Never again will I complain that teachers are not teaching my students how to write, and neither should you. If you are a prof in another discipline and have ever said, "what do those English teachers *do* over there all day? Did these students somehow escape the required composition classes?" then read on.
I have 3 students who have followed me from first semester composition over to intro-to-lit this semester, and they are 3 students who I quite like and who did fine, although they were not my best writers or smartest thinkers. Not having a bad memory, I remember perfectly well what days they were in class (pretty much all of them) and can even remember what they said on these specific class days. There's no reason I should be hearing, "wait, the homework should be typed?" or "what do you mean, a thesis," or "I don't know how to use those parenthesis things; I've never seen them before." Arrrrgh! Of course everything must be typed and I remember you using and discussing all of these things last semester!
In other news, there is such a huge difference between accidentally grabbing and starting with the two best papers in the stack and the two worst. Whew, I hope these are the worst. I handed back the intro to lit papers within a week and the whole process was pretty enjoyable. The first semester comp? Ugh --- I got through about 8 yesterday (after having a mini-crisis that I have failed as a teacher, after those first two essays) but did nothing grading-related today. I am going to be hating myself all this week because of that. It didn't help that it was absolutely beautiful outside today and all the birds are back doing their lovely squawks and chirps and my back balcony was just a marvelous place to be.
And if the springitis is this bad for me ... oogh I don't want to wrestle these students into compliance.
2 comments:
To your first two paragraphs -- I just have to say, "Yep." I've had that same experience.
No worry about springitis. It's supposed to rain tomorrow...
Post a Comment