Whew. That was a relief.
The first week always stresses me out. I dislike it because, usually, I am unfamiliar with the new students.
That's not the case with my College Comp II class, but I recognize only a few faces in my College Comp class and even fewer in my Lit & Lang 11 class.
But all in good time.
So far the classes have been spectacular. A bit large. But spectacular. I have 33 in College Comp II. That's just a hard fact. There are 3 College Comp classes I teach over the course of the year. I suppose their class sizes range from 15-25. But if we were to break College Comp II into two sections, I'd have to drop one of my Lit & Lang 11 classes, and those kids would simply spill over into someone else's class, causing those numbers to bulge to over 30.
I was worried initially that my Lit and Lang 11 class would be large too. On the first day of class, I opened my grade book app on the computer, and I it informed me that 3 new students were added. That pushed the number to over 30.
Luckily, a few dropped and the number is now at 28.
My College Comp class actually feels small, but I think there are around 25 students in there too.
So it's a full schedule. Especially when I look at the amount of writing the College Comp II class does - all research based. That's a load.
I can devour a batch of descriptive or narrative essays in College Comp in one evening. But research based papers, well, it's not quite like that.
However, it's a nice problem to have because they are some of the best writers and minds in the school.
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In fact, my College Comp II kids are scheduled to work on their first theme. It's an exploratory essay. So that has a few freaking out.
I told them to go to the library and find a book, magazine, journal, or website with an article on a subject that they found interesting. The only parameters I put on their topic was that it had to be something they had always wanted to know more about but never really had the time to delve into it.
Who knew some would find it so hard?
Yesterday, I put up a list of a few issues that I was thinking about for my exploratory essay - the Ostfront, E.D Hirsch's idea of "Cultural Literacy," flow, and Sir Ken Robinson - were the first to come to mind.
I discussed what I knew about each and what I could explore about each. You see while I don't care really what form this paper takes (it could be persuasive; it could look at both sides of an issue; it could play devil's advocate; it could be satirical), all I really want is it to be interesting to them and display their original thinking on the subject.
Is that too much to ask?
I haven't been inundated with texts yet, so that, I think, is a good sign. The rough draft is due tomorrow.
Then we start our second theme, a definition essay. Can't wait.
2 comments:
It's a pretty sad commentary, isn't it, when we are "relieved" to have students drop because of class size; but, I have had the same feeling. (I still don't have enough laptops to accommodate one of my classes, and they are integral to our course of study.) Sadly, I don't see the issue of class size being addressed in the foreseeable future for obviou$ rea$on$.
Me either. The almighty dollar is the bottom line. Not kids.
My real beef was that a fellow teacher said three were dropped from her class. I knew right away where they'd end up. It's sad that a kid can change his schedule (or several kids) just on a whim. If they had a conflict with classes - fine - but we all know it's the "my buddy is in this class so I want to be in it too" syndrome.
But I'm under 30 - barely (28) - but I'm under.
I just don't get how some teachers can wind up with 18 kids and another can have 30 plus. That's like have almost another whole class!
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