I have been a little sad this week. I always get this way the last week of classes. While the audible sigh of relief surrounds me, I find that I reflect and think, "I'll never see these kids again." I get attached to most of my students and rarely do I see them again. To add insult to injury this semester, I'm faced with the very real possibility that it will be a while before I am in a classroom again.
Today the only student I have ever had for two semesters thanked me. He's a sweet student. Not a great writer. He's a solid B. I think he could do better but he is happy with what he's got and, at least he's consisitent. He said that he was glad that he got me for his comp teacher because comp is his least favorite subject and I made it interesting and "do-able." Well, I was on cloud nine. Not just because he seemed to realize that I needed to hear it (don't we all) but that I was getting through.
I have long believed that it is my job to make my students learn two things---first, that their writing should be clear and convey their meaning the best way it can, and, second, that there is no magic formula to writing effectively. There is no magic at all. It is a matter of learning the tools necessary to convey ideas on paper so that someone not in the room with us will understand. It is not my job to make my students brilliant writers. Quite frankly there are only a few even capable of that...I would prefer that they become more comfortable writers.
I don't mean those students who feel like they already know everything and I have nothing to teach them. I mean instead those students who have always been told that they can't write, who have had the proverbial English teacher baring the red pen as a mighty sword to slash spelling errors and concur the comma---those students who have given up. I try to reach them. I don't dumb down my class and make it easy for everyone but I seem to have a soft spot for those students that have been told that they can't write and those never given the opportunity.
I am very mindful that the comments I make to all my students will be interpreted. I cannot imagine tearing a teacher who is willing to pass judgement but not to teach. How do these students become competent if we don't show them how to do it? I realize that there are those out there who do not care, those who could care less about writing for an audience and a purpose---I have had a few of those---But the majority of my students have been taught that they can't write...then they just give up. I try to reach them and show them that there are tools that will make them effective.
So as the semester draws to a close (thank goddess;) I am thinking about those students who will encounter the red pen and those that will be told that they can't write and hope that I have at least shown the path the competency and hope that I will be given the opportunity to lead another group down that road. One week....just one week...
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6 comments:
Lisa, this is lovely. You are a good teacher. To have touched even one life in positive way, to have given even one student a bit more confidence--that's a blessing both you and those you teach will carry onward.
They've been lucky to have you as a teacher!
Thanks. And with all humility I say that yes I am a good teacher. Although I have just reread my blog and have come to the realization that, perhaps, I am not such a good writer..."concur" should be conquer and I'm not even going to try to touch some of the sentences I have written. Thank you guys for being so patient with my technical difficulties lately...I think it's early onset "Old timer's."
Lisa, I think you're right: often, it seems like our job is about un-doing the damage of high school, of building confident writers.
As I often tell my students: confident writers take risks, and when writers take risks, they begin the process of discovery of what works and what doesn't. We can't teach them to be good writers, but we can give them the tools to learn how to become better writers.
When I look back at the beginning of my developmental writing class--the group who, when faced with a first draft of the first paper, couldn't bring themselves to write a single thing--I can see this slowly budding confidence. They turned in their first research papers this week, and while no--they haven't mastered form, structure, grammar, citations, or any of the formal elements of writing instruction--they are writing. And they are proud of what they've written.
I don't think we can underestimate the impact of that confidence for our students, or our role in encouraging and promoting it. I find that it's hard not to feel protective over them as they move on to their next writing teacher, and I fervently hope that they luck out and end up with a teacher who has even half of your commitment and understanding.
Janet's absolutely right: you're a wonderful teacher, and they were lucky to have you!
Okay, here's the cosmic joke: tell me oh guru ones...the student who said that to me is also one of the student's who plagiarized part of his assignment (though he did this really weird citing thing that I don't quite understand.) So if I was such a great teacher and made writing comfortable for him and gave him the confidence to write...then why the @#$%^& didn't he write?????
Lisa, maybe he didn't steal the words. Maybe he just borrowed them and fully intended to return them when he was through. Maybe the author is a close personal friend of his and said, "Hey, dude, feel free...." Maybe it was one of those great cosmic wonders when the exact same set of words falls on two people's minds. Maybe it's the theory of a room full of monkeys with typewriters.
No, wait. I've got it.
He wrote it first and the printed copy stole it from him.
Ah. Mystery solved. Give the child an A.
Lisa: in the infamous words of one of my students this past week (who copied and pasted entire paragraphs from his sources into his paper without citing/quoting)...
"But that's not plagiarism! That part didn't count! Those paragraphs didn't have anything to do with what I wanted to say...it was just facts!"
So are you sure the part he plagiarized wasn't "just facts"? Geez. Give the kid a break already.
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