Third Day

My classes are incredible. I know it’s only the third day, but the students are eager and energized. My Comp I students, sophomores, are eager to begin really writing. I can’t wait to read their essays. My College Comp students, juniors and seniors, are bright and hard working. I am eager to see what their work leads to. The class is a traditional comp class with the curriculum approved by our local community college. So my hands are a bit tied about what to teach. I actually had the class kind of fall into my lap. One of my colleagues here actually designed the class, for she used to teach the college prep comp class here before the college in the classroom movement. However, she has her masters in education and I have mine in English. So late last year I was notified that I’d be teaching this class using her curriculum approved via NCTC.

As a way of talking about what makes writing good, I emailed several college contacts of mine to get their opinions on what they look for in good student writing. Their responses were quite interesting. One was interested in personality (that is the one I side with) and one was interested in clarity and perspective that is well supported and clear in purpose (which I agree with too, but nothing beats personality and voice in my book). I am going to see if anyone else responds. Then I’m going to share this with my class and see what they think. In the meantime I’ve charged them with bringing in an example of what the students consider ‘good’ writing. Should be interesting. I’ve no idea what I’ll get. Could be Kiss lyrics to a Bible verse. But we’ll see. To aid them in determining what is ‘good’ writing, I copied some ‘classic’ selections (“Out, out” by Robert Frost, the climax of Gary Paulson’s now ‘banned’ novel “Winterkill,” and the excerpt from “Macbeth” that Frost alludes to in the title of “Out, out.”). I used these selections because they are all tied together with allusions and tone. They also use such concepts as alliteration, consonance, personification, figurative language and so on. I hope by showing the students these pieces that they might be able to determine that such things as “The cheerleader was a real young bleeder” (taken from Aerosmith’s classic “Walk this Way”) IS NOT a ‘great’ piece of writing. But that’s Friday. I’ll let you know how it turns out.

Just saw a kid with a shirt that read - “Genius by birth; slacker by choice.” What scares me is that that is the attitude of some kids. They naturally think they’re entitled to something that they can squander. I’m not sure I think that’s so.