Annabelle was my first student of the day, and today's session was pretty easy as she hadn't actually done any work to speak of since the last time. I repeated a lot of what I'd said before, and in a departure from usual, she left before the 45-minutes were up. Not by much, but even so: that ten or fifteen minutes was nice to have. My second student was someone I'd seen once before; I can't come up with a specific moniker for him, as he's essentially a generic "not ready for college language immersion" student. In fact, today I wasn't entirely sure why he came in to see me: he didn't have any particular questions, and what he really needs is simply to use his awareness of the mistakes he most typically makes in order to go back through his essays and work to correct them. He was distressed because he had done some practice writing at home, a situation in which he had plenty of time, and he made more mistakes in that writing than he did in the practice exams he'd done in class under time pressure. I explained that he probably didn't apply the same concentrated focus to the work at home, ironically precisely because he had plenty of time. But I had no magic solution for him: he just needs to keep practicing. I explained the learning trajectory to him; I can't recall if I'd talked with him about it before, but I know I've said it to other ESL students--though it applies to all students who are struggling with grammar or punctuation rules. The first stage is, you don't know you're making the mistake. The second stage is that you know you make the mistake, but you keep on making it. The third is that you make the mistakes but catch and correct them. And if you're lucky, you get to the stage when you no longer make the mistakes at all. (Suddenly, I think of my experience learning to play fiddle: exact same trajectory, though I am not at all sure I will ever get to that fourth stage.) I think a lot of English Language Learners think that they shouldn't experience the second and third stages but should somehow pole-vault directly to stage four, so a lot of my job is to reassure them that the mistakes are normal and are part of a learning process--and that learning a new language takes a lot of time. That applies to native speakers of English who have never learned "standard" English--or, more narrowly, academic English. It's like an entirely new language for them, and it takes a while to master.
Getting back to Annabelle, however: I realize that she is a classic case of a specific kind of student with whom my colleagues and I are all too familiar. She can only see generalizations, not subtle but specific differences. Forests, not trees. More to the point, she (and students like her) can't even tell that a forest is made up of a lot of individual trees: it's just one big, solid entity to them, and when we say, "Yes, but look at the fact that this is a forest that has a lot of oak trees, whereas this one has more poplars" or whatever, they get very dismissive: "Whatever. Trees. Forest. All the same thing."
And I am thinking about that because it occurs to me to wonder why some people seem interested in and excited by finding out that there are all those differences and others simply do not want to go there, at all, ever--and sometimes just won't, no matter what their refusal does to their academic progress. I don't think it's a kind of fear; many forms of apparent resistance are fears of one sort or another, but this doesn't feel like a fear issue to me. What could be scary about seeing more and more and more details? So maybe this is a case when it comes down to sheer laziness. My colleagues often accuse students of being lazy when I think something more profound is going on, but it is true that it requires some mental effort to get into particulars and minutiae, and some people just don't want to exert the effort. That baffles me because I have an innate sense that delving into that kind of mental work can be intensely pleasurable, and it's hard for me to truly believe that other people don't find the pleasure in it at all. But I think that's the case. I can certainly think of parallels, things that require a kind of effort that I do not find pleasurable in the least but that other people find deeply gratifying (working up a sweat and getting the heart pounding doing any form of physical exercise other than swimming, for instance). Still, people who really, truly do not find any enjoyment in the exercise of their mental muscles probably don't belong in college: there are other ways they can find pleasure in exerting themselves that can still lead to gainful employment.
This I guess gets into the argument about the purpose and value of a college education. And all my readers know that I am a firm and unwavering advocate of the mental expansion that is the prime purpose and result of a liberal arts education. But I'll dismount that particular hobby horse for now: I can gallop around on it some other time.
As it happens, today ends my week in the Center: I won't be in on Thursday because I had to schedule a routine doctor's appointment but the only time that I could do was a Thursday in the middle of my usual work day. But this is what those days of sick leave are for, I reckon. At least, that's what I'm going to use it for; this will be the second of three possible days of sick leave that I got, so why not. So, my faithful readers, please don't go away simply because there will be a spell of no new posts. I'll be back posting on Monday--and I suppose there's the outside chance I'll end up doing some of my freelance tutoring later in the week (though that seems to have dried up for the time being), and if there is, well, maybe I'll post. But whatever transpires, good lord willin' and all that, I'll be back here posting away next week.
Tuesday, April 30, 2019
Monday, April 29, 2019
First six-appointment day
Even though there was a cancellation and a no-show, drop-ins filled in the blanks, so I ended up actually seeing six students today. It still wasn't quite as breathless a day as it might have been, as two of the appointments were significantly under the 45 minutes allotted to them. And none of the appointments was difficult, either in terms of the level of help needed or the student's attitude.
Reading the reports prior to each meeting, I saw that one student had been flagged as a bit of a problem, being a student who has a very hard time grasping what's required, but she was in such an early stage of her assignment--and the assignment was so open-ended--I didn't have a problem with her. I am again surprised by a colleague's assignment: research anything you want, find one source, write a summary that includes two quotations...? I see this as staging toward a more structured assignment, but "anything you want" is so huge, and our students so unaware of what their interests actually are, what may seem like a wonderful invitation to explore instead equates to paralysis. That was the case with this student. I asked her what she was interested in, and at first she said, "Nothing." "Ah, c'mon. You're interested in something. Everyone is." A little poking and prodding turned up the fact that she is interested in becoming an occupational therapist--though she has zero clue what that entails--and she always liked history. So that session ended up being a tutorial on how to use research to generate a topic, and then how to use research to find out more about a topic once something has caught one's attention.
The only repeat student I had today was the Grammatician (and I had to scroll back through old posts to find the moniker I'd attached to him). His English is progressing rapidly, so we're getting to the point where I can begin to talk more about ideas with him, rather than focusing entirely on ESL concerns. One of the things I love about him is that he's willing to challenge himself: he wanted to try out a new transition word and selected "likewise"--which he used perfectly. He also tried out a phrase he wasn't sure would work: "lack of sleep." Perfect. He's really a pleasure to work with. Smart, focused, excellent work ethic.
I had another of those students from the "How to Be a College Student" class, who just needed me to review his essay and sign off on the fact that he'd attended--but he was actually happy to get some corrections to his work this time (mostly ESL stuff). The writing was very simplistic, but given his placement levels, he was well within the expected parameters.
One student--from an honors class--only needed about five minutes of my time, to understand how to cite a play, specifically one without line numbers. Slightly embarrassing confession: I had to look it up. But I could talk to her about how to quote dialog, which made me feel slightly less inept.
Another very bright student showed up with an essay that is an extra credit assignment for an Interpersonal Communications class. She has great ideas, but they didn't all make it on to the page, so there were places where connections were unclear. Once I asked her to riff on the point a little, though, she clearly knew what the connections were, so, well, there you go: put them in your essay. I talked to her about process, using my fish tank analogy--and possibly for the first time in my career, the analogy made sense to someone. (For those who may not have heard it before, the analogy goes like this: Your mind is like a huge tank filled with tropical fish swimming around. But they keep moving, so you can't keep track of them or get them organized. You need to reach in, grab any fish at all, and slap it down on the page. It will flop around for a while, but eventually it will hold still. And you do that until all the fish are out of the tank and on the page. Then you can step back and take a look at them all, because they'll hold still: you can decide which ones you don't need, which ones belong together, where maybe you need to go out and find a few more fish to fill in a blank. But until you get them onto paper where you can look at them without them moving around, you can't make those determinations.)
The only student I have yet to talk about was a drop in (he took the place of someone who should be banned from the Center for having been a no-show twice in one semester--in fact, counting today, three times in one semester). He was working on revising an essay about Susan Glaspell's Trifles. Good ideas, needed some development and clarification--but I mostly talked about his essay in the abstract, as he hadn't had a chance to actually do any of the revising yet. I hope he comes back tomorrow, even though my appointment times won't work for him, so someone can go over what he comes up with as he revises.
And that's the story for today. At the moment, my docket is filled with returnees tomorrow: Annabelle, plus two more for whom I don't think I've provided monikers yet. We'll see how that goes. But I have to say, I'm kinda sick of working with Annabelle and wish she'd go find another tutor. But ah well. The weeks are rapidly ticking toward the end of semester, and then none of these students will be on my radar at all any more. Weird to contemplate (and yes, I just had a little rush of anxiety at the thought of severing that last tie to this work, at least here at NCC). But we're not there yet.
Reading the reports prior to each meeting, I saw that one student had been flagged as a bit of a problem, being a student who has a very hard time grasping what's required, but she was in such an early stage of her assignment--and the assignment was so open-ended--I didn't have a problem with her. I am again surprised by a colleague's assignment: research anything you want, find one source, write a summary that includes two quotations...? I see this as staging toward a more structured assignment, but "anything you want" is so huge, and our students so unaware of what their interests actually are, what may seem like a wonderful invitation to explore instead equates to paralysis. That was the case with this student. I asked her what she was interested in, and at first she said, "Nothing." "Ah, c'mon. You're interested in something. Everyone is." A little poking and prodding turned up the fact that she is interested in becoming an occupational therapist--though she has zero clue what that entails--and she always liked history. So that session ended up being a tutorial on how to use research to generate a topic, and then how to use research to find out more about a topic once something has caught one's attention.
The only repeat student I had today was the Grammatician (and I had to scroll back through old posts to find the moniker I'd attached to him). His English is progressing rapidly, so we're getting to the point where I can begin to talk more about ideas with him, rather than focusing entirely on ESL concerns. One of the things I love about him is that he's willing to challenge himself: he wanted to try out a new transition word and selected "likewise"--which he used perfectly. He also tried out a phrase he wasn't sure would work: "lack of sleep." Perfect. He's really a pleasure to work with. Smart, focused, excellent work ethic.
I had another of those students from the "How to Be a College Student" class, who just needed me to review his essay and sign off on the fact that he'd attended--but he was actually happy to get some corrections to his work this time (mostly ESL stuff). The writing was very simplistic, but given his placement levels, he was well within the expected parameters.
One student--from an honors class--only needed about five minutes of my time, to understand how to cite a play, specifically one without line numbers. Slightly embarrassing confession: I had to look it up. But I could talk to her about how to quote dialog, which made me feel slightly less inept.
Another very bright student showed up with an essay that is an extra credit assignment for an Interpersonal Communications class. She has great ideas, but they didn't all make it on to the page, so there were places where connections were unclear. Once I asked her to riff on the point a little, though, she clearly knew what the connections were, so, well, there you go: put them in your essay. I talked to her about process, using my fish tank analogy--and possibly for the first time in my career, the analogy made sense to someone. (For those who may not have heard it before, the analogy goes like this: Your mind is like a huge tank filled with tropical fish swimming around. But they keep moving, so you can't keep track of them or get them organized. You need to reach in, grab any fish at all, and slap it down on the page. It will flop around for a while, but eventually it will hold still. And you do that until all the fish are out of the tank and on the page. Then you can step back and take a look at them all, because they'll hold still: you can decide which ones you don't need, which ones belong together, where maybe you need to go out and find a few more fish to fill in a blank. But until you get them onto paper where you can look at them without them moving around, you can't make those determinations.)
The only student I have yet to talk about was a drop in (he took the place of someone who should be banned from the Center for having been a no-show twice in one semester--in fact, counting today, three times in one semester). He was working on revising an essay about Susan Glaspell's Trifles. Good ideas, needed some development and clarification--but I mostly talked about his essay in the abstract, as he hadn't had a chance to actually do any of the revising yet. I hope he comes back tomorrow, even though my appointment times won't work for him, so someone can go over what he comes up with as he revises.
And that's the story for today. At the moment, my docket is filled with returnees tomorrow: Annabelle, plus two more for whom I don't think I've provided monikers yet. We'll see how that goes. But I have to say, I'm kinda sick of working with Annabelle and wish she'd go find another tutor. But ah well. The weeks are rapidly ticking toward the end of semester, and then none of these students will be on my radar at all any more. Weird to contemplate (and yes, I just had a little rush of anxiety at the thought of severing that last tie to this work, at least here at NCC). But we're not there yet.
Thursday, April 25, 2019
Ah, the quickies and the no shows...
Looking at my schedule this morning was a bit daunting: all six of my appointment slots were booked. However, I remained undaunted, as I knew there was a good chance not all of the students would actually show up, and that was, in fact, what transpired. Further, the first two appointments were very quick: the students only used a fraction of their allotted time, so I got good down time between appointments. One student didn't show--but his was a sort of provisional appointment in any event: I'd worked with him earlier in the week, and he said he might come back in. He didn't. Fair enough.
The only slight collision was with my last two appointments: the second-to-last student was late to start with and then wanted to look at his document on my computer. Some of my colleagues here allow that, but I don't, so he had to go print what he had. He seemed very slow to process things, though I think he's actually pretty intelligent; the wheels just move slowly. But he was in my cubicle five minutes longer than he should have been. I was concerned about the next student, but fortunately that student didn't seem to care.
In fact, that final student sort of didn't seem to care about the whole process, though I think that was a cover for some real discouragement. His essay got a D, which was clearly a serious ouch to him--but it was chaotic and disorganized, and he had missed a refinement on the assignment that stated a focus he was missing, at least in his introduction.
With both of those students--and with the other who used her entire appointment time--my work was the same: I talked with them about how to clarify their ideas, how to use evidence, and how to revise. The one who seemed slowest actually seemed to have the best grasp of what he needed to do, once I explained, but in his case and in the case of the young woman I helped, I was surprised by their professors' comments. In his case, the professor didn't point out that he didn't really have a thesis, which I thought was odd. In the case of the young woman I helped, her professor didn't point out the fact that the student's essay was essentially a pastiche of huge generalizations--and didn't even clarify which of two poems was being discussed in each paragraph. The feedback on the final student's essay was more precise; in fact, she provided a check-list (things like, "topic is clearly stated: yes, no," "includes at least three quotations from different sources: yes, no")--and, unfortunately, a lot of the "no" categories were checked.
I like it when I spend most of an appointment talking about ideas instead of hacking through GSP (grammar, spelling, punctuation). And I like it when I can talk about process: how to approach the tasks involved in getting from point A to point B in writing or, especially, revising. I also am glad to see that so many students are either being allowed or required to revise: that's one of the department's stated goals, and in the past it was more frequently honored in the breach, as the saying goes. I used to tell my students that revision was probably the most important thing I could teach them--it being part of understanding writing as a process--and I'm glad to see so many students having to grapple with that particular monster. Revising is hard. It can also be delicious, but it is anything but easy.
In any event, that's it for me for this week. My logging of appointments has been done, and now I can toddle off into the weekend. Very strange to be so close to the finish line here. It will be interesting to see if the sudden up-tick in number of appointments continues to occur. My hunch is it will--but so will the number of cancellations and no-shows.
The only slight collision was with my last two appointments: the second-to-last student was late to start with and then wanted to look at his document on my computer. Some of my colleagues here allow that, but I don't, so he had to go print what he had. He seemed very slow to process things, though I think he's actually pretty intelligent; the wheels just move slowly. But he was in my cubicle five minutes longer than he should have been. I was concerned about the next student, but fortunately that student didn't seem to care.
In fact, that final student sort of didn't seem to care about the whole process, though I think that was a cover for some real discouragement. His essay got a D, which was clearly a serious ouch to him--but it was chaotic and disorganized, and he had missed a refinement on the assignment that stated a focus he was missing, at least in his introduction.
With both of those students--and with the other who used her entire appointment time--my work was the same: I talked with them about how to clarify their ideas, how to use evidence, and how to revise. The one who seemed slowest actually seemed to have the best grasp of what he needed to do, once I explained, but in his case and in the case of the young woman I helped, I was surprised by their professors' comments. In his case, the professor didn't point out that he didn't really have a thesis, which I thought was odd. In the case of the young woman I helped, her professor didn't point out the fact that the student's essay was essentially a pastiche of huge generalizations--and didn't even clarify which of two poems was being discussed in each paragraph. The feedback on the final student's essay was more precise; in fact, she provided a check-list (things like, "topic is clearly stated: yes, no," "includes at least three quotations from different sources: yes, no")--and, unfortunately, a lot of the "no" categories were checked.
I like it when I spend most of an appointment talking about ideas instead of hacking through GSP (grammar, spelling, punctuation). And I like it when I can talk about process: how to approach the tasks involved in getting from point A to point B in writing or, especially, revising. I also am glad to see that so many students are either being allowed or required to revise: that's one of the department's stated goals, and in the past it was more frequently honored in the breach, as the saying goes. I used to tell my students that revision was probably the most important thing I could teach them--it being part of understanding writing as a process--and I'm glad to see so many students having to grapple with that particular monster. Revising is hard. It can also be delicious, but it is anything but easy.
In any event, that's it for me for this week. My logging of appointments has been done, and now I can toddle off into the weekend. Very strange to be so close to the finish line here. It will be interesting to see if the sudden up-tick in number of appointments continues to occur. My hunch is it will--but so will the number of cancellations and no-shows.
Tuesday, April 23, 2019
Ah, the drop in...
The day started with Annabelle, but today's frustration with her was different: she had latched on to a very superficial--and actually somewhat incorrect--understanding of one of the key readings for her "argument" essay; that "understanding" in turn led her to a very shallow (and consequently disorganized) wandering through what was at best a minor side point in one of the readings. I confess I hadn't read the article to which she was responding--though the author based his argument on Le Guin's parable "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas," which of course I know extremely well--but today I realized I needed to skim through it at least, and ... oops. But prying her loose from that understanding, even though it was as shaky as it was, turned out to be a bit of a challenge. Of course, the harder part is that she now essentially has to reconsider her entire "argument," such as it was. I have to say, too, that I find the assignment extremely challenging: I'm not sure I'd know how to make an "argument" from the two readings, what there is to actually argue, unless one gets into some pretty profound philosophical territory, which I think is beyond 99.9% of our students (though from that remaining .1%, the results would be wonderful).
This is not the first time that I've encountered an assignment created by one of my colleagues that has brought me up a bit short, as I thought, "Shit: I'd have a hard time with this one; how am I supposed to help a student understand it?"
Well, whatever. I did what I could for Annabelle. Of course, at the end of the session, once again she was complaining about how "everything is piling up" and "there's so much work." Yep. Welcome to college.
One of my appointments canceled, so I only had one other student scheduled, and I was a bit at a loss again in how to help him. I don't know what the professor actually provided, but the student said that he had no prompt or instructions for the assignment, no guidance about the kind of research ... I'm not even entirely sure how he knew what the ostensible topic was for his essay. He had, at this point, zero--but being a relatively intelligent young man, he at least was in to get help more than two weeks before the assignment is due, so he has time to work on it. I suggested he do a little research to see what's out there--and I gave him the quickie tutorial on how to use the databases--but that he mostly just write out his ideas about the story and the character in question, no judgments about the value of ideas, no organization, just pour stuff out onto the page, and then figure out how to start his essay, where to use his research and so on.
He didn't want to spend long--I think I was with him for about 15 minutes, tops--so I thought I'd have the remainder of my time here to just noodle, but no: a drop in. And of course, that turned out to be the most challenging appointment of the day. He wanted help with an extra credit assignment for a history class, reporting on a museum visit, and he wanted me to provide him with specific rules about how to handle illustrations (I drew more on my Met experience than any MLA rules and regs for that) and where he should put the document proving that he actually had been to the museum, a situation for which there obviously are zero rules. I had to struggle with him even over how MLA documentation works, the fact that in-text citations need to match the first words of the corresponding entry on a works cited or bibliography page. At first, I didn't bother to tell him that he had centered the entries on his works cited; he was exercised enough about the need to provide information keying the photographs he'd taken to the text and to the "captions" he'd created. In his hyper state, he could only manage making one kind of change at a time.
He really wanted to sit with me at my computer to make the changes with me, but I said no to that idea. But he wanted to make the changes right that minute, and he asked me to look at it all again when he had the changes made. OK, no one else was claiming my time, so I was willing to do that--and then he proceeded to periodically pop out of the lab next door to ask me questions about formatting, organization, and so on. I helped him fix some of those things--but then he wanted me to look at his final essay "really quickly." I asked him exactly what he wanted me to look at, and first he said format--it took a while for me to make clear that just because the professor didn't want sources, only the student's "critical thinking," that didn't mean it wasn't MLA format. Then he said no, really what he wanted was help "crunching down" his ideas--and I had to explain that that would not be "quick": if he wants help with that, he needs to set up a full-length appointment with someone. He was disappointed that in the final 15 minutes of my day here I couldn't take care of that with him, but, uh, no. It will be interesting to see if he comes back.
Still, even that annoyance was pretty minor in the grand scheme of things. In fact, even the Hostile Wall--whom I have not seen in ages, I'm happy to say--is a pretty minor annoyance for me, in the grand scheme of things. (For poor Kristin, the Hostile Wall is a significant annoyance--to put it mildly--but I can empathize and then head off whistling, care free.) This really is for the most part a delightfully stress-free gig.
At the moment, my Thursday docket is pretty full: across the board, there are fewer blank spaces, a state that is somewhat overdue, in my estimation--but I think students are having the realization that 1. they might need to do something specific to improve their grades and 2. there isn't much time left in which to do that something. They still aren't thinking very far ahead--a day or two at most--but still: we're going to be more crunched than we've been yet in the next few weeks, even with cancellations and no-shows. That's fine by me.
This is not the first time that I've encountered an assignment created by one of my colleagues that has brought me up a bit short, as I thought, "Shit: I'd have a hard time with this one; how am I supposed to help a student understand it?"
Well, whatever. I did what I could for Annabelle. Of course, at the end of the session, once again she was complaining about how "everything is piling up" and "there's so much work." Yep. Welcome to college.
One of my appointments canceled, so I only had one other student scheduled, and I was a bit at a loss again in how to help him. I don't know what the professor actually provided, but the student said that he had no prompt or instructions for the assignment, no guidance about the kind of research ... I'm not even entirely sure how he knew what the ostensible topic was for his essay. He had, at this point, zero--but being a relatively intelligent young man, he at least was in to get help more than two weeks before the assignment is due, so he has time to work on it. I suggested he do a little research to see what's out there--and I gave him the quickie tutorial on how to use the databases--but that he mostly just write out his ideas about the story and the character in question, no judgments about the value of ideas, no organization, just pour stuff out onto the page, and then figure out how to start his essay, where to use his research and so on.
He didn't want to spend long--I think I was with him for about 15 minutes, tops--so I thought I'd have the remainder of my time here to just noodle, but no: a drop in. And of course, that turned out to be the most challenging appointment of the day. He wanted help with an extra credit assignment for a history class, reporting on a museum visit, and he wanted me to provide him with specific rules about how to handle illustrations (I drew more on my Met experience than any MLA rules and regs for that) and where he should put the document proving that he actually had been to the museum, a situation for which there obviously are zero rules. I had to struggle with him even over how MLA documentation works, the fact that in-text citations need to match the first words of the corresponding entry on a works cited or bibliography page. At first, I didn't bother to tell him that he had centered the entries on his works cited; he was exercised enough about the need to provide information keying the photographs he'd taken to the text and to the "captions" he'd created. In his hyper state, he could only manage making one kind of change at a time.
He really wanted to sit with me at my computer to make the changes with me, but I said no to that idea. But he wanted to make the changes right that minute, and he asked me to look at it all again when he had the changes made. OK, no one else was claiming my time, so I was willing to do that--and then he proceeded to periodically pop out of the lab next door to ask me questions about formatting, organization, and so on. I helped him fix some of those things--but then he wanted me to look at his final essay "really quickly." I asked him exactly what he wanted me to look at, and first he said format--it took a while for me to make clear that just because the professor didn't want sources, only the student's "critical thinking," that didn't mean it wasn't MLA format. Then he said no, really what he wanted was help "crunching down" his ideas--and I had to explain that that would not be "quick": if he wants help with that, he needs to set up a full-length appointment with someone. He was disappointed that in the final 15 minutes of my day here I couldn't take care of that with him, but, uh, no. It will be interesting to see if he comes back.
Still, even that annoyance was pretty minor in the grand scheme of things. In fact, even the Hostile Wall--whom I have not seen in ages, I'm happy to say--is a pretty minor annoyance for me, in the grand scheme of things. (For poor Kristin, the Hostile Wall is a significant annoyance--to put it mildly--but I can empathize and then head off whistling, care free.) This really is for the most part a delightfully stress-free gig.
At the moment, my Thursday docket is pretty full: across the board, there are fewer blank spaces, a state that is somewhat overdue, in my estimation--but I think students are having the realization that 1. they might need to do something specific to improve their grades and 2. there isn't much time left in which to do that something. They still aren't thinking very far ahead--a day or two at most--but still: we're going to be more crunched than we've been yet in the next few weeks, even with cancellations and no-shows. That's fine by me.
Monday, April 22, 2019
Back from spring break
My first day back turned out to be a relatively busy one, thanks to some drop-in appointments: five students on my docket, so only one unused appointment. All but one were new to me, and they ranged from someone still in the "not ready for admission to the college" ESL program to two students who are in 102. Actually one of those, the one returnee, is in Kristin's 109, which is the honors version of comp 2. He is one of those students who clearly got into the honors program based on something other than his facility with language or his sensitivity to literature. That's not unknown: the last time I taught an honors class, I had several students who were woefully below honors standards in terms of their writing or reading skills.
I haven't come up with a moniker for this particular student yet. He's an interesting case: he started out very defensive about his work, at least with me, though he's seen other tutors and no one else has reported that defensiveness--though that doesn't mean he wasn't; it could just mean the tutors didn't think it worth reporting. I will say that he demonstrates honors quality in his determination to improve: he's been in to the Center sixteen times this semester, which means that in an number of weeks he's been here twice. In any event, the defensiveness has vanished: he knows where he needs help. We spent some time coming up with examples from Steinbeck's story "Chrysanthemums" that would support the student's points--which actually meant clarifying his points. He's still at the stage in his reading (of literature, at least) in which drawing inferences from subtle details doesn't come readily to him. He needed lots of questioning from me to understand why he had the ideas he had, what bits of the text led to the things that seemed to be so. For instance, he wanted to prove that the main character felt lonely--but he could only see evidence in the later parts of the story, so we went over the earlier parts, which is actually where her loneliness is established. It was one of those experiences I just love, when suddenly ideas would click together for him, and his face would light up. His ideas--and the way he expresses them--are still very simplistic, but that's OK. The main thing is that he's aware of what he needs, and he's trying.
Backing up, the first student of the day was a trifle annoying--not because of the student but because of the reason for his appointment. He's in a sort of "intro to college" course that is recommended for everyone but required for students who place into two or more remedial courses. His assignment was simply to have someone from the Center "review" his essay and sign a paper attesting to that fact. His essay was written pretty well, so it wasn't painful to read. My annoyance arose because 1. he didn't want any corrections or suggestions: he just wanted me to sign his piece of paper and 2. the professor's assignment essentially asks just that of whatever tutor sees students from that class: my knowledge/expertise were not required, just that I read something--or even skim it (because "review" could mean a lot of different things)--and sign a piece of paper. Easy, yes, but I don't like being used essentially as a rubber stamp.
That student may be back, actually--or so he said when he was leaving--and if he is, that will be ... interesting. He clearly is "on the spectrum" somewhere: very smart but, well, odd. What wasn't odd was the fact that he had an excuse for every error I found and told him he needed to correct: that's incredibly common student behavior.
Backing up a bit, and while I'm grousing about what professors require of their students and therefore, by extension, of us here in the Center: I understand that we "should" be able to turn students in 102 loose on research using the databases, as ostensibly they were introduced to that kind of research in 101, but to tell students they need to do that kind of research without providing any kind of tutorial or lesson on how to do it is really expecting way too much. Even students who were introduced to database research in 101 would need reminders--and help doing research specifically on literature--but more to the point, and more galling yet true, we can't assume that whoever the student had in 101 actually required that kind of research. One of the students I saw today needed help understanding how to turn topic statements into research questions--but then it turned out she had absolutely zero clue about how to do database research. I can't tell you how many students I've had to show the ropes in that regard.
My final student--also in a 102--was a drop-in. He'll be meeting with his professor tomorrow, and it's a good thing: he was describing scenes in A Glass Menagerie to show conflict--but that wasn't the purpose or focus of the essay assignment. He kept saying "OK" as I told him what was missing/what was needed, but I have sincere doubts whether he understood what I meant. Perhaps his professor can be more beneficial. I mostly simply felt relieved that the appointment was short; I wasn't annoyed by the student in the least, but what he had to show needed so much work there was little I could say--and if he didn't have questions, I couldn't do much more than point out the fact that nothing was adding up to anything.
So, that was today. Tomorrow, I already have an almost-full docket, starting the day with Annabelle. I don't know which assignment she'll be working on: her argument essay or her research paper. Either way, I anticipate the usual trying to keep her on track. The other students currently scheduled are new to me--and one of them is new to the Center. So we'll see what that's like.
Perhaps the strangest realization of the day is that I will only be here four more Mondays--and, after this week, only three more Tuesdays and Thursdays. Excuse me while I have a small panic attack about the cessation of the regular influx of funds. And actually, I will be a bit sad to say goodbye to this work. It's been good to and for me. I'm not sure how much I'll miss it once I'm moving on with the rest of my retired life, but I do wish I could take it with me.
I haven't come up with a moniker for this particular student yet. He's an interesting case: he started out very defensive about his work, at least with me, though he's seen other tutors and no one else has reported that defensiveness--though that doesn't mean he wasn't; it could just mean the tutors didn't think it worth reporting. I will say that he demonstrates honors quality in his determination to improve: he's been in to the Center sixteen times this semester, which means that in an number of weeks he's been here twice. In any event, the defensiveness has vanished: he knows where he needs help. We spent some time coming up with examples from Steinbeck's story "Chrysanthemums" that would support the student's points--which actually meant clarifying his points. He's still at the stage in his reading (of literature, at least) in which drawing inferences from subtle details doesn't come readily to him. He needed lots of questioning from me to understand why he had the ideas he had, what bits of the text led to the things that seemed to be so. For instance, he wanted to prove that the main character felt lonely--but he could only see evidence in the later parts of the story, so we went over the earlier parts, which is actually where her loneliness is established. It was one of those experiences I just love, when suddenly ideas would click together for him, and his face would light up. His ideas--and the way he expresses them--are still very simplistic, but that's OK. The main thing is that he's aware of what he needs, and he's trying.
Backing up, the first student of the day was a trifle annoying--not because of the student but because of the reason for his appointment. He's in a sort of "intro to college" course that is recommended for everyone but required for students who place into two or more remedial courses. His assignment was simply to have someone from the Center "review" his essay and sign a paper attesting to that fact. His essay was written pretty well, so it wasn't painful to read. My annoyance arose because 1. he didn't want any corrections or suggestions: he just wanted me to sign his piece of paper and 2. the professor's assignment essentially asks just that of whatever tutor sees students from that class: my knowledge/expertise were not required, just that I read something--or even skim it (because "review" could mean a lot of different things)--and sign a piece of paper. Easy, yes, but I don't like being used essentially as a rubber stamp.
That student may be back, actually--or so he said when he was leaving--and if he is, that will be ... interesting. He clearly is "on the spectrum" somewhere: very smart but, well, odd. What wasn't odd was the fact that he had an excuse for every error I found and told him he needed to correct: that's incredibly common student behavior.
Backing up a bit, and while I'm grousing about what professors require of their students and therefore, by extension, of us here in the Center: I understand that we "should" be able to turn students in 102 loose on research using the databases, as ostensibly they were introduced to that kind of research in 101, but to tell students they need to do that kind of research without providing any kind of tutorial or lesson on how to do it is really expecting way too much. Even students who were introduced to database research in 101 would need reminders--and help doing research specifically on literature--but more to the point, and more galling yet true, we can't assume that whoever the student had in 101 actually required that kind of research. One of the students I saw today needed help understanding how to turn topic statements into research questions--but then it turned out she had absolutely zero clue about how to do database research. I can't tell you how many students I've had to show the ropes in that regard.
My final student--also in a 102--was a drop-in. He'll be meeting with his professor tomorrow, and it's a good thing: he was describing scenes in A Glass Menagerie to show conflict--but that wasn't the purpose or focus of the essay assignment. He kept saying "OK" as I told him what was missing/what was needed, but I have sincere doubts whether he understood what I meant. Perhaps his professor can be more beneficial. I mostly simply felt relieved that the appointment was short; I wasn't annoyed by the student in the least, but what he had to show needed so much work there was little I could say--and if he didn't have questions, I couldn't do much more than point out the fact that nothing was adding up to anything.
So, that was today. Tomorrow, I already have an almost-full docket, starting the day with Annabelle. I don't know which assignment she'll be working on: her argument essay or her research paper. Either way, I anticipate the usual trying to keep her on track. The other students currently scheduled are new to me--and one of them is new to the Center. So we'll see what that's like.
Perhaps the strangest realization of the day is that I will only be here four more Mondays--and, after this week, only three more Tuesdays and Thursdays. Excuse me while I have a small panic attack about the cessation of the regular influx of funds. And actually, I will be a bit sad to say goodbye to this work. It's been good to and for me. I'm not sure how much I'll miss it once I'm moving on with the rest of my retired life, but I do wish I could take it with me.
Thursday, April 11, 2019
Oh dear
Last student of the day was a sad case. She comes to the Center a lot, and I mean a lot: she's broken the "one appointment and one drop-in per week" rule by a long shot on at least one occasion. It was interesting to go back through other tutors' notes about those appointments. Some were "Yay, she's set to go!" and others were "Omigod, she can't do anything." I found myself more in agreement with the latter view: she clearly wants to do well, but getting her to think beyond the most absolutely superficial statements of fact is an exercise in frustration and probably in futility. We were working on the poem "Sympathy," by Paul Laurence Dunbar, and I was trying to get her to think more deeply than just the "cage = slavery" idea. I asked why a bird not some other animal, like a lion. She said because a bird can fly, and a lion can only walk. OK: so what's important about the ability to fly? She said something marginally useful--but then she read back what she'd entered into the paper on her computer: "He writes about a bird because a bird can fly and a lion can only walk." Uh, no: that was just an example, Sweetie. You need to have the idea about the bird.
I wrote out some questions for her to try to answer but her chances of being able to answer them in any coherent way are pretty slim, I think. I don't think she's lazy; after all, she keeps coming to the Center. I believe she simply doesn't know how to think, and although I hate to say it, she simply may not be capable of thought on the kind of level we expect in college. Not everyone is.
My second student of the day was another case along those lines. His case was not quite as severe, but he also didn't quite understand that the evidence he provides needs to actually be evidence with a purpose--and that purpose needs to be to prove a case that he is going to make. He fulfilled the basic parameters of the assignment in using the number and type of sources he was required to use, but he did not understand the prompt in the first place, and even when I explained it, he didn't understand how to make points that would create an argument.
I try to remember to be encouraging and to tell them when they're doing something right, but sometimes I feel like the professor my grad school mentor told me about: the only positive thing she could think to say regarding a paper was, "You certainly put a lot of words on the page."
I'm taking the students out of order here--not that it matters--but my other two appointments were both more satisfying. The first of the day was Silent Betty. She does, in fact, struggle with subject/verb agreement, as became obvious when she showed me the worksheets she'd done on her own. There were three areas of confusion: 1. That the singular verb takes an "s" ending and the plural does not; 2. That that rule doesn't apply to irregular verbs; and 3. That that rule doesn't apply to the pronouns "I" or "you." Then she asked me how to write an essay. Took me a while to parse that down to an answerable question, but what she really wanted to understand was where and how to come up with examples for the basic five-paragraph format. I am struck all over again by the things we take for granted as manifestly obvious that sometimes turn out to be utterly opaque to students.
The other satisfying appointment was a drop-in, and we didn't have the entire period in which to work, but he needed a little help on how to do research--something at which I really suck personally, so I always dread getting that question (and my first line of defense is "see that 'chat with a librarian' function? Use that."). And he needed some help with focus, which was a lot easier. Earnest--and actually took notes without being prompted, which is always a good sign.
And that was it for the day. I hear through the grapevine that the Center is not getting anywhere near the usual traffic--largely because enrollment is down again, I'm sure--which does not bode well for the newer adjuncts when it comes to next year: they may hire a lot fewer of us. Of them: I won't be in competition for whatever slots there are.
I'm actually way past my official end time here, but I wanted to blast off a quick blog post, especially as I won't be blogging next week: it's spring break, so the Center will be closed, and even if I do any of my own writing, I probably won't think to blog about it. At this point, I have a couple of things on my docket for the week but not much--and I'm looking forward to being able to shape each day as it comes along, even if the shape is awfully amorphous.
So, my faithful readers, enjoy the burgeoning of spring, if that's happening where you are, and I'll be back blogging on April 22.
I wrote out some questions for her to try to answer but her chances of being able to answer them in any coherent way are pretty slim, I think. I don't think she's lazy; after all, she keeps coming to the Center. I believe she simply doesn't know how to think, and although I hate to say it, she simply may not be capable of thought on the kind of level we expect in college. Not everyone is.
My second student of the day was another case along those lines. His case was not quite as severe, but he also didn't quite understand that the evidence he provides needs to actually be evidence with a purpose--and that purpose needs to be to prove a case that he is going to make. He fulfilled the basic parameters of the assignment in using the number and type of sources he was required to use, but he did not understand the prompt in the first place, and even when I explained it, he didn't understand how to make points that would create an argument.
I try to remember to be encouraging and to tell them when they're doing something right, but sometimes I feel like the professor my grad school mentor told me about: the only positive thing she could think to say regarding a paper was, "You certainly put a lot of words on the page."
I'm taking the students out of order here--not that it matters--but my other two appointments were both more satisfying. The first of the day was Silent Betty. She does, in fact, struggle with subject/verb agreement, as became obvious when she showed me the worksheets she'd done on her own. There were three areas of confusion: 1. That the singular verb takes an "s" ending and the plural does not; 2. That that rule doesn't apply to irregular verbs; and 3. That that rule doesn't apply to the pronouns "I" or "you." Then she asked me how to write an essay. Took me a while to parse that down to an answerable question, but what she really wanted to understand was where and how to come up with examples for the basic five-paragraph format. I am struck all over again by the things we take for granted as manifestly obvious that sometimes turn out to be utterly opaque to students.
The other satisfying appointment was a drop-in, and we didn't have the entire period in which to work, but he needed a little help on how to do research--something at which I really suck personally, so I always dread getting that question (and my first line of defense is "see that 'chat with a librarian' function? Use that."). And he needed some help with focus, which was a lot easier. Earnest--and actually took notes without being prompted, which is always a good sign.
And that was it for the day. I hear through the grapevine that the Center is not getting anywhere near the usual traffic--largely because enrollment is down again, I'm sure--which does not bode well for the newer adjuncts when it comes to next year: they may hire a lot fewer of us. Of them: I won't be in competition for whatever slots there are.
I'm actually way past my official end time here, but I wanted to blast off a quick blog post, especially as I won't be blogging next week: it's spring break, so the Center will be closed, and even if I do any of my own writing, I probably won't think to blog about it. At this point, I have a couple of things on my docket for the week but not much--and I'm looking forward to being able to shape each day as it comes along, even if the shape is awfully amorphous.
So, my faithful readers, enjoy the burgeoning of spring, if that's happening where you are, and I'll be back blogging on April 22.
Tuesday, April 9, 2019
A shock to the system
Poor Paul: he came into the office after P&B to see a completely empty shelf on the top of my bookcase, and the absence of presence was a bit of a shock. To me, too, actually. I moved a bunch of books into a boxes that will be too heavy (and impossible to close) but that at least begin to segregate what I'm keeping from what I'm letting go. I found a bunch more books to donate to the campus library, and I've left several large stacks next to "my" computer for Paul and William to flip through to see if there is anything they want. Whatever they don't want goes downstairs to be set free into the world--or maybe I'll start donating to Better World Books. They have a large collection bin outside my local public library, and surely someone somewhere in the world would be happy to have Matthew Arnold's Culture and Anarchy, or Jacques Derrida's Writing and Difference, among many others.
I also started to develop an "I'm not sure" stack, but then I thought, "If I'm not sure, the answer is 'no.' I'm only keeping things I absolutely know I want." And, in fact, there are a lot that are now in the "I want this" pile that I may reconsider, specifically almost a shelf's worth of nature writing anthologies of various stripes.
And I realized I have a copy of The Mayor of Casterbridge, which I don't recall reading, though I know the basic story from the 2003 miniseries starting the incomparable Ciaran Hinds. I have a bunch of library books already lined up for my next reads, but that classic is going into the rotation for sure.
At the moment, because I'm running out of box space, I have moved a bunch of the books I want to keep to that top shelf of the bookcase, to help reduce the shock factor for Paul, next time he comes in, and for William. And in terms of overall logistics of getting things from this office to Montana, I'm also trying to figure out what I should do with the boxes of books I'm keeping once I've packed them up--and what to do with the artwork I have on the walls, or all the things on my bulletin boards--wich really, I don't need to keep but probably will. I think I'm going to need an entire cork wall wherever I end up living, so I can put up all the things I have on the bulletin boards here and at home. And yes, that's kinda pack-ratty. Sue me.
As for students, I met with Annabelle today. She's having to shift gears away from her research, as she now has to write an argumentative essay. A lot of what I worked on today was getting her to understand that, in order to have an argument that is supported by two assigned readings, she needs to fully grasp the intention and point of those readings, which, of course, she doesn't. She started the session today by saying she can't "see outside the box" the way her professor can. I didn't tell her that her professor is actually seeing in the box, not outside it, just more deeply than students tend to--but I did tell her that learning to do what her professor does is part of her intellectual growth as a college student: it's a skill she has to work on acquiring. (Not an idea that was met with wild excitement, I must say.) I won't see her again before that essay is due, but she also showed me the professor's comments and grade on the first essay I helped her with. Between when I saw her last and when she submitted the essay, she decided to add some things--and, since this is Annabelle we're talking about--what she added just led her down rabbit trails and didn't connect to her overall point. Sigh. She's an odd one: she cares enough to keep coming to the Center for help, but she doesn't care enough to really learn. I think she comes to the Center hoping we'll do the real heavy lifting for her; as a lovely bit of irony, part of her argument in the forthcoming essay will include the idea that it's wrong to depend too heavily on someone other than one's self. True that.
I then met with a student I'd not seen before, nicely structured essay but significant ESL errors. I was less than impressed with the assignment, though. One thing that is discouraging about working in the Center is seeing some of the assignments given by my colleagues. There are too many softballs (virtually of the "tell about your summer vacation" variety) and too many where the actual aims of the assignment are unclear (compare and contrast to do what, exactly?). I'm such a goody-two-shoes that I'm always on the verge of ratting people out to the chair, but then ... not my responsibility. I help the students as much as I can and leave it at that.
A third appointment had been scheduled, with Earning Honors, but, uncharacteristically, he was a no-show. I hope he's OK; it really is unlike him to simply not appear. But his absence allowed me to continue to work on adding all my committee crapola to my CV. I realized that I did have a brief listing of the committees at the end of the document, but I didn't have anything about what I actually did on the committees. Now I do--but probably way too much. At some point I'll print the sucker and go through it carefully with my editorial pencil in hand. I'm not in a blazing hurry about that, however.
In a slight disappointment for the day, I heard back from the Writing Lab of the community college in the town where I will be living come fall. They don't have enough traffic to warrant hiring me; in fact, their entire staff is the director, who is full time, and one part-time tutor. But then it occurred to me to see what their enrollment is. They have about 1,500 students, compared to NCC's 16,000--and that's down from 23,000 when I started here. So, yeah: I can see why they wouldn't need much staff for their lab.
On the other hand, one of my Facebook contacts suggested I get in touch with a person she knows who is a professor in the English department there (adored by students, esteemed poet, as she explained). He may have some insight into what's possible. It's nice to have the lead, though I probably won't follow up on it immediately. Still kinda wrapping my head around the idea of even applying for adjunct teaching.
At this exact moment, I'm waiting to hear from Paul that he's ready to meet me for dinner. We haven't selected a place yet, but I really don't care. I'm just delighted we'll have a chance to talk somewhere other than the office. Maybe with an alcoholic beverage in the picture somewhere. At my request, we're not doing a steak blowout: neither my digestive system nor my wallet can handle that whammy at the moment. But otherwise, we have many options. We'll see what appeals when he's ready to head out.
In the meanwhile, I'll do a little more cleaning out: carrying interoffice envelopes downstairs to the main office, looking through binders of materials I put together for various classes to see if I want to keep any of it (including the binders)--my hunch is probably not--that sort of thing. Maybe I'll pull out a few more books for the "boys" to consider. Or maybe I'll just sit quietly and read the library book that's in my bag at the moment.
I also started to develop an "I'm not sure" stack, but then I thought, "If I'm not sure, the answer is 'no.' I'm only keeping things I absolutely know I want." And, in fact, there are a lot that are now in the "I want this" pile that I may reconsider, specifically almost a shelf's worth of nature writing anthologies of various stripes.
And I realized I have a copy of The Mayor of Casterbridge, which I don't recall reading, though I know the basic story from the 2003 miniseries starting the incomparable Ciaran Hinds. I have a bunch of library books already lined up for my next reads, but that classic is going into the rotation for sure.
At the moment, because I'm running out of box space, I have moved a bunch of the books I want to keep to that top shelf of the bookcase, to help reduce the shock factor for Paul, next time he comes in, and for William. And in terms of overall logistics of getting things from this office to Montana, I'm also trying to figure out what I should do with the boxes of books I'm keeping once I've packed them up--and what to do with the artwork I have on the walls, or all the things on my bulletin boards--wich really, I don't need to keep but probably will. I think I'm going to need an entire cork wall wherever I end up living, so I can put up all the things I have on the bulletin boards here and at home. And yes, that's kinda pack-ratty. Sue me.
As for students, I met with Annabelle today. She's having to shift gears away from her research, as she now has to write an argumentative essay. A lot of what I worked on today was getting her to understand that, in order to have an argument that is supported by two assigned readings, she needs to fully grasp the intention and point of those readings, which, of course, she doesn't. She started the session today by saying she can't "see outside the box" the way her professor can. I didn't tell her that her professor is actually seeing in the box, not outside it, just more deeply than students tend to--but I did tell her that learning to do what her professor does is part of her intellectual growth as a college student: it's a skill she has to work on acquiring. (Not an idea that was met with wild excitement, I must say.) I won't see her again before that essay is due, but she also showed me the professor's comments and grade on the first essay I helped her with. Between when I saw her last and when she submitted the essay, she decided to add some things--and, since this is Annabelle we're talking about--what she added just led her down rabbit trails and didn't connect to her overall point. Sigh. She's an odd one: she cares enough to keep coming to the Center for help, but she doesn't care enough to really learn. I think she comes to the Center hoping we'll do the real heavy lifting for her; as a lovely bit of irony, part of her argument in the forthcoming essay will include the idea that it's wrong to depend too heavily on someone other than one's self. True that.
I then met with a student I'd not seen before, nicely structured essay but significant ESL errors. I was less than impressed with the assignment, though. One thing that is discouraging about working in the Center is seeing some of the assignments given by my colleagues. There are too many softballs (virtually of the "tell about your summer vacation" variety) and too many where the actual aims of the assignment are unclear (compare and contrast to do what, exactly?). I'm such a goody-two-shoes that I'm always on the verge of ratting people out to the chair, but then ... not my responsibility. I help the students as much as I can and leave it at that.
A third appointment had been scheduled, with Earning Honors, but, uncharacteristically, he was a no-show. I hope he's OK; it really is unlike him to simply not appear. But his absence allowed me to continue to work on adding all my committee crapola to my CV. I realized that I did have a brief listing of the committees at the end of the document, but I didn't have anything about what I actually did on the committees. Now I do--but probably way too much. At some point I'll print the sucker and go through it carefully with my editorial pencil in hand. I'm not in a blazing hurry about that, however.
In a slight disappointment for the day, I heard back from the Writing Lab of the community college in the town where I will be living come fall. They don't have enough traffic to warrant hiring me; in fact, their entire staff is the director, who is full time, and one part-time tutor. But then it occurred to me to see what their enrollment is. They have about 1,500 students, compared to NCC's 16,000--and that's down from 23,000 when I started here. So, yeah: I can see why they wouldn't need much staff for their lab.
On the other hand, one of my Facebook contacts suggested I get in touch with a person she knows who is a professor in the English department there (adored by students, esteemed poet, as she explained). He may have some insight into what's possible. It's nice to have the lead, though I probably won't follow up on it immediately. Still kinda wrapping my head around the idea of even applying for adjunct teaching.
At this exact moment, I'm waiting to hear from Paul that he's ready to meet me for dinner. We haven't selected a place yet, but I really don't care. I'm just delighted we'll have a chance to talk somewhere other than the office. Maybe with an alcoholic beverage in the picture somewhere. At my request, we're not doing a steak blowout: neither my digestive system nor my wallet can handle that whammy at the moment. But otherwise, we have many options. We'll see what appeals when he's ready to head out.
In the meanwhile, I'll do a little more cleaning out: carrying interoffice envelopes downstairs to the main office, looking through binders of materials I put together for various classes to see if I want to keep any of it (including the binders)--my hunch is probably not--that sort of thing. Maybe I'll pull out a few more books for the "boys" to consider. Or maybe I'll just sit quietly and read the library book that's in my bag at the moment.
Monday, April 8, 2019
Significant shift of gears for non-appointment time
I had four appointments in a row today--still not the full six I could have had--and they were pretty easy. Only one was a repeat student, and this was only the second time I'd seen her. She is a relatively typical student here: very street smart but "talks street," as the kids would say, and is slowly learning to write, at least, in a more formal way. She's not quite like Word Salad (who originally was on my docket for today but ended up canceling), but she still is capable of writing a sentence that completely derails part-way through, and of using words that, well, aren't actually words. But she wants to learn, and today she told me I was very good at "peer review" (well, I am, but that's not what we're doing, as we're not exactly "peers")--specifically that I explained things in a way she could understand. She also told me, to my dismay, that one of my colleagues here has been telling her the wrong placement for the comma that precedes, not follows, a coordinating conjunction in a compound sentence. I'm a bit perplexed about how to handle that; I don't want him to spread the error among our students, who create enough errors on their own without our help.
The other appointments were a mixed lot. Two involved explaining to students why their work did not actually fulfill the parameters of the assignments--and not much in the way of actually working on their writing itself. One involved working through a worksheet with a student who is in a very early stage of learning English. Important to her, but a little like working with a second-grader for me. She also was a trifle maddening, as she couldn't get herself pulled together to come back to my cubicle and get rolling on our appointment. I went to get her, she started packing up--and ten minutes later she still wasn't sitting with me, so I went to find her again; she and a friend were at the copy machine, doing what I don't know. I had to tell her she was wasting her appointment time--and that finally got her to come back and sit down with me.
But for the last hour plus, and in the interstices between appointments, I've been working on an application for adjunct work at the community college in the town where I will be when I relocate at the end of the summer. I don't really want to be back in the classroom at all. I mean, I really don't want to be back in the classroom--but I realized over the weekend how much I've been relying on the revenue stream generated by my work here in the Center, and I realized I would feel infinitely more comfortable to have some kind of regular influx of income, not the sporadic, unreliable fits and starts of freelance work, including what I might get by hanging out my shingle as a tutor. I don't know what that college pays its adjuncts; I know the pay for tenure-track faculty is abysmally low, and one of my contacts out there said that, as an adjunct, he is essentially doing "pro bono" work--but then again, I think his salary before he retired was probably a great deal higher than mine, so what he considers peanut-pay might seem a little more beneficial to me.
So, I drafted up a letter of interest, which needs lots of going over (and I'll probably recruit Paul to vet it for me)--but I also thought I should rework my CV ... again. I realized that it doesn't include any of my committee service, which has been extensive and which speaks to my "ability to maintain effective and positive professional relationships" and "demonstrated communication, presentation, educational service, and interpersonal skills," which are among the "Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities" required for the position. I started out trying to dredge things out of my memory banks, but then I remembered that I'd have tons of information--probably more than necessary--in my various promotion applications. So I've been raiding from those, but it's time-consuming. And it also means I get to futz around with formatting the whole CV ... again. Once I start including all that committee service, even if I try to truncate what I include pretty significantly, the thing gets very long and unwieldy very quickly. I probably need to do a Google search to see examples of CVs, see how other people handle the insane amount of information that goes along with a professorial career.
So, no crafts project today, no reading my current popcorn read, no playing around with my own fiction writing, not even the perennial favorite time-using device of research. But as I was working on the application letter and CV, I checked my personal email and saw that one of my Met contacts got in touch with me to say she's gotten the green light to offer me a freelance contract. And I did finally hear from the exhibitions person at the NYPL; they'll use me for a project coming up at the end of the year. Hooray on both counts. I may be a very, very busy woman once I'm in Montana.
But for now, I'm a woman who wants to be very busy getting out of the Center and over to the office to chat with Paul for a bit, assuming he's still there. We'll see how tomorrow shapes up, both at the Center and in terms of the massive purge project in the office. Because, well, you know what tomorrow is. And I'm sure I will be stronger.
The other appointments were a mixed lot. Two involved explaining to students why their work did not actually fulfill the parameters of the assignments--and not much in the way of actually working on their writing itself. One involved working through a worksheet with a student who is in a very early stage of learning English. Important to her, but a little like working with a second-grader for me. She also was a trifle maddening, as she couldn't get herself pulled together to come back to my cubicle and get rolling on our appointment. I went to get her, she started packing up--and ten minutes later she still wasn't sitting with me, so I went to find her again; she and a friend were at the copy machine, doing what I don't know. I had to tell her she was wasting her appointment time--and that finally got her to come back and sit down with me.
But for the last hour plus, and in the interstices between appointments, I've been working on an application for adjunct work at the community college in the town where I will be when I relocate at the end of the summer. I don't really want to be back in the classroom at all. I mean, I really don't want to be back in the classroom--but I realized over the weekend how much I've been relying on the revenue stream generated by my work here in the Center, and I realized I would feel infinitely more comfortable to have some kind of regular influx of income, not the sporadic, unreliable fits and starts of freelance work, including what I might get by hanging out my shingle as a tutor. I don't know what that college pays its adjuncts; I know the pay for tenure-track faculty is abysmally low, and one of my contacts out there said that, as an adjunct, he is essentially doing "pro bono" work--but then again, I think his salary before he retired was probably a great deal higher than mine, so what he considers peanut-pay might seem a little more beneficial to me.
So, I drafted up a letter of interest, which needs lots of going over (and I'll probably recruit Paul to vet it for me)--but I also thought I should rework my CV ... again. I realized that it doesn't include any of my committee service, which has been extensive and which speaks to my "ability to maintain effective and positive professional relationships" and "demonstrated communication, presentation, educational service, and interpersonal skills," which are among the "Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities" required for the position. I started out trying to dredge things out of my memory banks, but then I remembered that I'd have tons of information--probably more than necessary--in my various promotion applications. So I've been raiding from those, but it's time-consuming. And it also means I get to futz around with formatting the whole CV ... again. Once I start including all that committee service, even if I try to truncate what I include pretty significantly, the thing gets very long and unwieldy very quickly. I probably need to do a Google search to see examples of CVs, see how other people handle the insane amount of information that goes along with a professorial career.
So, no crafts project today, no reading my current popcorn read, no playing around with my own fiction writing, not even the perennial favorite time-using device of research. But as I was working on the application letter and CV, I checked my personal email and saw that one of my Met contacts got in touch with me to say she's gotten the green light to offer me a freelance contract. And I did finally hear from the exhibitions person at the NYPL; they'll use me for a project coming up at the end of the year. Hooray on both counts. I may be a very, very busy woman once I'm in Montana.
But for now, I'm a woman who wants to be very busy getting out of the Center and over to the office to chat with Paul for a bit, assuming he's still there. We'll see how tomorrow shapes up, both at the Center and in terms of the massive purge project in the office. Because, well, you know what tomorrow is. And I'm sure I will be stronger.
Thursday, April 4, 2019
Mostly good
I'm happy that, once again, I did not have a full docket today, even with two drop-ins. One of the drop-ins took the place of a canceled appointment; the last one--to whom I just said good-bye--wasn't able to stay for the full time. She thought we could work through her essay in about five minutes, and she didn't have it printed out, so I ended up working on the Google Docs file on her laptop, which I don't like doing--but I used the "comments" function to leave her overall feedback.
That last student was the only annoying student of the day. She doesn't want to think, doesn't want to work, is letting frustration shut her down entirely. I need to have little tokens to hand out, like those little inspirational pebbles one sees in certain gift shops, that say, "Yes, it is hard. Do it anyway." With this student, I had to do the lecture that goes, "Does giving up help you achieve your goals?" "All I want is to pass the class." "OK, so does giving up get you there?" "No." "OK, so if you want the outcome, you have to do the work to get there; you have to white-knuckle your way through."
I don't think she really took that in, but ... she's not my problem. I doubt she'll be back (after all, I was making her work). Her little "this won't take long" ended up requiring more substantial, in-depth work than she expected. I couldn't just check to see whether the final sentence of each paragraph was appropriate because she hadn't yet identified her thesis, so there was nothing for each paragraph to tie back to, which is the purpose of the final sentence in a paragraph.
I compare her to my first student today, one of my regulars. I'm going to call her Silent Betty; I've mentioned her before. Her voice is getting a little louder every time I see her, but every time I see her, I wonder what constellation of factors--personal, familial, and cultural--have led her to silence herself. She said that her professor told her she has trouble with subject-verb agreement, which is true, though I saw more systemic problems with verb tenses and forms. She said her professor also told her she tended to write sentences that are awkward, which is also true. The painful truth, however, is that she really wanted a simple, magic rule she could use so she never makes the mistakes again, and there isn't one. And she's terrified that she's not going to pass her exit exam: she needs a 3.5 to pass, and on her midterm she got a 2.5. She wanted to do some exercises on agreement, so I showed her where to find them on the web, but then she said she wanted to do them with me--and started to cry. The end of our session was mostly me offering comfort and encouragement. Some of the encouragement was of the "tough love" variety: reminding her that even if she does not pass the exam, it's not the end of the world and doesn't say anything bad about her as a person. But I also told her that she is doing all the right things: she's coming in for help, she's trying her hardest--and I told her she is being very strong and brave to do those things. That wasn't blowing smoke, either. For someone as timid as she is, coming in for help is being strong and brave. But it's interesting to observe how much she brings out the Mommy in me. I want to shelter and protect her, as well as to encourage and even (gently) push her.
My other two students today were both first-timers to the Center. The first of those is the older brother of a student who as briefly in my magic 101 last semester. The younger brother withdrew, probably wisely, but both these young men are very intelligent. I don't think I saw much if any writing from younger brother, but I can say that the student I saw today writes very well on a sentence level, except for a slight tendency to orotund but empty phrasing. The bigger problems were ideas that were not fully connected or explained--and a loss of focus on the overall topic. He was meant to write about his identity but wrote more about the changing demographics of his home town. We talked about how those demographics may have helped form his identity but are not the point except insofar as they help him talk about his own sense of self. He certainly got the point, and in a lovely switch from the usual, he came in well before the essay is due, so he has time to work on it.
The second new student was a little more of a challenge to work with, but only a little. She'd missed the maximum number of classes for her comp class--including all the classes in which the professor went over the research assignment. So she and I went over how to select a topic, the fact that the topic needed not only to be something controversial but something that could be supported with facts (so just that she supports a woman's right to an abortion is not sufficient focus). I showed her the basics of database research and the citation tools. By Monday, she needs to have done enough research to have a works cited page and to have an introduction fleshed out. I don't agree with the tactic of doing the introduction first, of course, but ... not my class, not my problem.
So, that's the week. In a little bit here, I'll head over to Bradley and round up Cathy; we have a dinner date for tonight, which I know will be largely Cathy venting about how horrible things are, not just at NCC but in the world at large, and me trying to steer the conversation into less utterly depressing territory. Maybe I can get her going on her grandchildren....
I'm interested to note that, even though I don't have to accomplish anything by the end of semester, I still have a little touch of that "omigod, it's coming up so fast; hold on to the safety bar and scream" feeling. My sense of mild panic is slightly different, insofar as this year, the panic is "pretty soon it will be summer and I'll need to be serious about getting packed up to move..."
That last student was the only annoying student of the day. She doesn't want to think, doesn't want to work, is letting frustration shut her down entirely. I need to have little tokens to hand out, like those little inspirational pebbles one sees in certain gift shops, that say, "Yes, it is hard. Do it anyway." With this student, I had to do the lecture that goes, "Does giving up help you achieve your goals?" "All I want is to pass the class." "OK, so does giving up get you there?" "No." "OK, so if you want the outcome, you have to do the work to get there; you have to white-knuckle your way through."
I don't think she really took that in, but ... she's not my problem. I doubt she'll be back (after all, I was making her work). Her little "this won't take long" ended up requiring more substantial, in-depth work than she expected. I couldn't just check to see whether the final sentence of each paragraph was appropriate because she hadn't yet identified her thesis, so there was nothing for each paragraph to tie back to, which is the purpose of the final sentence in a paragraph.
I compare her to my first student today, one of my regulars. I'm going to call her Silent Betty; I've mentioned her before. Her voice is getting a little louder every time I see her, but every time I see her, I wonder what constellation of factors--personal, familial, and cultural--have led her to silence herself. She said that her professor told her she has trouble with subject-verb agreement, which is true, though I saw more systemic problems with verb tenses and forms. She said her professor also told her she tended to write sentences that are awkward, which is also true. The painful truth, however, is that she really wanted a simple, magic rule she could use so she never makes the mistakes again, and there isn't one. And she's terrified that she's not going to pass her exit exam: she needs a 3.5 to pass, and on her midterm she got a 2.5. She wanted to do some exercises on agreement, so I showed her where to find them on the web, but then she said she wanted to do them with me--and started to cry. The end of our session was mostly me offering comfort and encouragement. Some of the encouragement was of the "tough love" variety: reminding her that even if she does not pass the exam, it's not the end of the world and doesn't say anything bad about her as a person. But I also told her that she is doing all the right things: she's coming in for help, she's trying her hardest--and I told her she is being very strong and brave to do those things. That wasn't blowing smoke, either. For someone as timid as she is, coming in for help is being strong and brave. But it's interesting to observe how much she brings out the Mommy in me. I want to shelter and protect her, as well as to encourage and even (gently) push her.
My other two students today were both first-timers to the Center. The first of those is the older brother of a student who as briefly in my magic 101 last semester. The younger brother withdrew, probably wisely, but both these young men are very intelligent. I don't think I saw much if any writing from younger brother, but I can say that the student I saw today writes very well on a sentence level, except for a slight tendency to orotund but empty phrasing. The bigger problems were ideas that were not fully connected or explained--and a loss of focus on the overall topic. He was meant to write about his identity but wrote more about the changing demographics of his home town. We talked about how those demographics may have helped form his identity but are not the point except insofar as they help him talk about his own sense of self. He certainly got the point, and in a lovely switch from the usual, he came in well before the essay is due, so he has time to work on it.
The second new student was a little more of a challenge to work with, but only a little. She'd missed the maximum number of classes for her comp class--including all the classes in which the professor went over the research assignment. So she and I went over how to select a topic, the fact that the topic needed not only to be something controversial but something that could be supported with facts (so just that she supports a woman's right to an abortion is not sufficient focus). I showed her the basics of database research and the citation tools. By Monday, she needs to have done enough research to have a works cited page and to have an introduction fleshed out. I don't agree with the tactic of doing the introduction first, of course, but ... not my class, not my problem.
So, that's the week. In a little bit here, I'll head over to Bradley and round up Cathy; we have a dinner date for tonight, which I know will be largely Cathy venting about how horrible things are, not just at NCC but in the world at large, and me trying to steer the conversation into less utterly depressing territory. Maybe I can get her going on her grandchildren....
I'm interested to note that, even though I don't have to accomplish anything by the end of semester, I still have a little touch of that "omigod, it's coming up so fast; hold on to the safety bar and scream" feeling. My sense of mild panic is slightly different, insofar as this year, the panic is "pretty soon it will be summer and I'll need to be serious about getting packed up to move..."
Tuesday, April 2, 2019
You can't make this shit up...
I'll get to writing about my own students in a moment, but first I want to relay a story told by one of my fellow tutors.
A student sat down with my colleague, very upset that she'd only gotten a 60 on her essay. The tutor very carefully went through the essay--which was a mess--and showed the student errors and problems. At the very end of the session, the tutor happened to glance at the name on the essay--and it was one letter different from the student's name. For the sake of the story, let's say the student's name was Ellen and the paper had the name Allen on it. The tutor thought that it was indicative of just how much trouble the student was in that she hadn't even noticed a typo of her own name, but since it was the end of the session, the tutor decided not to say anything. However, once the student left, the tutor decided to talk to the student's professor, who also works in the Center. As soon as she mentioned the name thing, the professor was stunned--because it turned out there is an Allen in that class, and his paper had mysteriously gone missing. The professor's habit was to simply put assignments to be returned on the corner of his desk and allow students to find their own and collect it--but Allen couldn't find his paper. On the other hand, the professor had no record of Ellen having submitted the assignment; in fact, she had never done it. When the professor confronted her with the fact, she first said how shocked she was that it wasn't her paper but explained she picked it up because her husband's name is Allen.
I'll give you a moment to let your head spin.
This boggles the mind on so many levels, it's hard to know where to start. 1. The student knew she had not submitted the assignment but still decided to collect one. 2. She collected another student's essay as if it were her own--apparently assuming that the name was close enough to count. 3. She was upset at the grade for an assignment she had not submitted. In point of fact, her grade was significantly lower than the 60 she was complaining about: it was a zero. 4. She sat with the tutor for 45 minutes going over an essay line by line and never thought or said, "Wait, this isn't my writing."
We have students with all kinds of delusions about the quality of their work, but to think that work somehow magically does itself, submits itself, and accidentally does so with someone else's name on it is a whole new level of "you have to be fucking kidding me." How does one even begin to address this with the student? The professor did ask her, "So, you can just pick up anything that has your husband's name on it, no matter where it is or who it might belong to?" But that's only a small portion of what's wrong with this picture.
Comparatively speaking, anything my students have done pales--even the two students who submitted identical essays, one in one section of 102, the other in my other 102. And that pales next to the same tutor's students who submitted essentially the same essay one on top of the other in the stack of essays for the same class.
One really does have to wonder what is going on in what passes for their minds.
Shifting gears to today's students: my first appointment was a no-show (which was particularly nice as I was a few minutes late). Then I had Annabelle. She spent slightly less time running off down rabbit trails--but I'm suddenly seeing a whole new and less pleasant side to her. At first, I thought she was very earnest, and in a way she is, as she keeps coming to the Center, but now she's starting to complain about how hard the research project is, how school is too demanding, how no one cares about lobsters (in response to David Foster Wallace's essay "Consider the Lobster") and no one cares about monarch butterflies (which is the topic of her "Consider the [whatever the student chooses]" research paper). She doesn't really want to read her sources to see what they have to say--even though she gets to choose the sources she uses. She kinda wants information but not enough to actually look for it, or to look very hard. As far as she's told me, she's allowed to use a basic Google search, but she told me she couldn't find anything about the stages in a butterfly's life. (I suppose the fact that she didn't know the word "metamorphosis" might have hindered her search, but still.)
Regular readers of my blog will know how infuriated I can get when confronted with the "I don't care about this; it's all boring and too hard" attitude.
Oh, yes: and she said that one day she wanted to print something and walked into one of the lab classrooms while a class was in progress. Seeing the professor at the front of the room, she asked, "Is there a class now?" He said--with some justification: "I'm sitting here, so I'd say that's a good indication." She said she "didn't really need his attitude." Excuse me, what? A. You asked a relatively stupid question (and yes, there are stupid questions), and 2. the appropriate response on your part, on seeing a professor at the front of the room (and quickly glancing to see that yes, the computer stations had students at them) would be to apologize profusely and get out. Attitude? And I realize that I have a strong bias here: attitude is something subordinates have, not authority figures.
Cleansing breath. Cleansing breath.
My second student--and the last of them for the day--is a complete delight. He's also a regular; I'll just call him Earning Honors. He was invited to join the honors program based on his work in a business course last semester, and although his writing is not honors level yet, he's truly devoted to getting it there. I think I've mentioned him before, as he tends to the periphrastic, a habit of his I'm working to break--and his writing has other basic errors that earned him a B on his first essay, though the professor told him his ideas are excellent, and if he simply corrects the mechanics, he'll get the A. I've helped him with a couple of scholarship essays, and today, as he was leaving, he told me that he just found out he got one, from the Economics Department, to the tune of $500. I was thrilled to bits for him. One of the things he said in his scholarship essay was that his father is paying all his expenses so he can focus entirely on his studies, and he wants the scholarships in part so he can relieve some of the burden on his father, as well as to make his father feel proud and that the son is worth his investment. I told my fellow tutors about that, and we all teared up. The student also wrote in his essay that he'd been a dreadful student in high school, but that one course at NCC showed him that he wanted to be a good student--and could be. I'm happy to give him all the help I possibly can. He earns it.
My final student encounter of the day was with the Zen Master, who wanted advice about undergrad programs. He clearly is the first person in his family to go to college, as he didn't know that a B.A. is an undergrad degree, nor that it is required before one can go on to grad school--which at the moment he thinks he wants to do. I mentioned a while back that he originally had thought he wanted to be a creative writing major, but now he wants to be an English major. Today he told me that he wants to do that because he wants to explore ideas more deeply--and he wants to be able to express his ideas beautifully. "I want to be an amazing writer," he said. I think he can be, if he puts the time and energy into it that he needs to--and I think the undergrad programs he's looking at will require that he up his game in that department. I suggested he do some research into what each program actually requires and decide from there which ones look most interesting. Mostly today's talk was about practical advice--and he didn't stay long, but that's OK.We both admitted to being tired and a little cranky, so just as well to keep it to the point.
Since he left, I've spent a tiny bit of time on the arduous task of beginning to clean out the bookshelves. I've pulled together two small boxes of books I'm going to donate to the campus library, assuming the head librarian thinks they'd be a benefit to the collection. Mostly novels I've taught, but I decided to also include a couple of textbooks that were still in marginally OK condition--and a few that were brand new (as I bought them to consider when I thought I'd be teaching Native American Lit in the fall). Looking at those shelves--which are double stacked--I think I'm going to need to bring in a bunch of book boxes and start sorting into "goes with me to Montana" and "nope: Paul and William get first dibs, but otherwise, outta my life." But I find that's surprisingly difficult when it comes to books. I do have pack-rat tendencies in any event (packing my apartment is a whole other mess to tackle), but books? When I started grad school, I had to explain to my then partner that the rule of "if a book comes into the house, a book has to leave the house" could no longer apply--and I've been hanging on to tons of books since. But really, as I was saying to Paul earlier, am I going to read Sartor Resartus again? Or anything at all by Roland Barthes? I know I'm probably going to hang on to some things I "should" let go, especially nature writing/environmental literature collections or criticism, but I still want to divest myself of as much book weight as I can.
But it is fun to realize I have some interesting DVDs on my shelf here, which can now come home with me. (Gosford Park, District 9...)
And on that note, I will toddle off into the evening. I am very much looking forward to having the day tomorrow in which to do pretty much nothing whatsoever. And I'll be back posting to the blog on Thursday. Until then, happy campers, stay happy.
A student sat down with my colleague, very upset that she'd only gotten a 60 on her essay. The tutor very carefully went through the essay--which was a mess--and showed the student errors and problems. At the very end of the session, the tutor happened to glance at the name on the essay--and it was one letter different from the student's name. For the sake of the story, let's say the student's name was Ellen and the paper had the name Allen on it. The tutor thought that it was indicative of just how much trouble the student was in that she hadn't even noticed a typo of her own name, but since it was the end of the session, the tutor decided not to say anything. However, once the student left, the tutor decided to talk to the student's professor, who also works in the Center. As soon as she mentioned the name thing, the professor was stunned--because it turned out there is an Allen in that class, and his paper had mysteriously gone missing. The professor's habit was to simply put assignments to be returned on the corner of his desk and allow students to find their own and collect it--but Allen couldn't find his paper. On the other hand, the professor had no record of Ellen having submitted the assignment; in fact, she had never done it. When the professor confronted her with the fact, she first said how shocked she was that it wasn't her paper but explained she picked it up because her husband's name is Allen.
I'll give you a moment to let your head spin.
This boggles the mind on so many levels, it's hard to know where to start. 1. The student knew she had not submitted the assignment but still decided to collect one. 2. She collected another student's essay as if it were her own--apparently assuming that the name was close enough to count. 3. She was upset at the grade for an assignment she had not submitted. In point of fact, her grade was significantly lower than the 60 she was complaining about: it was a zero. 4. She sat with the tutor for 45 minutes going over an essay line by line and never thought or said, "Wait, this isn't my writing."
We have students with all kinds of delusions about the quality of their work, but to think that work somehow magically does itself, submits itself, and accidentally does so with someone else's name on it is a whole new level of "you have to be fucking kidding me." How does one even begin to address this with the student? The professor did ask her, "So, you can just pick up anything that has your husband's name on it, no matter where it is or who it might belong to?" But that's only a small portion of what's wrong with this picture.
Comparatively speaking, anything my students have done pales--even the two students who submitted identical essays, one in one section of 102, the other in my other 102. And that pales next to the same tutor's students who submitted essentially the same essay one on top of the other in the stack of essays for the same class.
One really does have to wonder what is going on in what passes for their minds.
Shifting gears to today's students: my first appointment was a no-show (which was particularly nice as I was a few minutes late). Then I had Annabelle. She spent slightly less time running off down rabbit trails--but I'm suddenly seeing a whole new and less pleasant side to her. At first, I thought she was very earnest, and in a way she is, as she keeps coming to the Center, but now she's starting to complain about how hard the research project is, how school is too demanding, how no one cares about lobsters (in response to David Foster Wallace's essay "Consider the Lobster") and no one cares about monarch butterflies (which is the topic of her "Consider the [whatever the student chooses]" research paper). She doesn't really want to read her sources to see what they have to say--even though she gets to choose the sources she uses. She kinda wants information but not enough to actually look for it, or to look very hard. As far as she's told me, she's allowed to use a basic Google search, but she told me she couldn't find anything about the stages in a butterfly's life. (I suppose the fact that she didn't know the word "metamorphosis" might have hindered her search, but still.)
Regular readers of my blog will know how infuriated I can get when confronted with the "I don't care about this; it's all boring and too hard" attitude.
Oh, yes: and she said that one day she wanted to print something and walked into one of the lab classrooms while a class was in progress. Seeing the professor at the front of the room, she asked, "Is there a class now?" He said--with some justification: "I'm sitting here, so I'd say that's a good indication." She said she "didn't really need his attitude." Excuse me, what? A. You asked a relatively stupid question (and yes, there are stupid questions), and 2. the appropriate response on your part, on seeing a professor at the front of the room (and quickly glancing to see that yes, the computer stations had students at them) would be to apologize profusely and get out. Attitude? And I realize that I have a strong bias here: attitude is something subordinates have, not authority figures.
Cleansing breath. Cleansing breath.
My second student--and the last of them for the day--is a complete delight. He's also a regular; I'll just call him Earning Honors. He was invited to join the honors program based on his work in a business course last semester, and although his writing is not honors level yet, he's truly devoted to getting it there. I think I've mentioned him before, as he tends to the periphrastic, a habit of his I'm working to break--and his writing has other basic errors that earned him a B on his first essay, though the professor told him his ideas are excellent, and if he simply corrects the mechanics, he'll get the A. I've helped him with a couple of scholarship essays, and today, as he was leaving, he told me that he just found out he got one, from the Economics Department, to the tune of $500. I was thrilled to bits for him. One of the things he said in his scholarship essay was that his father is paying all his expenses so he can focus entirely on his studies, and he wants the scholarships in part so he can relieve some of the burden on his father, as well as to make his father feel proud and that the son is worth his investment. I told my fellow tutors about that, and we all teared up. The student also wrote in his essay that he'd been a dreadful student in high school, but that one course at NCC showed him that he wanted to be a good student--and could be. I'm happy to give him all the help I possibly can. He earns it.
My final student encounter of the day was with the Zen Master, who wanted advice about undergrad programs. He clearly is the first person in his family to go to college, as he didn't know that a B.A. is an undergrad degree, nor that it is required before one can go on to grad school--which at the moment he thinks he wants to do. I mentioned a while back that he originally had thought he wanted to be a creative writing major, but now he wants to be an English major. Today he told me that he wants to do that because he wants to explore ideas more deeply--and he wants to be able to express his ideas beautifully. "I want to be an amazing writer," he said. I think he can be, if he puts the time and energy into it that he needs to--and I think the undergrad programs he's looking at will require that he up his game in that department. I suggested he do some research into what each program actually requires and decide from there which ones look most interesting. Mostly today's talk was about practical advice--and he didn't stay long, but that's OK.We both admitted to being tired and a little cranky, so just as well to keep it to the point.
Since he left, I've spent a tiny bit of time on the arduous task of beginning to clean out the bookshelves. I've pulled together two small boxes of books I'm going to donate to the campus library, assuming the head librarian thinks they'd be a benefit to the collection. Mostly novels I've taught, but I decided to also include a couple of textbooks that were still in marginally OK condition--and a few that were brand new (as I bought them to consider when I thought I'd be teaching Native American Lit in the fall). Looking at those shelves--which are double stacked--I think I'm going to need to bring in a bunch of book boxes and start sorting into "goes with me to Montana" and "nope: Paul and William get first dibs, but otherwise, outta my life." But I find that's surprisingly difficult when it comes to books. I do have pack-rat tendencies in any event (packing my apartment is a whole other mess to tackle), but books? When I started grad school, I had to explain to my then partner that the rule of "if a book comes into the house, a book has to leave the house" could no longer apply--and I've been hanging on to tons of books since. But really, as I was saying to Paul earlier, am I going to read Sartor Resartus again? Or anything at all by Roland Barthes? I know I'm probably going to hang on to some things I "should" let go, especially nature writing/environmental literature collections or criticism, but I still want to divest myself of as much book weight as I can.
But it is fun to realize I have some interesting DVDs on my shelf here, which can now come home with me. (Gosford Park, District 9...)
And on that note, I will toddle off into the evening. I am very much looking forward to having the day tomorrow in which to do pretty much nothing whatsoever. And I'll be back posting to the blog on Thursday. Until then, happy campers, stay happy.
Monday, April 1, 2019
Never thought I'd say this...
...but thank God for a drop-in. Today almost turned into my first six-appointment day, and one of those was a drop-in--for which I was grateful, as otherwise I'd have been stuck with the Hostile Wall for even longer than I was. I confess that I had the schedule wrong in my head and thought she was early when she was not. I moved her appointment so she could have the entire 45 minutes she was owed, which I could do because I did not have someone immediately after her. But while I was working with her, a student showed up wanting to see me, so when she asked if I could keep working with her, it was with great relief that I could say "no, I have someone waiting."
As was the case last time I saw her, working with her was frustrating but not as horrific as the first time I tried. It was helpful that we were working only on mechanics, not the substance of her writing; Kristin had said she could get help with mechanics for her online midterm (and kindly granted her a day's extension to allow the session in the Center). But even that was a pretty maddening experience. She resists every single correction, at one point insisting that the word "selection" was the right word when I knew she meant "section"--because "selection" was what she had written in her notes. I gently suggested that perhaps what was in her notes was less authoritative than my understanding of the English language, which didn't go down very well. At the end of the session, she expressed anger and frustration: these sessions are not helpful because 45 minutes is not enough to fix her grammar issues. I agree: it isn't. But she needs to learn incrementally, and she's not willing to do that.
What bothers me most is that ... Oh, God, I think she likes me and will continue to ask for appointments with me, and I can't ask to have her assigned to someone else. If I'm available, I have to work with her. I try to remind myself that frustration is good for the soul, but she is trying in the worst sense of the word.
I started the day with two other returnees. One of my faithful readers has expressed specific enjoyment in my invention of monikers for students, so I'm going to try to come up with--and remember--names for the regulars. The first student I saw today I'll call Salad Maker. She has great ideas but clearly has a verbal processing problem, as what she writes truly is word salad. Even "quoting," she was inventing words/grammatical structures instead of carefully following the language of the original. I have to be careful with her; she's defensive, as most students are, but I can see genuine fear of failure and frustration with her disabilities under the defensiveness, so I need to be sure to point out what she does well.
Interestingly, I have one of the same struggles with her that I have with the Hostile Wall: trying to get them to understand that what I want them to adjust isn't the idea but the language in which it is expressed. I completely get the student's point, but the words being used do not convey it accurately and/or correctly. Actually, come to think of it, that's a common problem across the board: getting students to understand that the issue isn't the idea but the way it is written.
The other regular I think I'll call the Grammatician. He is an ESL student, and he also needs help with idea development and focus, but he's making rapid strides in both areas. Today, I made very few grammar corrections, and he had already thought through some of the focus concerns and come up with potential solutions. Nice. His writing is a bit basic, but that's appropriate, as he's in 001. But every session, he asks me at least one question that delves more deeply into grammatical structures. Last week it was when to use "that"--a question I was not entirely able to answer--and this week, it was about when to use "all" versus "whole," as in "all day" versus "the whole day." That was a bit challenging, but I think I came up with a reasonable answer. I'm less successful answering his questions about prepositions. Like many ESL students, he is frustrated by his difficulty with them, but I keep assuring him that they're almost impossible to master--and the "rules" are usually just what we intuitively know. We tried to come up with something in Spanish that would be analogous, and the best we could do were exceptions to the rule for determining the gender of the article ("el/la" or "los/las"). For example, it's "el mapa" when the "rule" says it should be "la mapa." Why is it masculine? I asked him and he said, "My answer is, I didn't create the Spanish language." Right you are.
The drop-in was also a returning student, actually. I can't quite come up with a moniker for him yet; this was only the second time I've worked with him. He's one of those students who has not yet begun to plumb his own depths; they're there, but he needs a lot of help getting to them. Lots of me asking questions, trying to lead him into more fully developed ideas--and he can get there, but it takes some effort on my part. His writing is pretty good; it's really the ideas he needs help with. But I rather like that; it's a nice change from correcting comma splices.
Right at the moment, it seems my last appointment may be a no-show, which would be lovely. If that's the case, I'll finish the day with a student who has very basic writing problems of both the ESL and the 001 variety--and yet she is in 101, once again giving rise to the "how did you pass to this level?" question. I looked at previous tutors' notes from their sessions with her, and I see that the things I was dealing with have been problems for her all along. Ah well.
But for now, since it seems my final student is truly not going to show up (hooray!), I will finally eat my lunch (at almost dinner time) and check email, which normally I'd have done about 40 times by now but which I haven't been able to do at all. And soon, today's stint will be complete. I'm guessing I'll have a full docket tomorrow. I already have three appointments, and there's a good chance that fourth slot will be filled either with another appointment or with a drop-in. As we approach end of semester, things heat up here in the Center. I think my days of having oodles of time to noodle may be gone. C'est la guerre.
As was the case last time I saw her, working with her was frustrating but not as horrific as the first time I tried. It was helpful that we were working only on mechanics, not the substance of her writing; Kristin had said she could get help with mechanics for her online midterm (and kindly granted her a day's extension to allow the session in the Center). But even that was a pretty maddening experience. She resists every single correction, at one point insisting that the word "selection" was the right word when I knew she meant "section"--because "selection" was what she had written in her notes. I gently suggested that perhaps what was in her notes was less authoritative than my understanding of the English language, which didn't go down very well. At the end of the session, she expressed anger and frustration: these sessions are not helpful because 45 minutes is not enough to fix her grammar issues. I agree: it isn't. But she needs to learn incrementally, and she's not willing to do that.
What bothers me most is that ... Oh, God, I think she likes me and will continue to ask for appointments with me, and I can't ask to have her assigned to someone else. If I'm available, I have to work with her. I try to remind myself that frustration is good for the soul, but she is trying in the worst sense of the word.
I started the day with two other returnees. One of my faithful readers has expressed specific enjoyment in my invention of monikers for students, so I'm going to try to come up with--and remember--names for the regulars. The first student I saw today I'll call Salad Maker. She has great ideas but clearly has a verbal processing problem, as what she writes truly is word salad. Even "quoting," she was inventing words/grammatical structures instead of carefully following the language of the original. I have to be careful with her; she's defensive, as most students are, but I can see genuine fear of failure and frustration with her disabilities under the defensiveness, so I need to be sure to point out what she does well.
Interestingly, I have one of the same struggles with her that I have with the Hostile Wall: trying to get them to understand that what I want them to adjust isn't the idea but the language in which it is expressed. I completely get the student's point, but the words being used do not convey it accurately and/or correctly. Actually, come to think of it, that's a common problem across the board: getting students to understand that the issue isn't the idea but the way it is written.
The other regular I think I'll call the Grammatician. He is an ESL student, and he also needs help with idea development and focus, but he's making rapid strides in both areas. Today, I made very few grammar corrections, and he had already thought through some of the focus concerns and come up with potential solutions. Nice. His writing is a bit basic, but that's appropriate, as he's in 001. But every session, he asks me at least one question that delves more deeply into grammatical structures. Last week it was when to use "that"--a question I was not entirely able to answer--and this week, it was about when to use "all" versus "whole," as in "all day" versus "the whole day." That was a bit challenging, but I think I came up with a reasonable answer. I'm less successful answering his questions about prepositions. Like many ESL students, he is frustrated by his difficulty with them, but I keep assuring him that they're almost impossible to master--and the "rules" are usually just what we intuitively know. We tried to come up with something in Spanish that would be analogous, and the best we could do were exceptions to the rule for determining the gender of the article ("el/la" or "los/las"). For example, it's "el mapa" when the "rule" says it should be "la mapa." Why is it masculine? I asked him and he said, "My answer is, I didn't create the Spanish language." Right you are.
The drop-in was also a returning student, actually. I can't quite come up with a moniker for him yet; this was only the second time I've worked with him. He's one of those students who has not yet begun to plumb his own depths; they're there, but he needs a lot of help getting to them. Lots of me asking questions, trying to lead him into more fully developed ideas--and he can get there, but it takes some effort on my part. His writing is pretty good; it's really the ideas he needs help with. But I rather like that; it's a nice change from correcting comma splices.
Right at the moment, it seems my last appointment may be a no-show, which would be lovely. If that's the case, I'll finish the day with a student who has very basic writing problems of both the ESL and the 001 variety--and yet she is in 101, once again giving rise to the "how did you pass to this level?" question. I looked at previous tutors' notes from their sessions with her, and I see that the things I was dealing with have been problems for her all along. Ah well.
But for now, since it seems my final student is truly not going to show up (hooray!), I will finally eat my lunch (at almost dinner time) and check email, which normally I'd have done about 40 times by now but which I haven't been able to do at all. And soon, today's stint will be complete. I'm guessing I'll have a full docket tomorrow. I already have three appointments, and there's a good chance that fourth slot will be filled either with another appointment or with a drop-in. As we approach end of semester, things heat up here in the Center. I think my days of having oodles of time to noodle may be gone. C'est la guerre.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
