I’m buried under piles and piles of papers. Why do I always do this to myself?
I spent eight hours on Monday reading “How To” essays for my College Comp class. Overall, they were disappointing. Their topics were great. But a majority never bothered to fully support their ideas. Others just wrote essays full of deadwood and glittering generalities. On one poor paper I wrote, “You have not written anything that has not been written on a thousand other papers before this.” If I’m going to do anything for some of these writers, I’m going to get them to come up with their own ideas, not cliché or regurgitated ones.
Now I’m turning my attention to their next essays, “On . . .” in the tradition of the classic essays, like those written by Montaigne. We came up with a list of concrete nouns to write about (cell phones, cars, sisters, parents, computers, blisters, TV, Iraq, schools, McDonalds, Walmart . . .). We wrote two rough drafts on two topics of our choosing. Then we read from those drafts and discussed what we liked and what new directions or insights we could incorporate. After that we devised a list of abstract nouns to write about (pain, love, loneliness, war, hate, fear, music, family, loss, mortality, envy, obsession, victory . . .) We repeated the process.
We’ll see if it makes for better thinking and writing. I hope so.
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I don’t know that I’ve accomplished a lot with my Comp 9 class. It doesn’t feel like it because they have not written as many papers as we used to. Really, they have written a lot more than they have in the past. Since we changed how the class was structured – instead of writing 9 themes, they write just four but they do several prompts for each theme. Then they choose one prompt to fully develop for the final theme – it has taken some getting used to. It just doesn’t seem like they are producing as much. I guess they aren’t, but I just have to remind myself that they are writing more. It just isn’t being turned in.
While I don’t know that I’ve improved their writing, I do know they are going to miss this class. Many have mentioned how they don’t want the class to end. I might not have taught them much, but at least they liked showing up every day.
It’s kind of sad too. I won’t see them in class again until they are juniors.
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My niece, who is attending BSU to become a math teacher, is looking at student teaching in the near future. Her mother mentioned that she is thinking about seeing if she can’t do her student teaching here.
This got me to thinking about my student teaching, which I also did here, and how much I have changed. This in turn got me to thinking about my strengths as a teacher.
If I do anything well, I think it’s getting the students to laugh. There is not a day that goes by that I can’t make them chuckle. This, I think, gets them to enjoy class.
I think the next thing I do well is that I have a knack for relating subject matter to their lives or what is going on in their worlds. This, I think, helps make what we examine in class relative to their lives.
Of course, this led me to thinking about what I wish I did better. I wish I had the ability to plan and implement standards better. I wish I could devise a lesson plan that encompassed the standards and everything else necessary to getting the students past the myriad of tests they have to take. I wish I had the ability to really hold the students more responsible for their learning.
Ultimately, this led me to think about how great a teacher Kristie would be. She has a year left for her English degree from UND. She has about another year worth of education courses too.
Since it looks like there is going to be quite a bit of gravel taken out of our pit this summer – and over the next few years – one thing I’d love for us to do with that money is send Kristie back to UND.
She would be a phenomenal teacher. I see how hard she works when she coaches. I also see how much the kids enjoy and respect her. She has the ability to perfectly balance a serious approach to teaching skills and lessons with her zany side that gets kids to not only work hard but to also love what they’re doing. This is teaching at its best. And she does all of this for free as a volunteer coach. Imagine what she’d do with kids when it was her full time occupation. I’d be in awe of her. Well, in greater awe that is.
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