaluation, and connection. Several of the students had done really good work, even beyond the required two pages. I felt much better.

After six days in the classroom, I have to say that the most wonderful part is the personal connections I've made. I love the fact that when class is over, many will stay to talk to me about books, skiing, whatever. I love seeing the shyest of my students comfortable enough to make comments during class discussion. Good stuff, that.

Week Two

1) What's the most important thing you've learned about teaching in these first few days?

2) What's been the most frustrating or wonderful thing you've discovered so far?

And Then I Forgot

Okay. So. I'm sitting here trying to edit and make my thesis sound like someone might actually want to read it. Like there might be something interesting in it somewhere. It's not going well, I only have about an hour and a half left before I have to leave the library and there's a strange man sitting behind me reading numbers out of the phone book and a baby crying loudly somewhere to my right.

All of a sudden I remembered that I had to write this blog. I wondered, "Do I have to post one this week?" "When is it due?" "Good thing I remembered!" "I didn't get my invitation" Oh yeah. It was in my other email where everything gets lost. Luckily I thought to check. Then I tried to accept the invitation. IMPOSSIBLE! I don't know what was going on. I have an account. I've had an account for awhile. I posted last semester. But for some reason it would NOT let me in. I reset my password, closed and reopened my browser, signed into my account, tried again, and then magically I'm got in.

So what are my anxieties? Forgetting about this blog every week. Oh, and trying to write something interesting in my thesis.

But seriously. I was worried about not having enough prep time. I'm still worried about that honestly. I'm worried about not sleeping enough. Also still a worry. I'm also worried, like Emily, that my students will be more on the ball than I am right now because I just have other things going on. Luckily my students don't want to talk, and don't read, so I'm not having too much of a problem looking more prepared than they are. It's not hard when they just stare at you as if you're an alien from outer space. I am also worried about grading because it's hard to know what to give students. Some of that fear was erased when I sat down and actually started grading this weekend. It was pretty obvious who had read and who had not. The reading responses were also pretty obvious. The students are trying, but they need some guidance.

Most of my fears were erased on the second day when they weren't more prepared than me, and stared at me. I called my father (a teacher for almost 30 years) and told him their reaction to my feeble attempts at creating a discussion. He laughed for quite awhile. It's good to know every teacher knows what it's like to feel like an alien in front of a class of students.

So on to the third class tomorrow. I had a little bit more time this weekend to prepare, so we'll see how it goes. Here's to being a devil!

Now, after this short break, which was longer than I had planned, back to my head-into-a-brick-wall thesis. Whoopee!

Be the Devil!

I have many anxieties. I think it is my personality to be an anxious person who loses sleep over the simplest changes in life. However, I will just stick to those that are related to teaching my first class.

As I began the reading for the class, I worried that the students would remember more than me from the reading and I would look like a fool in front of them. This anxiety did not help my reading comprehension and retention skills because I found myself worrying as I read, which meant I spent a lot of time thinking about that worry instead of taking in what I was reading. However, this anxiety has quickly disappeared after the second day of class. Most of the students did the reading, but they did not seem to remember any more than I had. Each example or instance they mentioned were things that I remembered as well.

My other anxiety has been realized, but in a funny way it dispells the first anxiety. I worried that nobody would want to talk, therefore leading to awkward silences and me trying to make them talk. This occurred on Thursday. As strange as it was, I stopped worrying that the students would remember more than I did from the reading. If they did, they did not volunteer that information, so I continued to look and feel like the most prepared person in the room. Although I'm trying to see this situation as the glass half full, I still have the problem of them not wanting to talk. The last half hour of the class felt slow and painful. I resorted to calling on them by name to answer my questions or to share what they had written. I'm sure this did not go over well and probably has made me less popular in their view, but it was the only thing to be done.

I do realize that this silence may be attributed to several things, only one of which I can control. First, the class occurs during lunch time, so they may be hungry and tired. Second, this was the second day of class, so maybe they have not yet warmed up to me. Third, I forgot to play devil's advocate. In an effort to be kind and make them feel comfortable enough to share their thoughts and writing, I declared their verbal contributions to class "good" and "interesting" and "nice." It may have boosted their self-esteems, but it sure did not engender discussion. Tuesday's agenda: be the devil!

Some Hints

A friend of mine recently posted some strategies for getting students to read critically. I pass these along in case you might find the techniques helpful.

Me, Again

The anxieties I had prior to this week were fairly similar to those I had when I began tutoring--just on a larger scale...a much larger scale. I really worry that I'm going to be that ONE teacher that ruins English for someone for the rest of his or her life. I worry that I'm going to lead my students astray or discourage them. I worry that I will never learn the secrets of fair grading. These are my global anxieties.

My local anxieties are a bit easier to deal with. I worried that I would say something stupid (done this many times), that I would forget names (yeah), that I would trip or fall over something (a chair), that I would sweat through three shirts and a jacket (very near), that I would forget everything I've ever learned about writing (for sure), or that the class would not respect my authority (amazingly, they do). The second day of class I hid in the restroom until the last minute because sometimes I get blotchy when I'm nervous--and I was literally spotted. The students probably wondered if I were contagious. Luckily the spots don't last very long once I start breathing normally. :)

This first week has certainly been an eye opener. I have an even greater respect for teachers and the preparation the job requires. It takes a lot of interest and flexibility to keep the class moving and students engaged. I have to find a proper balance between friendly and authoritative. I have to listen carefully and keep the objectives in mind at all times. Oh, yeah--and I have to own it. In some ways I feel like a mix between a tour guide, shift manager, and babysitter.

I've made plenty of silly mistakes so far--but the students seem to be surviving. I've learned their names and their hobbies, and know a bit about their strengths as writers. I'm still plenty nervous, but look forward to week #2--after a good long weekend and some chocolate, of course.

I hope you're all doing ok!