Between Classes

We talk frequently in education about ways to motivate students: What’s his currency? What does she most care about? I learn the names of pets; I act interested in Lady GaGa; I watch skateboarding tricks on tiny phone screens, all in an effort to create a lexicon to motivate students via their real world interests. This week, a friend and colleague pointed out another educational use of the term “currency” to me: “Grades are one way we have to validate what students have done, but we also have the currencies of compassion and encouragement. Sometimes, students don’t meet the academic objectives in the time given, and we can’t hand out the grade they’d like to see. But we can still be sure they feel recognized.”

My eyes prick with tears just re-reading her wise sentiment. We live in a “quantify it” kind of world. At the end of the semester, I sit down and reduce a semester’s worth of experiences into a two digit numeral. Some of my students have made genuine gains these last fifteen weeks, but they haven’t bridged fully the gap between their skills and the course’s academic objectives. “But I’ve worked so hard!” “But I did my best!” “How can I be doing so much better and not be passing?” If I buy into the concept that the only way to recognize students’ hard work is with the currency of a passing grade, I fall down the rabbit hole of grade inflation. Borrowing from the portfolio model, I pull out some of the student’s earlier writing, and we look at the progress. Going from a 40% to a 60% is a huge increase in fifteen weeks, and I try to honor that with interpersonal ceremony and a setting of goals for the next semester, a humble currency born of faith that encouraging someone and highlighting progress will grow a deeper root than a false grade.

co-posted on NCTE.org

As always, stressful, cranky periods in my teaching give way to more pleasant stretches where things go better. (It has nothing to do with school actually being closed this weekend. Not at all. Ahem.) In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I thought I’d share some of my appreciations specific to teaching.

I’m grateful for:

• Inspiring teachers who continue to try new things in their lessons after more than twenty five years in the classroom who befriend me and share their wisdom generously
• The print shop I can use to order copies ahead of time
• Students who give a damn
• A grown up job that allows for a “do-over” semester to semester
• Technology which allows me to communicate with students without having to be physically available all hours
• A career which keeps me up to date on buzz words that impact my own child’s education
• A classroom with windows that look out onto a nature preserve
• A built-in excuse to buy new fiction in order to “keep up” professionally
• A job where I never have to try and get the holidays off in order to be home with my family
• A profession which continually challenges me and fills me with the knowledge that I am doing something worthwhile with my life

Happy Thanksgiving!

co-posted on NCTE.org

Lately, I’ve been feeling like a triage doctor in a disaster area clinic tent. No, nascent critical thinking doesn’t cause immediate death, but I believe that strong thinking, reading, and writing skills empower people to build healthy lives. I blog about education to further the conversation and promote positive thinking; this semester, I’ve felt short of those energies.

For a myriad of reasons, a larger majority of my students are resisting critical thinking this semester. When I wrote one student about an entire viewpoint the student’s argument ignored, I got a very polite email explaining that the student preferred to simplify the issue by avoiding that part of the problem. %$@#? In truth, I found that student’s candor refreshing. Most students greet my encouragement to take on complexity with a “I don’t know what you mean” stare. “That would mean I have to look up another article,” one student told me as if my expectation required a run across a minefield. “Yes,” I countered. “Sometimes research argument writing isn’t a linear process. Our research leads to additional questions we didn’t have at the beginning, and we need to double-back to find answers.” “I don’t double-back,” the student told me flatly. At no point have I given a zero or threatened failure. Most students, for the first time in my fifteen years, are telling me that what I’m asking for sounds exhausting and difficult, and like the Bartleby they might never read about because the story exceeds five pages in length, they sigh, “I would prefer not to.”

I’ve drafted numerous rants against “the millenials” in my head, but really, what I want to ask is, where does the buck stop? What changes in my expectations reflect my flexibility and understanding of changing generations and what changes reflect a lowering of standards? If students prefer not to take guidance on persuasive argument, do they fail despite having turned in a paper of the required length? After a semester of patient persuasion, do I have the energy for the fallout that position would require?

co posted on NCTE.org

Years ago, I saw Donors Choose profiled on the Oprah show.  Across the years, I’ve really enjoyed feeling like a classroom fairy godmother through this program.  I feel like it pushes good teacher karma my way, too.  This coupon came into my in box today, and I thought sharing it might help spread the classroom fairy dust around.

I’ve just finished grading my students’ argument essays. In third person voice, students are asked to argue a point of view using three quotations from an assigned reading. I’ve done some variation of this assignment each of my fifteen years of teaching writing. Across that time, I’ve seen students’ arguments grow more…well, more bullying.

I teach my students that the goal of an academic argument is to persuade people who don’t already agree. I encourage them to strike a tone that acknowledges the opposing point of view while refuting it with examples and evidence. Lately, as recent as the last few years, a growing percentage of students (not all of them), try to vilify the other side in their arguments. Now, hyperbole is not new to novice writers, but the tenor seems uglier to me. Gross generalizations characterize their enemies: “Parents today are fat and lazy.” “Everybody’s a pervert on the Internet.” “Stupid people deserve what credit card companies do to them.” Yikes!

As I spent this past week writing comments that asked how those remarks would persuade rather than alienate an audience who recognized themselves in the statements, I thought about the current media climate in which my students are growing up. Polarity and anger seem to be the modern media’s cash cow. Regardless of party affiliation, blogs and cable news channels teem with bile and anger. Gone are the David Brinkleys of my own coming of age. Phil Donahue, once considered such a hot head because he leaned forward in his chair and even stood up and ran around his audience, strikes me now as a gentle journalistic hippie. When I think of the people they see as models of “academic argument,” I realize my students might just be imitating the nation’s model for argumentative discourse.

I try not to be outdated as a teacher. I don’t teach MLA the way it was in my day (end notes, anyone?), and I don’t require that all their sources in a research essay come from hard copy sources. One of my responsibilities is to prepare my students for the current marketplace they face—and yet? I don’t know if I can change here. I might just retreat to my ivory tower and teach students the civil argumentative discourse I believe is the root of understanding and change in the world and trust that our current ravings will pass.

co-posted on NCTE.org

I really enjoyed school as a kid. I liked being at school and then coming home and playing school. I’ve always liked teachers even before I got to be one myself. Luckily, my world has been populated by inspiring and generous teachers for as long as I can remember. To share some of those teachers with others, I wrote up a few questions and asked some teachers I admire to answer them…

Dr. Laura Ross currently serves as Honors Institute Director for The Art and Phyllis Grindle Honors Institute for Seminole State College of Florida. As part of this position, Dr. Ross teachers an Honors seminar, helping students maximize their college educational experiences. Previous to this position, Dr. Ross taught English for over two decades. In my observation, Dr. Ross couples a gracious, open demeanor with a shrewd and tenacious intellect, creating environments where real change gets accomplished and people feel good about it. Amazing. Like many of the teachers I most admire, she sets other people up to succeed and sits back to watch them shine. Generous. Hard working. Smart. The kind of person with whom I want to share my job title of teacher…

1) What characterizes a lesson you really look forward to teaching?

My favorite lessons include opportunities for students to discover knowledge for themselves. I find that they grasp or retain new information much better if it is reinforced through a class activity, group work, or a hands-on activity.

2) Sometimes people comment on how teachers spend time with young people all day rather than working with adults. What are some of the things you enjoy about young people as opposed to an office full of adults?

I enjoy the energy and naiveté of young people. I also have more patience with young people because I know they are still learning and still figuring out who they want to be and how to get there. Even though college students can be needy, self-centered, and irresponsible, I tend to see those moments as learning opportunities. When I have to work with adults who exhibit some of those same annoying characteristics, I have less patience.

3) What strategies do you use when feeling overwhelmed by education’s challenges?

I go to a colleague when feeling overwhelmed. Teaching can feel like a lonely profession if I allow it to be. It helps me to know that I am not on my own and that others are experiencing some of the same issues.

4) When you treat yourself to “an apple” what do you do for yourself?

I love to travel, but for smaller rewards, I opt for going out to dinner or indulging in a pedicure!

According to the ever-venerable Wikipedia, “okay” is a word “denoting approval, assent, or acknowledgment.” I think I need to post that definition where I can see it prominently. I often use “okay” for acknowledgment; my students hear approval, and between those two uses stretches a field of misunderstanding.

Here’s how the scenario usually goes down:

“Ms. K?”

“Yes?”

“I’m not going to be here for the test tomorrow because I have to pick up my uncle’s second cousin from the airport because my grandmother has diabetes, and my father’s car is in the shop and I have to be at work on time or I’ll lose all the fingers on my left hand.” *Details have been changed to protect identities, but please note that the convoluted and urgent nature of the student scenario has been retained.

“Okay.”

“Great, bye!”

Weeks later after grades have been posted.

”Ms. K?”

“Yes?”

“I have a zero for that test I missed and when I told you I was going to miss it, you said it was fine.”

“I’m sure I never said it was fine. You need to make up that test.”

“You said it was okay! I would have made it up weeks ago when I still knew that story if I’d known it wasn’t okay! Why did you say it was okay?”

“Uh. Hmm.”

Note to self: eradicate “okay” from teaching language. I need a new verbal filler for that scenario. It’s not “okay” with me that the student will be absent, but these aren’t scenarios where I’m being asked for permission. I’m being informed of a decision. Nodding seems like approval, too. I feel rude not saying anything. What else would signify acknowledgment without approval? “Gotcha.” “Sounds complicated.” “I see.” Yes, maybe “I see.” Or maybe, “See me when you get back.” Leave the ball clearly in the student’s corner…I may need to snap a rubber band on my wrist for a while to change this habit…

co-posted on NCTE.org

I think “teach don’t tell” might have been one of the first pedagogical concepts I truly learned. But for some reason, I forget this lesson regularly. It happens when students have particular problems, when they catch me off the cuff, or when my mind is pursuing another line of thought. Why is telling sometimes my default setting?

I recently caught myself mid-telling. A student committed copy/paste plagiarism in a last paragraph of an essay despite viewing a Turnitin.com report that clearly caught the problem before the paper needed to be submitted to me. I discovered it on a Sunday night as I checked the reports for plagiarism. I sent the student an email that pointed out the problem and asked what the student thought when seeing the match on the report. The student emailed me that after looking at the report twice, the student hadn’t noticed any matches. (Right there, in the bright color—see?) The student assured me that had the match been noticed, the student would have been sure to “mix the words up a bit.” Not quite a substitute for full documentation. Sigh. Bite of chocolate.

I wanted to tell the student that all the lessons we’ve done on plagiarism and how to read a Turnitin.com report should have prevented this problem. I wanted to tell the student that I did my job; I covered this content in a student-centered, interactive way, thanks very much. I wanted to tell the student that the learning process breakdown most likely happened on the student’s end—forgetting to scroll down and read the whole report, working too late to read carefully, giving in too easily to the challenges of developing a point and resorting to copy/paste to round out a paragraph. Another bite of chocolate.

Bolstered by sugar, I remembered to teach, and I instead asked the student to do these things:

1) Go back and review the excellent answers the you gave on the plagiarism quiz, including:

Even if the information you use is commonly known, if you borrow the exact wording from a source to explain that information, you’ll need to use quotation marks and to credit the source. Your answer: True

2) With that fresh information, go back to review the Turnitin.com report again.

3) Write down observations and realizations as you look at your report and then share them with me.

The student did it. The student owned the problem and told me if the mistake meant failing the class, then the student understood. Hooray! My news that the essay would need to be done on a new topic came as a relief instead of a great big hammer. Put chocolate away.

When I tell instead of teach, students tell me something right back, usually some version of, “You’re a crazy English teacher lady and you’re wrong about me.” Telling versus telling means nobody listens. Remembering to teach instead of tell bears much better learning fruit.

I think I sometimes tell despite knowing better because some student mistakes strike me as an accusation that I wasn’t clear, that I didn’t do my job well. When I’m not feeling defensive, I realize that’s stupid of me. I think I tell more often when I’m tired or overwhelmed or when the learning process gets sluggish. In the end, I think it’s my humanity butting up against their humanity, and it’s bound to happen now and again. Maybe I’ll just tell myself to relax…where’s that chocolate?

co-posted on NCTE.org

Hey, there! It’s me, your English teacher. We’ve only met a few times because you don’t come to class all that often. I’ve left a phone message or two, and I’ve sent some emails. You could have a personal issue I don’t know about; I wouldn’t know because I don’t know you because I get to know students when they come to class. So, I’m writing this letter as a therapeutic exercise for the helplessness I feel in this situation.

Listen, I get that writing may not be your thing. I may not be your thing either—that’s okay, too. If students come to class and participate, I can help them move forward. I’m not saying I can fix everything that frustrates you about writing, but I can help move you forward. Momentum comes from action, and your first action needs to be to come and participate. I don’t mind doing the heavy lifting. Just come. Just try.

Maybe you’re trying to forget about this class for whatever your reasons are, and I kind of wish I could just forget about students who stop coming to class, too, but that’s not how my job works. I’ve got to tally your attendance, so I see your name each class meeting, and I picture your face, and I wonder where you are, and I ask around, and I leave a message here or there, but you’re not really on anybody’s radar. Come and try for me and be on my radar. Please?

The more absences you accumulate, the less I can see your face in my mind’s eye. We’re approaching the tipping point, the point when I start to accept your absences as an immutable fact and dedicate myself fully to the students in attendance. You start to become a statistic, a stat pulling down my retention scores, one of the numerous reductive ways in which teachers are measured. That retention score doesn’t reflect the problem you have that isn’t getting help, and it doesn’t measure the earnestness I feel when I try to reach out into the ether and pull you into attendance. In fact, the statistic probably demoralizes both of us, racking up higher and higher numbers until we both feel like it’s insurmountable.

Please come to class. Come soon.

Take care,

Ms. K

co-posted on NCTE.org

The developmental writing course I teach requires that the second test of the course be on the apostrophe. Yawn. Of course, the first test focused on capitalization–wow! The canned curriculum leads up to a state exam in the end. Big surprise, right?

So, it’s three weeks in, and I’m trying to weave magic with the apostrophe. (My best apostrophe joke? I put the sentence, “The class earned three A’s, five B’s and twelve C’s on the test.” Then I rub out the apostrophe on “A’s” and say, “See if you take away the apostrophe, it looks like “as.” If I say it quickly enough, they mishear me and we can all laugh. That’s as good as it gets, folks.) In an effort to spice up the apostrophe’s introduction, I asked students to open up their books to the twelve rules of the apostrophe. I linked to a selection of the Top Food Bloggers on the Internet and asked students to peruse the sites in search of six examples of the apostrophe in action. Of their six examples, they needed to find at least four different apostrophe rules. (Our state exam is on the computer, so we teach these courses in a lab. I think this assignment could work for homework or in groups at stations, too.)

It took most students over forty minutes to complete the assignment. They could find examples using the apostrophe from the blogs quickly, but differentiating between a singular noun being made possessive or a singular noun that ends in “s” being made possessive or an indefinite pronoun being made possessive or a contraction—well, that took much longer.

I know that reading enhances writing, but I’m continually surprised at the hefty academic contribution of a reading activity like this one. By the time we went to a practice test on the apostrophe, students could better understand what differences to look for in the sentences. Arguing that the apostrophe couldn’t possibly be that varied seemed out of place since they’d already found it in action. Unlike our textbook, in “real life writing” the apostrophe doesn’t sort itself into sets of ten examples that all use the apostrophe as a contraction. A few students mentioned wanting to revisit the blogs for fun—always a bonus—and no one complained that the reading content didn’t matter. I guess food, written about and photographed beautifully, is a universal.

Next week, I’m going to try introducing subject/verb agreement through some selections from RollingStone.com. Here’s hoping reading from life continues to root these grammar lessons in application and contextual interest…

co-posted on NCTE.org