Monday

“Mr. Reynolds, Dana said that she misses your class. She doesn’t like her college classes. They don’t let her use any voice or style in her essays.”

This came from one of my students whose sister, obviously, was a former student of mine. She was a phenomenal writer in my College Comp class.

Now, this ties right into what we’re working on now in College Comp as a matter of fact.

My students have written their second – ugh – gasp – five paragraph theme. The first was a film review and the second was a literary analysis. Though I hate the thesis support format (as any regular reader of this blog will suffice), I do expose my students to it because – unfortunately—they will run into it at the university level. But I also try to expose them to the personal essay (and the ‘fun’ side of writing).

I graded the film reviews this weekend. While reading them I can see why they are used so often at the university level. First, they are easy for students to write. Second, they make reading and grading them a breeze. Finally, the feedback I leave the students makes it really look like I’m teaching.

In reality, all I’m doing is helping students complete a form, nothing more.

I think too that this is one advantage of teaching the five paragraph theme. It makes me feel like I’m teaching the students how to write.

But the real work – as Dana stated in her comment above – is teaching the personal essay: encouraging students to use voice and style, to analyze through examples and reflection, to use sophisticated techniques like dialogue, thoughts, reflection, blending genres, and so on. There’s no teaching involved there. I have to sit down with each student and each essay and simply show them options.

It’s not like the five paragraph theme where I can teach them how to write an introduction with a clear thesis, three supporting paragraphs with clear topic sentences, and a conclusion that recaps their thesis.

But it’s not nearly that clear cut with a personal essay. But even though it’s not teaching, it’s still a lot harder. Which, I guess, is one reason it might not be used that often.

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Tonight after school I’m headed off to do one of my favorite this – shop. Now I would normally be ecstatic over this – I have both Christmas and Kristie’s birthday coming up. But when I have the greatest little gift of all, my daughter, back home, it makes spending any more time away from home than necessary more of a burden than anything else.

I have to pick up a tree. I hate to admit it, but we’re going the ungreen way and looking at a fake tree. But it’ll last us years, so that might save a few real trees – or so I tell my liberal, earth loving conscience.

Plus, as I said, I get to do a little shopping for Kristie.

And it’s a Monday. How packed can the mall be?

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Jury duty. Kristie opened my mail and just called to confirm that I have been summoned for jury duty from Jan 4th through April.

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