Frustrated!

Days like today make me want to throw my hands in the air and go back to retail management. I have assumed that many of my students just haven't read the instructions. The work they've done certainly doesn't address all (if any) of the instructions. I am not completely convinced that this isn't at least part of the problem. But for some of them there is a much bigger problem related to reading comprehension.

In a college-level literature course, I shouldn't have to explain the difference between identifying and describing. This is pretty basic vocabulary. On the first take-home quiz, 1/2 the class identified the cookies Harold eats in Stranger Than fiction as a symbol of change. (Based on the number of students who used this response, I can only assume they were sharing answers or they all decided to copy from Yahoo Answers or Ask.com). I'm willing to set aside the fact that in no way are the cookies a symbol of anything. I'm willing to entertain their interpretation (if this is, in fact, their interpretation and not some bull shit website not even written by anyone with real credibility) so long as they demonstrate through evidence from the textbook and the film that their interpretation has some validity. This defense is not present in their responses.

I wonder how many students in this class will not return next week. I know I lost at least one for sure. I want to know how many hours these students invested in this assignment. I want to know how many of them sought assistance via the Writing Center or a tutor in the Learning Lab. I don't expect to be impressed by these revelations.

I am thoroughly enjoying teaching this course, but I am just as frustrated as my students when it seems to me that they lack basic reading comprehension and writing skills. I can't make them get help in the Learning Lab. I certainly can't spend class time addressing such basic skills. I'm at a loss. I know what other faculty would advise. Let them fail. I can't accept that. So I've spent the evening so stressed out that I am physically ill. I know some of my students don't think I care. But I do. More than many in my position would. But I am also limited in the amount of time I have to give them. I'm at a loss. I don't know what to do.

A few students stayed after class, and we brainstormed some ideas of ways we could make some minor changes to the course that would help them learn better. We're implementing some of these changes we discussed effective as soon as we get back from spring break, including moving from class discussions to small group discussions where they'll begin work on these take-home quizzes together. They don't realize this, and most won't read this blog, but I am also paring the midterm down to just the scantron portion. They aren't prepared to do anything but fail the extended response portion of the exam. This and essay questions will be on the final. We'll spend the rest of the semester preparing for it. I hope the changes will help them in valuable ways.

Gen eds: What are they accomplishing, really?

My students and I spent the last week and half watching the film Accepted and discussing various issues surrounding higher education in the US. I do this every semester as part of their second essay project, and every semester students lament being forced to take "pointless" general education courses. I present them with a brief history of the university and brief them on what it means to be an "educated" person. We discuss what value various general education courses have to their lives, their future careers, their role as citizens in a democracy, and to being just generally an "educated" person. It's difficult for them to buy into it.

Students don't understand the purpose and value of gen eds. They see no reason to be informed about history. Many say "I don't need to write for the career I'm going into, so I shouldn't have to take this course." Art majors see no value for knowing math. (What?!) Nursing students see no value in taking psychology. (Are you kidding me?) Business majors see no point to studying literature, music, art.

I am not surprised by this. I am concerned. I'm concerned, especially, because it's not their fault that they think this way. This is the way our educational system has trained them to think. Subjects are taught as if they are independent areas of study completely isolated from one another. I'd like to say this ridiculous division of disciplines is limited to the public education system but it is the way most educational institutions function, at every level.

I am thankful that my daughter's school is highly inter-disciplinary. If the students are learning about ancient Roman history, they learn that content in every class. Social studies addresses the objective historical background, literature addresses the same content through the subjective, experiential history recorded in poetry and novels, and art asks them to recreate what they're learning in creative, visual ways. When she learned about the digestive system in science, she was also writing a short story for language arts that illustrated the digestive process from the perspective of the food that was eaten. My daughter will never question why she needs to take a wide variety of courses unrelated to her major, because she will know without doubt that all knowledge is an important, integral part of learning any one thing in depth.

I do my best to help my students see this. In fact, I used this very example in class today. Some of them get it. Most do not. I'll see what happens as they begin interviewing faculty, deans, administrators, advisors. A few more eyes will likely be opened. I worry, though, about those who continue to view their education in terms of a buyer/seller exchange. I worry about what happens when they find themselves in the work force, unemployed or working a low-paying job they didn't need a degree for. All because they didn't learn the skills their desired professions wanted from that college degree: written and oral communication & critical and creative thinking.

Students are required to take gen eds. But when they approach the course with the attitude of "getting it over with," they store enough information in their short term memory to get them by. When the course is over, it and its content are forgotten. Are gen eds achieving their intended purpose? When employers expect college education as preparation for the work force, when students only go to college to be trained for a job, should the purpose of higher ed change to meet the demands of our changing world?

I'm afraid that college simply for the sake of learning is a thing of the past for the vast majority of the US population.

Rhetorical Strategies of Social Media & Academic Writing

I was recently asked during a teaching demonstration if I believed that the rhetorical strategies employed in social media and other forms of what is often viewed as informal online communication could inform and even enhance “academic writing.” My issues with the problematic definition of “academic writing” aside, I believe the answer is an emphatic yes. When prompted to explain why, however, I found myself unable to effectively articulate a response that could address what most would deem a radical idea in any depth or breadth.

This is an issue I have only begun to explore, one I hope to find better answers to.

David Crystal argues in Txtng: The Gr8 Db8 that the more proficient a person is with the communication conventions of “textese”—or “lolspeak”—the more proficient that person is likely to be with other forms of communication including formal English.

“How could this be?” you might be asking.

IMO, it all boils down to audience. Effective communication skills are predicated on one’s ability to assess and subsequently meet the expectations of one’s audience. The more adroit a person is with this practice in one medium, the more adept s/he is likely to be in another.
I think better answers to this question exist, but I am simply unable to articulate them at this time.

Currently, the reason I blend computer and internet technologies in my writing classes has less to do with the ways in which rhetorical strategies overlap (although I will definitely be exploring that issue in more depth, so I can more effectively blend writing and technology in my classroom instruction and assignments) than the ways in which our electronic communication media can be appropriated for more powerful purposes than just personal communication.

I don’t mind that I was unable to fully and effectively answer the question. I only wish that I had been able to express myself more articulately. I am glad the question was posed. It has given me something to puzzle over and explore in the research in which I am just now immersing myself.

Absent Heroes

I finally made it to the theater yesterday to see Waiting for Superman, a film that both depressed and inspired me. I don't necessarily agree with all the reasons for the failure of the US education system that the film purports. The problem is bigger than crappy teachers. It's dangerous to assign blame in one area when there are so many factors. The film also seems to advocate the banking model of education, which is, in my opinion, part of the problem with US public education. But the overall message of hope is valid. So is the panorama of a drowning system in desperate need of heroes.

US citizens on average cannot compete in a global job market. US students rank 25th in math and 21st in science out of 30 developed nations. In 1993, the average American could read somewhere between a 7th and 8th grade level, and US literacy rates are on the decline not the other way around. President Obama is criticized for being too "professorial" even though speech analysts have ranked his public addresses at a 10th grade level. Should our president be forced to dummy down his speeches, or should statistics like this be a wake up call?

The US education system is failing, and our country will fail as well. Despite the staggering statistics forecasting the downfall of the US's intellectual stature, US citizens have no lack of self-confidence. Our nation is dumber yet more confident than ever before. When will we wake up and realize the nightmare? After 2/3 of US jobs have been filled by more intelligent, more skilled, more competitive applicants from around the world?

Watching this film brought tears to my eyes, but even an ocean of tears will not fix the problem. All I could do was question who I am and all I do. What am I doing to change the world? Everyday, I go to work at Lincoln Land Community College. Everyday, I do all I can to reach a student, to inspire just one of them to fight for their dreams, to fight for success, to fight for their futures. Even though most days feel like failures. After work on Mondays, I leave my students behind, and my daughter and I volunteer for MERCY Communities, hoping that in some small way this meager effort will help these moms turn their lives around for themselves, for their children. But in no way am I doing even close to enough.

I have been told countless times by my colleagues that I am "too invested in my students" and that what we do is "just a job." Is it possible to have too much passion? I don't think so. Teaching is not "just a job," and I will go so far as to say that anyone who feels that way has no business teaching. Teaching is a labor of love. Anything less than that is unacceptable. I teach because I am passionate about learning. Because I am passionate about teaching. Because I am passionate about writing. Because I am passionate about the power that words can give a person. Because I am passionate about the academic and personal success of each and every one of my students. This is the standard I set for myself. It is the standard I expect of anyone who calls him or herself a teacher or any of its synonyms.

Our kids need heroes. We all need heroes. Somewhere, someone is waiting for YOU to be a hero. What the hell are you waiting for? Or will you just be one to point fingers when this nation crumbles because we were all too stupid or selfish to save it?

Just Another Lesson Learned

My second semester teaching, I implemented what I call self-evaluation assignments in my composition classes. I can't recollect what engendered the idea, but I imagine I must have read about someone who assigned something similar. After teaching at UIS one semester, I learned how to use this assignment more effectively and made quite a few changes.

Basically, students reflect on and analyze their writing practices including process, writing strategies, language mechanics, and feedback from readers including myself, classmates, and possibly friends, family, or writing center staff. This is probably the most challenging assignment my students tackle in my first-semester writing courses. Their responses must not only be thorough and thoughtful; they must provide specific examples from their own writing which they analyze in order to support their self-assessments regarding the effectiveness of the writing they produced.

Despite the challenge of this assignment, I believe in its power to transform the way my students think about writing, thus their ability to write effectively. I have noticed an unsurprising trend. Those students who perform well on their self-evaluations--that is, those who actually do the assignment correctly--have made drastic improvements in their ability to write more and more effective prose. Those students who don't take the self-evaluation assignments seriously, have literally made no improvements in their writing skills.

I have done all I can think of to reach a generally apathetic, uninterested, and completely disengaged group of students and have failed to help them see the importance of proficient language skills to their present lives or their futures. Unfortunately for most of them, based on the trends I've seen on their rubrics over the course of the semester, I foresee only a handful of students passing. Perhaps in retrospect, as they struggle to pass this course again next semester, my words will echo in their minds. Perhaps they will work harder to achieve what they are all capable of.

They somehow think minimal effort is enough to get them by. They don't seem to understand that the effort they are putting forward is not even close to the minimum it would take to pass. They see the A's and B's and C's on homework assignments and quizzes and somehow forget that their writing portfolio counts as 60% of their final grade. When most of them are receiving below expectations in most categories on the rubric, I can't even begin to fathom how they have deluded themselves into thinking they're all set to pass the course. Many will be learning a hard but much needed lesson if they don't change their attitude and work ethic asap because what they are currently submitting just isn't cutting it.

Most of [you] hiding

Others are shining

You know when you find it

In your darkest hour, you strike gold

A thought clicks, not the be-all, end-all

Just another lesson learned

Cut & Paste

The cut and paste activity went over very well in COM 112 yesterday. The students who did give me feedback were quite enthusiastic and expressed that the activity helped them see new possibilities they couldn't envision on the computer screen. Exactly what I hoped to accomplish. I can't wait to try it out in COM 111. My morning class will have fun with it.

The students in that class are, for the most part, always actively engaged in the class an ready and willing to learn. They inspire me. I think I teach at my best in that class. The energy I brought to the classroom that first day set the tone of the class for the rest of the semester. If only it could have had that same effect in my afternoon section. I have been wracking my brain trying to figure out how to shake up that last section of the day. I have literally shed tears over it. How can I break through their complacency? The energy in that room is virtually non-existent, and I have exerted all I can.

Other faculty have told me that I am too vested in my students. "If they don't put forth effort, why should you?" For the sake of my own sanity, I might have to give into what I have previously viewed as cynicism. If they don't want to learn, why should I try to force feed it to them? I think from this point forward, that particular class period will be quite short. My lesson plan will consist of presenting the information, asking if they have questions (They won't because 75% of that class refuses to speak at all.), and dismissing class. This will be my own cut and paste experiment this semester. The students who really want to learn can stick around, and I'll paste the energy I cut from the students who don't give a shit into those who do.

Silent Complicity, Silent Resistance: Complacency in the Nontraditional Classroom

Two weeks into the fall semester and I am realizing that I might have my second extreme case of silence on my hands. I am uncomfortable with silence, especially when one voice is silencing others, but even more so when, having internalized the mores of "the academy," voices have silenced themselves so as not to disrupt their comfort of passivity, complicity, and dispassionate movement through what is seen as a required formal education. I understand that the banking model of education most students are used to has trained them in this behavior. I understand that it can be intimidating even downright terrifying to speak one's beliefs and opinions to a group of 20 relative strangers. I understand that some students cannot believe that language has the power I claim it does. But I'm not sure that is even the source of their rejection of my pedagogy. They seem to not care that they don't have power. Or perhaps they believe they already possess all the power they need. I fear the day they learn otherwise.

I have been thinking about this since the first day of class. I am concerned. I don't know what else to do, how else to engage them. I suppose ultimately I cannot bear the full responsibility of their lack of engagement. I cannot force them to choose to want more from their education.

I just finished bell hooks' Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom, and she helped me better understand if not accept students' attitudes toward engaged pedagogy:

* * *

We inhabit real institutions, where very little seems to be changed, where there are very few changes in the curriculum, almost no paradigm shifts, and where knowledge and information continue to be presented in the conventionally accepted manner. [...] What's really scary is that the negative critique of progressive pedagogy affects us--makes us afraid to change--to try new strategies. [...] When students did not appear to "respect their authority" they felt these practices were faulty, unreliable, and returned to traditional practices. Of course, they should have expected that students who have had a more conventional education would be threatened by and even resist teaching practices which insist that students participate in education and not be passive consumers.

That's very difficult to communicate to students because many of them are already convinced that they cannot respond to appeals that they be engaged in the classroom, because they've already been trained to view themselves as not the ones in authority, not the ones with legitimacy. To acknowledge student responsibility for the learning process is to place it where it's least legitimate in their own eyes. When we try to change the classroom so that there is a sense of mutual responsibility for learning, students get scared that you are now not the captain working with them, but that you are after all just another crew member--and not a reliable one at that.

To educate for freedom, then, we have to challenge and change the way everyone thinks about pedagogical process. This is especially true for students. Before we try to engage them in a dialogical discussion of ideas that is mutual, we have to teach about process. (144-5)

* * *

In writing about her "failure" to create such a classroom experience one semester, hooks affirms,

That failure was heartbreaking for me. It was hard to accept that I was not able to control the direction our classroom was moving in. I would think, "What can I do? And what could I have done?" And I kept reminding myself that I couldn't do it alone, that forty other people were also in there. (183)

I hope that Project 2 works toward changing their minds about education. We will watch a movie that avers the model of students as teachers. I cannot begin to count the number of times I've heard students bitch about their college experience--the content of their classes, instructional methods, graduation requirements...the list could go on and on--but when confronted with the idea of a radical paradigm shift in higher education that would require them to take on the primary responsibility of their education, they are completely unwilling to accept such power and are instead completely content to give others power over them and what they learn. Their unquestioning willingness to divest themselves of power disturbs me greatly. And I don't know how to open their eyes.