Wear sunscreen

My advice?...wear sunscreen. “The long-term benefits of sunscreen have long been proven by scientists; whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience…” Don’t worry about the future—Dr. Rogers will take care of it. Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts—students are sensitive about their work: be kind. Don’t put up with other people who are reckless with your heart—some students will not like you and nothing you do will change that. Let it go. Remember compliments—they will be few. But more importantly, remember that students will love you one day and despise you the next. Compliments are more about the mood of the giver than the state-of-being of the receiver. Be careful with advice—it’s recycled experience that is cheaply dispensed in faculty break rooms. A soda isn’t cheaper, but a soda is probably healthier. Skip the break room conversations and drink your beverage alone with your thoughts. The race is long, and in the end, it’s only with yourself. Most importantly: during the first fall semester, sit in on every 1010 class you possibly can. Baz Luhrman, “Everybody’s Free to Wear Sunscreen.”

Lessons from the First Review

My first reaction while grading the literature review was, "This is taking way too long." I could feel myself getting so tired that the quality of my grading was slipping.  I found myself writing "akw" next to sentences simply because I was too tired to explain what was actually wrong with them.  

For next time, I will start with a more concrete rubric. Hopefully if the students know exactly what I want and I know exactly what I am looking for, I will spend less time digging for it. I will also be able to give feedback simply by checking a box that already explains the problem.  

The peer editing will also help me in my grading.  The students have already checked each others' papers for technical items and formatting, so I should be able to get through that part more quickly. 

I also need to preplan my grading schedule.  I graded the summaries in three hour blocks on Sunday and Monday nights. This worked well for me when I was grading shorter papers because I could switch papers every few minutes, but when I was reading larger papers, it was too hard to go for three hours.  Next time I will divide my time based on the number of papers I am grading instead of the time I am spending. 

Prompt: Looking Back / Looking Forward

Now that we're getting to the end of the term, I'd like to see you all both reflect back on the semester and offer up a little advice for the TAs coming in next year.

So. How was the experience? What have you learned? What advice do you have?

I had a hard time with sloppy papers from students I like and well-written papers from students I don’t like. Along with that, I struggled with students who are in class and participate but haven’t turned anything in so their grade is terrible—I had to fight the desire to give them a grade they didn’t deserve because they are helpful in class or because they are among the smarter students in class. While I was writing my tip write-up I toyed with the idea of trying a blind grading system. Maybe for the final lit review I’ll take the papers from one of my classes, take their names off of them, and try grading them that way. It will be cumbersome to organize them so I can connect the papers with the names again when I’m done, but I think it will be a very different grading experience and I’m curious to see how it goes. In grading the midterm, I learned that I should not decide on a grade for any students until I have read through all of the papers. I tend to get too excited about small successes in the early papers and too critical of small errors when I get to the end of the stack. For the final, I’d like to read through, mark them, make a note to myself about what sort of score a paper might receive, and then after I’ve read them all I’ll go back through and decide on a grade. Hopefully that will even out the difference between papers I read at the top of the stack and papers I read at the bottom of the stack.

Prompt 6: Lessons Learned?

What have you learned from grading the literature reviews? What problems did you encounter? How do you think you'll try to solve them in the next one?

I had a student email me to tell me how much she liked workshopping because it had given her a chance to see what others were doing and she got some good ideas from others’ papers. Also, a had a few students come up to me after class and ask questions about things they’d seen in other papers or things that had been written on theirs…I like that this made them question and showed them what their peers are doing (and what level their peers are at). I think I need to focus the tasks a little more. As I mentioned n class, I gave them three tasks: find places that needs to be cut, find places that need to be expanded, find cool ideas. I think they talked about everything but those tasks. I’ll see how my first class seems to do with the workshopping tasks for Thursday. I wrote my own question/prompts for Tuesday and I’m going to stick with the very simple for Thursday: What needs to be cut? What needs to be moved? What needs to be expanded? Also since we’ve talked a lot about “quote sandwiches” (46) in my classes (my students love that it takes up space without looking like you’re taking up space), I’m considering asking them to look at each others quotes and comment on whether the quote is introduced, then explained (and if the explanation matches what is said in the quote). That will be too much to ask, I realize, but I’m musing over ideas for doing something to that effect. Inspiration usually hits between 2 and 3 a.m., so we’ll see… I had some doubts about workshopping. As a student, I rarely had helpful comments during workshopping (until I got into the graduate program). I was hesitant to put my students through the exercise. However, it seems that some students have had a good experience. I think I like having them read at least 3 papers per class—for the final, I may try to stretch it to 4, then hopefully it will balance out with some helpful comments and some unhelpful ones. I’ve also considered trying to group students—perhaps 4 in a group and then just pass the papers left/right in the group until everyone has read everyone elses’ (or something like that). That will also help manipulate the groups, which I like doing. Looking ahead, I’d like to have students workshop one of their summaries in the next part of the semester—perhaps bring 3-4 copies of the article and their summary, then have students read it as a group and discuss the main idea and supporting points. I’m wondering if this might help students as they are trying to analysis the sources they find.

Prompt: Workshopping

What's your experience with workshopping/peer review? What did you like?  What did you not like?  How do you hope make it as useful as possible for your students?

Working on it one fix at a time

Thanks, Shaun, for your post on grading and getting tougher; also about blaming yourself for student mistakes. I’ve taken a new view on grading after reading the articles in the AB text and I’m making the same kinds of changes. As I’ve started talking to my students about the lit review, I’ve realized I have to change the way I’m grading. David mentioned the rubric he’s tentatively working from and I realized I needed to have a better idea of how I’m going to grade the lit review and how I’m going to prepare the students for it. In thinking about that, I’ve stopped leaving a lot of comments and started saying: “Look in Writing Matters for help organizing paragraphs, then revise and resubmit.” As I’ve started grading in a way that I hope will prepare students for the lit review, I’ve had some students challenge me on their grades. Working through these, I think the person in the room who most needs to be prepared for the lit review is me. I showed my classes the section in Writing Matters about outlining a paper. In both classes, students asked if I was going to have them submit an outline next week. I considered saying “yes” just because I know they won’t do it if they don’t have to but I also realize I have to fight the urge to coddle and babysit. In last year’s blog, Logan made a comment about when he realized that he couldn’t “save them all.” I’m beginning to understand how strong an urge that is and also question if I’ve done everything I can. The major questions my students are coming up with have to do with how to elaborate on a topic so that it lasts for 10 pages. They are having trouble imagining how a person could possibly write that much, especially when they think 2 pages is “killer.” On Tuesday I picked a topic and we drew lines and circles all over the board connecting authors and ideas to the keyword and each other. Tomorrow I’m going to take a few minutes to do a practice outline of a thesis and a few main ideas underneath it. I’m concerned about just how much practices and examples to work on in class. I want to see how tomorrow goes with a mini-outline. If we can do it in 10-15 minutes and it appears to be productive, then I think I’ll do another next week. Organizing so many interconnected ideas and authors is another concern they have. I’m cracking down on introductions, conclusions, and topic sentences in their connections papers, so hopefully that will provide practice for structure.

What answer do you want?

I had a particularly frustrating conversation with a student today.  She was very upset because I was "not being clear on what I wanted."  She had "no idea what the heck" I wanted.  So we went through and looked at her assignments.  She wrote that Zinczenco argued that we should all take responsibility for our own health, just like Zinczenco did when he joined the military and got in shape.  She wrote that Warner's main point was that we need to stand up to big government just like Sarah Palin and Glen Beck were doing.  She wrote that Obama's main point was that the NAACP has a rich history and needs to continue to work for a better future.  She was missing the main point, but she thought I was simply being unclear about what I wanted.  "If you wanted me to say that Zinczenco's argues that people are victims of the fast-food industry, why didn't you tell me that is what you wanted?"  "If you wanted me to say that Warner argues for a cultural change, why didn't you say that?"  I felt like a math teacher being asked, "if the answer to the problem is seven, why didn't you tell us that seven was the answer you wanted us to get?" Any help? We talked for about forty five minutes, going through each of her assignments, but in the end she was feeling better, but I was actually more frustrated than ever.

As to Dr. Roger's question, I think the students are transitioning well.  Their connections sections are getting more detailed.  I think we could start to explore grouping the articles in different ways.  Most of the students still write their connections by comparing the current article to each of the other articles in the order we read them.  Maybe we could do an outline or practice review.

So far I am having them brainstorm in their in-class writing about how they would order their articles.  We tried to draw a scale on board with personal responsibility on one end and government involvement on the other.  The scale didn't work well, and we soon abandoned it for more of a spider plot.  I was really happy that they saw that a single line wouldn't work.

Prompt 4: Making the Turn

We need to begin transitioning from "getting the point" and "how would so-and-so respond" to the more complex task of assembling the first literature review.

What kinds of weaknesses are you seeing that will need to be addressed between now and then?  How are you attempting to deal address them?

A Red Pen and a Bottle of Pepto

So far, nothing has caused me more reflection and anxiety than grading the summaries. At times I feel too harsh, and other times too lenient. I have a rough rubric in my head, and an idea of what I'm looking for from the summaries, but it's still highly subjective. Compounding that issue is the fact that the students have widely different writing styles and problems within those styles. Student X nailed the main point, but the summary is a list summary. How does that grade compare to Student Y, who identifies a sub-point as the main point, but crafts an excellent summary of the text? And what about Student Z, who is nearly excellent but completely misinterprets one of the supporting details?

I'd like to grade on completion and effort, but that will only hurt them when it is time to write the literature reviews. If I keep my standards high and force them to meet them, the lit reviews should be that much easier. Then I meet in the Teaching Writing class and start to doubt, wondering if my standards are too high.

I don't want to leave the student feeling frustrated, or get the idea that I'm impossible to please, but I don't want them to get complacent either. It's a fine line I'm trying to walk to get them to produce the best work possible. While they generally are improving and avoiding many of the errors we have discussed in class, I'm sensing that some of them are not improving as fast as they would like. One student in particular seems displeased with his grades, and I'm not sure how to get through to him that, at this point, his grades are fine and he should focus on improving his writing.

Grading

Well so far I still enjoy grading.  I'm sure I'll get bored and frustrated soon, but so far I'm having a good time.  Maybe it is just a power trip. After so much time in the writing center saying things like, "well it just depends on what your professor wants," it is nice to finally have the last word.

 I am too soft on my grading. I know it, and I'm working on it.  I saw the effort level drop after the first couple of essays.  The students knew I was an easy grader and they stopped trying so hard to impress me.  I think the root of the problem is my own history with grading.  I always tried to write the best essays I could, so a bad grade for me never reflected a lack of effort.  I guess I assumed students would try to improve their writing even if they got a good grade.   I assumed if I marked all their mistakes, they would try to fix them for their next paper, but most didn't fix anything if they weren't going to lose points for it.

I also have a tendency to blame myself for student mistakes.  If they make glaring errors, it must be because I didn't explain it well enough.  One student last week turned in a paper that was 90% direct quote for the article.  She didn't plagerize. The quotes were cited, not correctly, but they were in quotation marks. I know I have told them not to quote, but my first reaction was to blame myself. Maybe I didn't say it enough.  Well I bit the bullet and told her to redo it.  I'll get tougher.

I have told my class that I would start grading harder, especially if they are doing something wrong that we went over in class.

I think I got a little more effort out of the first Obama summary.  I hope I can raise the bar enough to get some really good lit review at midterm.

 

Prompt 3: On Grading

I'd like to see you all reflect a little on your experience grading.  Shaun has already talked about it a bit, but in the wake of the essays for this week (and our soon-to-occur classroom discussion), I'm wondering what you find frustrating/confusing/bewildering about the whole process of grading.

So THAT'S why professors don't read papers...

I think my biggest surprise has been along the same lines as Shaun talked about: how far there is between the students who get it and the students who don’t. Along with that, I’ve been really surprised by how often A-student announces the answer (“in this essay Zinczenko is arguing that fast food industries are to blame”) and I’ll still get in-class writing and re-submitted summaries that say Zinczenko is talking about latch-key kids and personal responsibility. I’ve also been surprised how much work it is to grade papers. Whoa. I know novice teachers spend too much time trying to say everything and fix everything, so I’ve started setting a timer. It keeps me moving. It also keeps me mindful – Student B doesn’t participate in class and only comes half the time, so I catch myself skimming over it and moving on to Student C who comments every day and comes to class prepared. I try to minimize my comments, then worry that I’m denying them a valuable learning experience, so I go back and add more, then realize just how much stuff I’ve written and how the student doesn’t care so I need to just move on. Yikes. Now I understand why so many professors hand back papers with a few check-marks in the margins and 1-2 notes at the end. The 6822 readings we’ve had about feedback have been helpful. Now it’s a matter of practice and getting a system.

Surprises

I was most surprised by the range of writing skill and knowledge in my class.  I was expecting some students to come to the class writing better than others, but I was caught off guard by the distance between one group and the other.  

I found that this creates two problems, one in teaching and one in grading.  When we are having a class discussion it is hard to keep a standard pace that everyone can follow.  It goes like this: I ask a question. If George(not real name) answers, he is always correct, so we can move on to the next concept.  If Willimina(not real name) answers she usually gets stuck on some minor point that is often hard to explain, like how to pluralize, then I am explaining s vs es and exceptions, then catuses and cacti,  while the rest of the class doses off. 

In grading, I run into this problem: If I grade George’s paper first it makes Willimina’s look worse. If I grade Willimina’s first, then George’s looks perfect. 

I was expecting the range to be smaller and the scale to be more graduated.  There almost no students in the middle.

My instinct is to divide the two groups, but that just does not feel right.  It probably has something to do with being put in the dumb kids reading group when I was a child. 

During class, I am coping by asking George to explain his answers more thoroughly. Then I ask questions about his answer.  If Willimina is having a particularly hard time, I ask her to remember her question and see me after class.

In grading, I am trying to follow a more standard rubric, but since the difference between George and Willimina’s papers is mostly related to grammar, sentence structure, and other mechanical issues, it is still hard to know how to weigh that portion of the ruberic.

Any other suggestions?

Prompt 2: Surprises?

Sorry for the lateness of this.  I blame the holiday weekend.

Here's the question:

What has most surprised you about your students' writing and reading skills?

Teacher's Pet Anxieties

What I worry the most about is grading, which only got worse after the first round of actual summaries. I've studied and summarized the article, so I know what I'm looking for, but even with the most detailed rubric English is still the most subjective discipline. I fret over whether I'm grading to soft, or to harsh. I feel like I've gotten into a good rhythm and then come across a summary that makes me feel like I've graded all the others incorrectly. It doesn't help when students who didn't get the grade they expected start stressing out over the first real grade of the semester, either. All totaled, it's enough to make me occasionally wish I had the whole class on a pass/fail system instead of a letter grade.

Other than that, the only thing that has given me pause so far is when I do something in the course, like dispense grades for the pre-assessment test based on whether a student completed it or not, then read in an email or Canvas announcement that they weren't supposed to be graded. I'd be embarrassed to walk into class and have to say something along the lines of "Hey, that thing I did? I wasn't supposed to do that. So, don't freak out when the thing I did suddenly changes."

Other than that and a few anomalies among the students, I feel like things have generally gone well. Some of the anxieties I had before have greatly diminished, like how I would actually perform in front of class. Although I am stressed over some things, I think they're fairly common to most new teachers, and that they'll sort themselves out as I gain experience.

Anxiety, the hand-maiden of creativity (T.S. Eliot)

I've been very nervous about not having answers to questions -- "can I buy the older edition of the text?" I have no idea- I've never been through the course before. "when are we going to need the weber writes book? can I buy it later?" I have no idea- I've never used it and I don't know when we will. "where's that page in the syllabus?" I have no idea- it went in to the copy machine... "can I miss the last two days of class? I'm running the boston marathon." I have no idea - I don't know what we do the last two days of class. "can i make up the points for class on tuesday? I have a court date." I have no idea - I haven't figured out how to enter grades in canvas. "where's the last page of the syllabus?" I have no idea- i guess it didn't come out of the copy machine... "can I call you if I have questions?" I have no idea- I still don't know where my office is. "the boy in class asked if the film summary has to be objective - what does that mean?" I have no idea- I haven't ever written a summary. "where's the second page of the syllabus?" I have no idea - ask the copy machine. "we don't have that page of the syllabus- are you still going to give us a quiz?" I have no idea- it seems like I should since all I'm asking you is my name but what if you start thinking class time is pointless and that I'm setting you up to fail and that you can't get the help you need because i don't know where my office is or how to use canvas and then you aren't friendly in class and i don't know how to handle it and it tears up classroom dynamics that i'm so scared about managing and then we have a horrible semester and you all hate me when all i want is for you to love me and do what i say and learn and outscore your peers for the restofyourlivesbecauseihelpedyousucceedinthispivotalandfoundationalclass butiwastoobusyhavingnoideawhatiwasdoingandsecond-guessingmyselfandiruinedit!? justruineditall!?!? Does that make sense? please email me any questions, see you all on thursday. Remember to type your summary and use complete sentences.

Anxieties

I am nervous about the workload and organizing things.  I am worried that I will lose students' papers or miss-enter their grades.  I am worried I'll read the wrong article and show up unprepared.  I feel confident in front of a class, and I think I will be able to give valuable feedback on their writing, but the mechanics of teaching intimidate me.  Every time I talk to someone from the English department I feel a little behind.  Did you get that form filled in? Make sure you send a copy. Did the file open because if not you need to download the new version, and do it by Thursday because the deadline is the 7th, and if we don't get it in you just won't have a class.  Even student emails can be intimidating (these young people are so good with technology).  I'm sure I get the hang of it by the end of the semester, just in time for them to start over with a newer, better system I'm sure. 

    

Prompt 1

For your first blog post, I'd like to see you all write about just precisely what your anxieties are as you  begin your first teaching experience.