Conferences

So this week is conference week in my mentor's class. I have a love/hate relationship with conferences. I love them because I feel like the students get a lot more feedback and are able to revise their papers better. I would love to do conferences for all my papers because I feel like the students learn more through them. I hate conferences because they take so much time! If you don't read the paper's ahead of time then you have to have really long conferences. If you do read them ahead of time then you have to spend the time before hand getting through everyone's paper and commenting on them before you even start conferencing. Especially as a grad student, I don't know that it's feasible. I definitely make sure to have at least one conference with them, so that I can go over patterns of issues that each student is struggling with. I think if you are going to do conferences you should have one at midterm and one before the final paper/portfolio is turned in. This gives students time to try to adjust their writing from high school expectations to college expectations, as well as giving them a little extra help before the last major assignment is turned in.

The (Red) Pen is Mightier Than the Sword

Even though Tale 47 was probably one of the smallest tales that we've read, it is one of the tales that I relate to the most. I had such a hard time not starting with grammar when I started grading papers, especially since I wanted (and still due) to get through the grading as fast as I could. Eventually I had to just put the pen away when I first read the papers. It's such an ingrained habit that I even correct the novels I read for leisure (not with pen, just in my head). I get so annoyed with myself when I start thinking about how a sentence could have been written better because it ruins the effect of the story when I start thinking about it too much. I think it's the same with students' writing. If I stop to correct every superficial mistake I won't be able to get the effect of the whole paper. Also, I think students also have an innate negative response to red ink. Instead I bought a pack of multicolored pens. Purple is less threatening than red, right?

P.S. My mom gave me this book when I started teaching. It's adorable.

How nice is too nice?

One of the the things that I worry about as a teacher is being too nice. I think I have a tendency to be a little too sympathetic with my students. If they had a "problem" printing it or were really struggling with the material, I'll usually give them until the end of the day to email me a copy. I've pushed back deadlines for the class or let students turn it in a day or two late. I know that I should probably be a more strict (stricter?) with these things. But here's the thing, I really don't care. If they get the work in and it's complete I'm fine. Sometimes things come up. Sometimes the printer really wasn't working. I was one of those students that did things last minute, so I occasionally ran into those types of problems and I'd feel like a hypocrite if I was hard on students that did the same. Granted, I don't think that I'm crazy lenient. I haven't just thrown out all the rules. But if a student acts like their trying I'm probably going to cut them a little slack. I guess the problem then is in being fair to the other students that turn things in late because they just didn't do it. Is it unfair to let one student turn it in late, but not the other? Also, being lenient usually means that at least one student will try to take advantage. Maybe I need to be firmer with students. I don't know. I like being understanding. I like not being super strict. I don't really have a strict personality, which is why it feels a little off. And now I'm rambling. Okay, I'm done. Have a nice day. Bye.

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.

To Vent or Not to Vent?

First of all, in response to Tale 17, about sending the email to the whole department - reply all is the worst! I've never sent anything controversial, but I always feel stupid when I have accidentally forwarded something to everyone. That said, the actual tale that I want to talk about is Tale 27. I feel like I can see both sides of it. I definitely don't want students to have to hear the negative things that instructors might say about the student population as a whole. Not only could that ruin their confidence in class, but it could also create tension between that student and her future instructors. On the other hand, I know that sometimes instructors just need to vent. It could just be that they are having a rough day and a problem with a student is the final breaking point. I've had days where I just need to get all of the negative stuff out, so I can let it go and move on. Unfortunately, the easiest place to vent or blow off steam with other instructors is at school, where there are likely to be students around to hear it. The best solution would be to just not say anything, but we're human and that's not going to happen. However, instructors could get together weekly outside of class, where there aren't likely to be any students, to vent. Not only could they blow off steam, but it could create a tighter bond between colleagues. If it just happens to be one of those days where you have to talk to someone then I would suggest using your office. Maybe not the best solutions, but it would keep instructors from unintentionally damaging a student's confidence.

Confrontation, We Meet Again

Yesterday in the class that I sit-in on, we had a student show up that had missed the last three sessions. He come in late, was on his phone, and didn't have the paper that was due that day. I assumed that my mentor was going to want to talk to him after class. Being a little unclear about my position in the class I wasn't sure whether I should stay or not, so I left. I thought that she was going to be very strict about the class policies, especially because of her hatred of cell phones in the classroom. However, when she found me later that day she explained that the student told her he was confused about how to write the essay and he didn't know how to ask about something that we had already talked about in class. She said that she decided to give him a chance to complete the assignment, but that she firmly stated that the attendance policy was still in place and he must complete all the assignments to pass the class. She also told him that she was always available to explain things if he didn't feel like he could ask questions in class. As a person who struggles with confrontation, I think it would have been beneficial for me to have seen he handle this in person and I wish that I had stayed. From now on, I plan to just ask my mentor what her preference is for these types of situations. Hopefully, I won't miss another possible learning opportunity.

Always Watch The Video Before You Show It To The Class

 This chapter on beginnings brought back a lot of memories of little mistakes I'd made and things I'd learned my first few semesters pf teaching. My second semester teaching I had a Film Studies major in my class. During the section on memoirs he was constantly telling me that he would do so much better if he could do a video memoir, to which I would respond, "I'm sure you would, but the class is called Composition." I eventually told him that while he still had to write a memoir, I would give extra credit to anyone that wanted to make a YouTube video for their memoir. Bob* was the only student to do so
 The next class we started with Bob's video. I hadn't read his memoir yet and as it turned out, Bob was writing about a college party he attended. The first few minutes showed actual footage of the party with students dancing in a crowded house and what I'm sure was underage drinking and people smoking pot. But I was trying to be open minded and allowed it. Then I uttered a sentence I didn't ever think I would say in a classroom, "Bob, is that girl not wearing pants?!?" What made it even better was that as I made my way to the front of class to turn the video off I heard shots being fired and people yelling about the police showing up. There was a minor discussion/argument about finishing the video that may or may not have ended with me shouting, "You guys are going to get me fired!" Safe to say, I learned from then on to watch all the videos used before they were shown to the students.

* Fake name.