Teaching Freshman Comp - Week 5
I wish I could say this is late because I've been busy, but the truth is I still feel like I have hardly gotten anything done.
Let's see if I can do this short and sweet this week.
Tuesday: I handed back the graded final drafts of their "Language" essay and the students moaned ahead of time wanting to know how the grades were "generally" before I gave them back. I gave the old stand-by "Worry about your own grade. . ." One young woman was dismayed that had her grade had been lowered by the fact that she had an entire paragraph that was basically word for word off of Dictionary.com. She said she didn't know she had to cite the dictionary, and I believe her, but citation or no, the class is about your own writing, not someone else's. After class she came up to me and asked what her grade would have been if she had done the proper citation. I explained to her that while the lack of citation was problematic, the problem was that she didn't actually write the majority of a large paragraph in a two page paper. The stuff she did write wasn't exactly perfect - so that didn't help either. In truth, it sucks to even have to give any of them a grade. I wish I didn't have to.
Another of my students makes me laugh with how her essay alternately tested me and disingenuously kissed up to me. In her description of the academic language she uses in school, she made sure to point out how she uses it to appear more interested in class discussion than she really is, and how she really only pays the minimum amount of attention required to participate just enough to get the teacher to notice. Later in the same essay when listing examples of the wide variety of topics she discusses with her friends, she included "the cool assignments my amazing English professor gives my class to do." Funny. She can almost write.
I also gave back the in-class writing regarding the Rockwell paintings and the photographs I mentioned in last week's report, and led them in a discussion about some of their responses and in analyzing the photograph of Jefferson's descendants and Rockwell's "Freedom from Want." (Whenever I see the word 'Rockwell' I hear Michael Jackson's voice singing "I always feel like somebody's watching me!" - check out the video)
Finally, we discussed the excerpt from Horatio Alger's Ragged Dick and an essay by Harlon Dalton called "Horatio Alger" in which he critiques the Horatio Alger myth and calls it destructive. This is a lead in to their own "critical essay" on one of four essays we've read and discussed in class (at first I was going to assign new essays, but then decided to go easy on them this time), which is their second formal assignment. The excerpt and the essay stand as a model for what they are trying to do, and the work with images and breaking apart their details and putting them back together to make inferences and make a little meaning of some of those patterns we discover was an exercise in looking for details and patterns.
More than gay marriage and the idea of equal education, the myth of American class mobility and economic opportunity is the one I find people have the hardest time letting go of, and my students were no different. Again and again, they brought up examples of people they knew or knew of who had overcome some ridiculous set-backs and limitations to get a good job and make lots of money. I noticed that the difference in opinion fell mostly along the lines of immigrants and children of immigrants versus those whose family had been here a generation or three more. One student when explaining why he thought the U.S. was a land of unlimited opportunity credited capitalism, comparing it to his homeland of China, "where the communist government limits how much you can make no matter how hard you work or clever your ideas." I asked him (and the class), if he thought there could be other effective limitations of that kind here in the U.S. even if they were not reinforced by the government. I also asked them if they thought the story of "equal opportunity" and "class mobility" was more likely to be the one shared among people looking for hope than the ones of people spinning their wheels generation after generation, or even meeting with abject failure.
"Different people define success in different ways, so in that sense everyone has an opportunity to achieve their own success," one student offered.
"So you are saying that some people should just manage their expectations and not hope for too much?" I asked.
"No. . ."
"Remember to examine your own arguments for the seeds of how others might refute you. Critical thinking is about examining our assumptions and seeing if they hold up to scrutiny. I am not saying it has to change your mind. All I am saying is until you examine something critically, how can you really know what you know?"
Thursday: I had a pretty miserable headache and was seriously considering letting my class go early, but once I got class started I was able to forget about my headache for a while and enjoy teaching class. I guess that speaks to both how much I really love it and to how great a group of students I have. I had them break up into groups to read each others first drafts and comment on them, and after a while I went around to each group to see how they were doing. I asked them write down their thesis and hand this in separately, so I had them concentrate on helping each other formulate a strong one. As with any group of students, some were more obviously happy to have a chance to be social in class, but for the most part I was impressed with how they took to the task, asking each other questions, noting grammatical errors, and making suggestions.
As I dismissed them I recommended they watch the presidential debate as an exercise in critical thinking. "That way you can decide for yourself whether or not they are full of shit." They snickered. The instructor had used a bad word! ;)
Before class I hung out in the adjuncts' office and my quietude was noted by the others there. I was not in the mood to deal with Ms. Negative, but she has been marginally better lately, as I think I have gotten to her, what with my inability to keep from calling her on her bullshit and obnoxiousness - Either that or she is finally recovering from the miserable break-up she could not stop talking about inappropriately to total strangers/co-workers and thus does not come off as so much of a social leech with rabies. However, the conversation in the office (among all women, I was the only man there) was about all sorts of sexual fetishism and deviancy. And while anyone who knows me knows that I am down with a little bit of the freaky shit, I am not used to it being a conversation in the workplace - and definitely not among women. They were talking about skull-fucking and tea-bagging and zoophilia (one woman who is weird explained that my using the term 'bestiality' was offensive to people who enjoy consensual sex with animals - and yes, she was serious both about the offense and the consensuality).
Today: No class because of Rosh Hashanah, but I am at home ostensibly working on my thesis and not at the office - though in reality right now I have done everything but. . . But time to buckle down.
Let's see if I can do this short and sweet this week.
Tuesday: I handed back the graded final drafts of their "Language" essay and the students moaned ahead of time wanting to know how the grades were "generally" before I gave them back. I gave the old stand-by "Worry about your own grade. . ." One young woman was dismayed that had her grade had been lowered by the fact that she had an entire paragraph that was basically word for word off of Dictionary.com. She said she didn't know she had to cite the dictionary, and I believe her, but citation or no, the class is about your own writing, not someone else's. After class she came up to me and asked what her grade would have been if she had done the proper citation. I explained to her that while the lack of citation was problematic, the problem was that she didn't actually write the majority of a large paragraph in a two page paper. The stuff she did write wasn't exactly perfect - so that didn't help either. In truth, it sucks to even have to give any of them a grade. I wish I didn't have to.
Another of my students makes me laugh with how her essay alternately tested me and disingenuously kissed up to me. In her description of the academic language she uses in school, she made sure to point out how she uses it to appear more interested in class discussion than she really is, and how she really only pays the minimum amount of attention required to participate just enough to get the teacher to notice. Later in the same essay when listing examples of the wide variety of topics she discusses with her friends, she included "the cool assignments my amazing English professor gives my class to do." Funny. She can almost write.
I also gave back the in-class writing regarding the Rockwell paintings and the photographs I mentioned in last week's report, and led them in a discussion about some of their responses and in analyzing the photograph of Jefferson's descendants and Rockwell's "Freedom from Want." (Whenever I see the word 'Rockwell' I hear Michael Jackson's voice singing "I always feel like somebody's watching me!" - check out the video)
Finally, we discussed the excerpt from Horatio Alger's Ragged Dick and an essay by Harlon Dalton called "Horatio Alger" in which he critiques the Horatio Alger myth and calls it destructive. This is a lead in to their own "critical essay" on one of four essays we've read and discussed in class (at first I was going to assign new essays, but then decided to go easy on them this time), which is their second formal assignment. The excerpt and the essay stand as a model for what they are trying to do, and the work with images and breaking apart their details and putting them back together to make inferences and make a little meaning of some of those patterns we discover was an exercise in looking for details and patterns.
More than gay marriage and the idea of equal education, the myth of American class mobility and economic opportunity is the one I find people have the hardest time letting go of, and my students were no different. Again and again, they brought up examples of people they knew or knew of who had overcome some ridiculous set-backs and limitations to get a good job and make lots of money. I noticed that the difference in opinion fell mostly along the lines of immigrants and children of immigrants versus those whose family had been here a generation or three more. One student when explaining why he thought the U.S. was a land of unlimited opportunity credited capitalism, comparing it to his homeland of China, "where the communist government limits how much you can make no matter how hard you work or clever your ideas." I asked him (and the class), if he thought there could be other effective limitations of that kind here in the U.S. even if they were not reinforced by the government. I also asked them if they thought the story of "equal opportunity" and "class mobility" was more likely to be the one shared among people looking for hope than the ones of people spinning their wheels generation after generation, or even meeting with abject failure.
"Different people define success in different ways, so in that sense everyone has an opportunity to achieve their own success," one student offered.
"So you are saying that some people should just manage their expectations and not hope for too much?" I asked.
"No. . ."
"Remember to examine your own arguments for the seeds of how others might refute you. Critical thinking is about examining our assumptions and seeing if they hold up to scrutiny. I am not saying it has to change your mind. All I am saying is until you examine something critically, how can you really know what you know?"
Thursday: I had a pretty miserable headache and was seriously considering letting my class go early, but once I got class started I was able to forget about my headache for a while and enjoy teaching class. I guess that speaks to both how much I really love it and to how great a group of students I have. I had them break up into groups to read each others first drafts and comment on them, and after a while I went around to each group to see how they were doing. I asked them write down their thesis and hand this in separately, so I had them concentrate on helping each other formulate a strong one. As with any group of students, some were more obviously happy to have a chance to be social in class, but for the most part I was impressed with how they took to the task, asking each other questions, noting grammatical errors, and making suggestions.
As I dismissed them I recommended they watch the presidential debate as an exercise in critical thinking. "That way you can decide for yourself whether or not they are full of shit." They snickered. The instructor had used a bad word! ;)
Before class I hung out in the adjuncts' office and my quietude was noted by the others there. I was not in the mood to deal with Ms. Negative, but she has been marginally better lately, as I think I have gotten to her, what with my inability to keep from calling her on her bullshit and obnoxiousness - Either that or she is finally recovering from the miserable break-up she could not stop talking about inappropriately to total strangers/co-workers and thus does not come off as so much of a social leech with rabies. However, the conversation in the office (among all women, I was the only man there) was about all sorts of sexual fetishism and deviancy. And while anyone who knows me knows that I am down with a little bit of the freaky shit, I am not used to it being a conversation in the workplace - and definitely not among women. They were talking about skull-fucking and tea-bagging and zoophilia (one woman who is weird explained that my using the term 'bestiality' was offensive to people who enjoy consensual sex with animals - and yes, she was serious both about the offense and the consensuality).
Today: No class because of Rosh Hashanah, but I am at home ostensibly working on my thesis and not at the office - though in reality right now I have done everything but. . . But time to buckle down.