Tomorrow is one of my favorite classes of the semester, when I read "Shitty First Drafts" to my students. But I realized tonight that I might lose my voice (which is already on its way out this week--stupid sinuses--) if I read it three times in a row in addition to all the other talking I need to do. I'm grateful it's available as an audiobook. This will save my energy tomorrow as long as the technology is working.
But I love this piece because it always throws my students off their tracks...again. I tend to spend the first couple of weeks un-teaching what my students have learned about writing. They of course think that good writing is pretentious, showy, full of complicated words and sentences. Then I bring in Ken Macrorie, Anne Lamott, and Donald Murray, and they don't quite know what to think.
Monday and today were also rewarding. Through a colleague, I discovered a technique that emphasizes the importance of teaching students to ask their own questions. I was skeptical of it at first, but after trying it out last semester, I realized how rarely we ask students to formulate questions, and how valuable it is to do so. Every time I do this, the first reaction is, "This is hard. I'm really having to think." Hallelujah. I've been on the student side of this technique, and it is hard, but it's fun and empowering, too.
The first or second week, I ask students to formulate questions with the focus, "Feelings about required classes--especially this one." These are students who tested into the lowest college writing course we offer at the community college. They're above adult basic ed, but not prepared for 101. It's a four-credit course (most are three) and while students pay for it and the grade impacts their GPA, they do not earn credit. I find this terribly unjust and disrespectful, and thankfully am working on a solution. Usually, when they learn that I hate the system that allows this, too, they feel better about being forced to be in there. Still, though, they have questions, and if I just asked them, "What questions do you have?" I would get the usual blank stares or a timid, "Do we need to buy the textbook?"
With the technique from RQI, simple as it is, students feel empowered to ask the questions they didn't really know they had. I always feel jazzed when someone asks something like, "Does anyone else feel stupid for having to take this class?" or "Why am I not smart enough to be in English 101?" or "Why are we punished for needing a review?" By spending the first day emphasizing honesty, and that I won't be offended by honest questions asked respectfully, they realize I'm not joking and open up. It's pretty fantastic.
My biggest weakness as a teacher is facilitating large-group discussion, and this is the best way I've found to generate buy-in, participation, and student-chosen focus. Once they write their questions, they have a chance to improve them and prioritize them. Then we can use them to start a conversation. Sadly, many of my students aren't used to being treated like they have brains. One question I ask when I assign the first draft of the first essay is, "What have past English teachers said about your writing?" Some of the answers make me seethe. Sometimes, it's even worse to read an answer like, "I never had a teacher say anything--we just got a grade, and I always just got a C so I figured it was good enough but not great."
I do, of course, see the results of grade inflation and poor teaching at the high school level, but I also know how difficult it is to reach every student in many high school environments. Some of these kids come from a school that often had 35 students in a writing class. I can barely handle our cap of 24. It's infuriating. I'm happy to help them improve and gain confidence to take 101, but I hate that they missed the instruction in high school for whatever reason. A good 60% or more of my students are adults who haven't thought about an essay in 15-20 years, so most of them just need the review and confidence.
Truly, I think my students are just surprised to hear their straight-laced looking young teacher say "shitty" a few times.
One unrelated story from today--
In my online researched writing class, I ask students to write about an experience that struck them, hard and then to share the questions that experience raised for them. I stole it from someone else, and it's an effective way to help them find research questions. One student wrote about her father's cancer, and she had some great questions, but her last one was, "Do I have any unconfessed sin that could have caused his cancer?" My heart sunk when I read that. What a sad and oppressive way to live. I know many folks believe this is possible, but I simply cannot. I haven't responded to her post, but hope that she will at least recognize it's a poor research question. I appreciated her willingness to be honest, but I'm struck by how sad the question made me feel. I've certainly felt guilty for things I shouldn't take fault for, but believing an unconfessed sin gave someone cancer? That's even beyond my guilty conscience.
No comments:
Post a Comment