Thursday, September 25, 2014
You Mean What I Know
I really liked this particular chapter of Comp Tales. I may not have had many of these experiences myself, but most of them fell into the areas that I have the most concerns with about teaching. I often worry about grading, whether it's the trickiness of grading more emotional papers like memoirs or my ability to adequately judge a students writing and give it the right grade. Reading about other instructors experiences has given me ideas on how to deal with some of these issues and things to look out for, like students bullying you for a grade. There were a few tales at the beginning, where they talked about students misunderstanding what they said, that did resonate with my own experience. I was having my students do an in-class writing activity and I had told them that we would be working with recursive writing. What I failed to do was explain what recursive writing was. After I told them to start writing I noticed that there were a few students just staring at their papers. When I asked if they needed help one of them replied with, "I just don't know if you're going to be able to read this." I asked what he meant and another student responded, "We haven't had to write like this since like second grade. I don't even know if I remember all the letters." And that's when I realized that the majority of the class thought I just wanted them to do their in-class writing in cursive. We had a good chuckle over it, but I did learn that sometimes I start speaking in Comp jargon and my students have no idea what I mean.
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I love that story! It goes back to what we were discussing last week -- having the ability to laugh at yourself and with your students.
ReplyDeleteI haven't had an experience like that as an instructor, but in my first undergrad theory class, my professor kept referring to "the male gays." And it just never seemed to fit the context of the discussion. A week and a half went by before he finally wrote the term on the board: "the male gaze."
And I think everyone in the class started laughing because everyone had been hearing "the male gays" and not understanding, but no one wanted to be the one to admit that they had no idea what homosexuals had to do with the discussion. Someone explained the situation afterward and we all had a good laugh.
Ha! These stories are great! Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteBut, yes, I also sometimes find myself reflecting back and thinking, I needed to start with the basics when I was teaching that thing… Can't always take for granted that a student will know what we mean, especially when we're using homonyms :)
I think I echo everyone's thoughts with a resounding LOL. This language that we're all trying to use sure is silly at times, but more often than not, frustrating!
ReplyDeleteAs far as "jargon" goes, I can certainly relate--sometimes it's difficult remembering that you're speaking to people that are still learning the ropes when you've spent all day talking with people that have been swinging on the ropes for a while. I find it's best to remember to put yourself back in those shoes (even when thought it's yucky to think about being a freshman in college again.) Hilarious story none the less; it makes you realize that sometimes, the best solution is to laugh.
Yes, this is great. These types are scenarios are all to familiar to me. As an undergrad, I remember just acting like I knew what a lot of teachers were talking about because nobody else questioned them, so I ended up confused. Yet, now, when we are surrounded by other literary majors, it is so easy to fall into using Jargon. Your story was a good reminder to me.
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