I got here at about 9 a.m. for a 9:30 observation and haven't been able to stop or get back to the office until just now. Classes went well enough, nothing specific to report. I'm very happy with how the students in today's 102 are doing with the Le Guin novel: they're asking smart questions and seem to be getting the whole gender/alternative biology thing a lot better than usual. Of course, their reading journals may reveal a different understanding (or lack thereof), but the class discussion was great. I let them vote whether to work in groups or get into a circle and contribute individually: the vote was close, but the very slight majority voted to do the circle. It went well: lots of comments and questions flying around the room, and just about everyone asked or said something. The short story students opted to work in groups--which I love. They do it very well, and I'm delighted they see the value in working that way. Most of them contributed something to the class discussion. A few required a little prompting, but even one or two of the more shy and retiring students, when asked, had something to say. Cool beans.
I'm about to have dinner with Paul, so I'm still flying around. I do not want to come to the office tomorrow, even though I will spend the day working instead of (as I had hoped to do) lounging about the house metaphorically in bunny slippers and eating bon-bons. (I initially typed that as "in bunny slippers eating bon-bons," but--perhaps because I just observed a grammar class in which one of the topic of discussion was the possibilities for misreads--I realized that it might sound as if the slippers were the ones chomping on treats, which is an amusing image but not what I meant.)
(I can frequently gauge the extent of my exhaustion by my levels of either crabbiness or daffiness. One or the other seems to become dominant in my demeanor when I'm falling over tired. I think the daffy quotient indicates that I'm running on fumes but still manic as hell. The crankiness takes over when I'm just tired, dammit, and not running on anything any more: I'm behind the car, pushing it to the gas station.)
Anyway.
I have no earthly idea what I'm going to work on tomorrow, out of the 10 gazillion possibilities, so I'm just going to take it all home. Once I sit down at the table, in front of my beautiful and ever-so-helpful editor's desk, I'll do the triage. Probably I will have to start with clearing off some student work for the short story class, as they are about to do their second major essay and really should have their reading journals at least, if not their latest mini-papers. Other student work is going to have to get in line behind the observations I have to write up, and the promotion folders I have to evaluate (which I will do once I'm back on campus, as I can't take those home with me). Writing letters for the sabbatical applications is going to have to wait just a little bit longer--though I can't put it off too long, as the applications have to go over to the college-wide committee relatively soon. After missing the observation last week, I have started writing things in big red Sharpie on the wall calendar in my office, so I won't miss them (I sometimes forget to look at the calendar in my bag). I'm not fond enough of electronics to set a phone or computer or whatever to buzz or beep or deliver a swift kick when I need to remember something. Yes, I'm a troglodyte. I still rely on pen and paper. And I realize I need to put the date for submission of sabbatical applications in red on that calendar--probably with arrows and asterisks and various other flags and attention getters.
Bleagh. Yuck. Enough. I'm going to shuffle a few more papers around, shove a few more things in a bag, and go eat seafood with my buddy. Oh, and have a big drink. Ahhhhhhh.
Monday, November 7, 2011
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Ye gods
What a day! I did sleep in late (ahhhhh, lovely)--all the way to 8:00 a.m. I got to campus about 11:30. And I've been on the run ever since. My desk is a chaotic mess; I really do have to take a look at it before I leave campus just to figure out what's there. I thought I'd get more done in the time between my arrival and class, but I can't figure out what, if anything, I actually accomplished. Other than meeting with students, that is. The minute my door opened for the office hour (actually, a few minutes early), I had students showing up one after another.
I felt particularly bad for the Sweet Young Man, the one from my 102 who is there for help regularly but whose sentence skills are atrocious. He'd seen a tutor in the Writing Center who essentially told him he should simply withdraw as he had no chance to make it. She may be right, but he can't learn anything further if he withdraws. I talked to him and said even if he were to fail, I think he should stay and get his money's worth: he's paying for college out of his own pocket, and if he withdraws, he loses the last few weeks that he's already paid for. He'll have to take the class again either way, so I think he should stay and learn all he possibly can so he has a better shot at it the next time around. I know the tutor, too, and I'm surprised she was so harsh with him--but maybe that's because I know him personally and I have an investment in his success. She doesn't: she just saw his skill level and gave an honest appraisal. Ouch, but still.
Then Mr. Determined/Dedicated showed up. I love how much he's learned. He's able to look at his first papers and see how deficient they were, and he's got solid ideas for how to revise them, and for how to write his next papers. I'd take classrooms full of students just like him and be happy happy happy.
He was followed by the Bright Young Man, who had asked a question via e-mail about quotation use: I was unable to envision what he meant and suggested he simply show me in class and make the correction by hand--but he decided to show me prior to class. I didn't feel like I was being very clear about explaining what was going on (essentially, he had a sentence with a lengthy quotation in the middle, too hard for the reader to keep track of his sentence with the quote in there). But he got it.
In fact, lately I don't feel like I'm explaining anything very well. Mr. Determined had some very helpful feedback about how to reframe the wording of the mini-paper assignment sheet to try to elicit the kind of papers I'm looking for. But everything I say, or write, sounds like mud to me. I just finished advising a couple of students and I truly was surprised when they left feeling they understood something. Thank god they do, but if I had to hear myself, I'd be going, "Wait, what??"
That was a little bit the reaction from students about everything in terms of the journals, glossaries, and reading from Left Hand of Darkness today. This is the first time this class got less out of the reading than my other section. Part of that is because one student--a relatively smart young man--kept losing the thread and asking, well, let's not call them stupid questions but ones that evidenced the fact that multitasking doesn't work. He was trying to take notes and listen and read all at once, and he kept only hearing a fragment of what was being said. Then there's the young woman who is not getting herself the help she needs: some of her comments were great, very smart, and others were a bit out of left field (typically), but I had to stop her blurting out answers or comments or questions when I was in the middle of explaining something. At least one student seemed to already have checked out: she's one who has struggled all semester and yet has not come to me for help. I don't know if she'll manage to squeeze through the remainder of the term or if she'll fall by the wayside. The usual suspects were doing their usual fine job--as was at least one student who has not had much to say in class up to this point. She was more alert and focused today than I've seen. Better late than never.
Next week will be the acid test. I'm still not sure what to do about the fact that they only have one day next week to talk about the book with me, instead of two. Still kicking that around.
I now have an hour to kill before I have to observe one of our new adjuncts. I wasn't planning to go back to the office--just because I'm already on the side of campus where the class will be, and my office is all the way over there--but thinking about that rubbish heap on my desk, maybe I will. Then I might be able to finish the observation and leave, which would be great.
My time here is done. Off I go.
I felt particularly bad for the Sweet Young Man, the one from my 102 who is there for help regularly but whose sentence skills are atrocious. He'd seen a tutor in the Writing Center who essentially told him he should simply withdraw as he had no chance to make it. She may be right, but he can't learn anything further if he withdraws. I talked to him and said even if he were to fail, I think he should stay and get his money's worth: he's paying for college out of his own pocket, and if he withdraws, he loses the last few weeks that he's already paid for. He'll have to take the class again either way, so I think he should stay and learn all he possibly can so he has a better shot at it the next time around. I know the tutor, too, and I'm surprised she was so harsh with him--but maybe that's because I know him personally and I have an investment in his success. She doesn't: she just saw his skill level and gave an honest appraisal. Ouch, but still.
Then Mr. Determined/Dedicated showed up. I love how much he's learned. He's able to look at his first papers and see how deficient they were, and he's got solid ideas for how to revise them, and for how to write his next papers. I'd take classrooms full of students just like him and be happy happy happy.
He was followed by the Bright Young Man, who had asked a question via e-mail about quotation use: I was unable to envision what he meant and suggested he simply show me in class and make the correction by hand--but he decided to show me prior to class. I didn't feel like I was being very clear about explaining what was going on (essentially, he had a sentence with a lengthy quotation in the middle, too hard for the reader to keep track of his sentence with the quote in there). But he got it.
In fact, lately I don't feel like I'm explaining anything very well. Mr. Determined had some very helpful feedback about how to reframe the wording of the mini-paper assignment sheet to try to elicit the kind of papers I'm looking for. But everything I say, or write, sounds like mud to me. I just finished advising a couple of students and I truly was surprised when they left feeling they understood something. Thank god they do, but if I had to hear myself, I'd be going, "Wait, what??"
That was a little bit the reaction from students about everything in terms of the journals, glossaries, and reading from Left Hand of Darkness today. This is the first time this class got less out of the reading than my other section. Part of that is because one student--a relatively smart young man--kept losing the thread and asking, well, let's not call them stupid questions but ones that evidenced the fact that multitasking doesn't work. He was trying to take notes and listen and read all at once, and he kept only hearing a fragment of what was being said. Then there's the young woman who is not getting herself the help she needs: some of her comments were great, very smart, and others were a bit out of left field (typically), but I had to stop her blurting out answers or comments or questions when I was in the middle of explaining something. At least one student seemed to already have checked out: she's one who has struggled all semester and yet has not come to me for help. I don't know if she'll manage to squeeze through the remainder of the term or if she'll fall by the wayside. The usual suspects were doing their usual fine job--as was at least one student who has not had much to say in class up to this point. She was more alert and focused today than I've seen. Better late than never.
Next week will be the acid test. I'm still not sure what to do about the fact that they only have one day next week to talk about the book with me, instead of two. Still kicking that around.
I now have an hour to kill before I have to observe one of our new adjuncts. I wasn't planning to go back to the office--just because I'm already on the side of campus where the class will be, and my office is all the way over there--but thinking about that rubbish heap on my desk, maybe I will. Then I might be able to finish the observation and leave, which would be great.
My time here is done. Off I go.
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Whew.
I got the papers for the short story class marked--had to use the beginning of the class period to do it, but the students are so good about getting into their groups and doing solid work that I could just crank through the last few papers and then join them in progress. I did have to ask one group to get back on task (they're so funny in trying to demonstrate a connection between whatever personal conversation they're having and the literature when I ask them to return to task: "Really, campus parking has direct connection to Hamlet's existential concerns")--but they got back to it and only needed the one poke in the right direction. And the class discussion was very good. This particular group did the best I've yet heard on "Heat," by Joyce Carol Oates. I assign it partly because it's completely weird, and I am curious to see what they manage to do with it. I don't quite know what to make of it myself, so it's intriguing to see it through the lens of the students' attention.
I did realize that I'm a bit behind in terms of getting them ready for their next paper, so I postponed it, just by one class. No big deal--and may be easier for me in the long haul.
Of course, now that I've finished that batch of papers, the temptation is to let go completely, as if I'm out of the woods--but of course I'm not. Not only did I collect final versions of the second papers for my comp classes today (another batch to follow tomorrow), I still have observations to write up and promotion folders to evaluate and sabbatical cover letters to write--and other things that I'm almost certainly forgetting, too.
But I am experiencing a big shift of gears now. The short story students have one more big paper to write before their final papers, but for the 102 students, all they're doing until after Thanksgiving is reading the novel and getting ready for their proposals. I'll talk with them about those next week, so they'll have two weeks to think and prepare.
It was fun--well, fun for me anyway--to start the novel in class. We only got a few paragraphs covered, but my aim was to demonstrate that they actually understand a lot more than they may realize at first. The novel starts out with a bit in italics before the actual meat of the first chapter: "From the Archives of Hain. Transcript of Ansible Document 01-01101-934-2-Gethen: To the Stabile on Ollul: Report from Genly Ai, First Mobile on Gethen/Winter, Hainish Cycle 93, Ekumenical Year 1490-97." Of course, their first response is "What?????" But I start asking questions: What's an archive? What's a transcript? What's a document? What might those numbers mean? If it says it's "To" the Stabile, is a Stabile a person, place or concept? Who generated the report? I do simply give them some information (Ollul is a planet; Gethen/Winter is another planet, one that is referred to by two separate names; Hain is another planet...) but they actually get a lot out of it without the help from me. And we continue like that: we read a paragraph aloud, then discuss what we got out of it, what the context clues are, what we're learning so far.
Of course, they now have to read a big chunk of the book all at once, and journal on it as well as beginning to put together their own glossaries (so they have a reminder of what Erhenrang is, or a gossiwor, or who Pemmer Harge rem ir Tibe is): it's a hell of a lot of work, but it was the trade-off for being able to have more time on their papers. I hope they ultimately decide the benefits are worth it.
I'll be most curious to see how tomorrow's class handles the same thing. Given past experience, I suspect we'll spend more time getting them to understand the reading journal and glossary process (they tend to ask lots and lots and lots of questions to make sure they really follow) and possibly less actually reading, but I'd like to get to the same point in the first chapter.
And then, next week, I'll be most curious to see what they are starting to get a handle on, what remains opaque, how well they're keeping up.
Next week things will start to heat up in Advisement. I've been seeing more students, but registration begins next Wednesday, so that's when we'll have students in a holding pattern, practically circling the building waiting to come in for a landing. So I want to try to get as much nailed down this week as I possibly can.
But I need a breather. Just tonight, but I need to take a step back from the work and do something, anything, else. My plan is to leave campus as soon as I can; I'll finish here just before 5, will trot back to the office just long enough to drop off my (brand new and very nice) wheelie pack and pick up anything I left in the office (my travel mug), and then I plan to head home. I was going to have dinner with Paul tonight, but my body is telling me that I need to take much more tender care of it right now: an enormous slab of animal flesh, fat-soaked potatoes, and a tumbler of booze may be just a little more input than my system can take at the moment. So he and I are postponing until next week, and tonight, I want to be home and still. I'm not sure, but I think I can get away without setting an alarm, too: I need to check my calendar, but I think I am not actually required on campus until my office hour at 1 p.m. That would be heavenly, to sleep as long as my body needs and then get in to campus and start working. Bliss.
I did realize that I'm a bit behind in terms of getting them ready for their next paper, so I postponed it, just by one class. No big deal--and may be easier for me in the long haul.
Of course, now that I've finished that batch of papers, the temptation is to let go completely, as if I'm out of the woods--but of course I'm not. Not only did I collect final versions of the second papers for my comp classes today (another batch to follow tomorrow), I still have observations to write up and promotion folders to evaluate and sabbatical cover letters to write--and other things that I'm almost certainly forgetting, too.
But I am experiencing a big shift of gears now. The short story students have one more big paper to write before their final papers, but for the 102 students, all they're doing until after Thanksgiving is reading the novel and getting ready for their proposals. I'll talk with them about those next week, so they'll have two weeks to think and prepare.
It was fun--well, fun for me anyway--to start the novel in class. We only got a few paragraphs covered, but my aim was to demonstrate that they actually understand a lot more than they may realize at first. The novel starts out with a bit in italics before the actual meat of the first chapter: "From the Archives of Hain. Transcript of Ansible Document 01-01101-934-2-Gethen: To the Stabile on Ollul: Report from Genly Ai, First Mobile on Gethen/Winter, Hainish Cycle 93, Ekumenical Year 1490-97." Of course, their first response is "What?????" But I start asking questions: What's an archive? What's a transcript? What's a document? What might those numbers mean? If it says it's "To" the Stabile, is a Stabile a person, place or concept? Who generated the report? I do simply give them some information (Ollul is a planet; Gethen/Winter is another planet, one that is referred to by two separate names; Hain is another planet...) but they actually get a lot out of it without the help from me. And we continue like that: we read a paragraph aloud, then discuss what we got out of it, what the context clues are, what we're learning so far.
Of course, they now have to read a big chunk of the book all at once, and journal on it as well as beginning to put together their own glossaries (so they have a reminder of what Erhenrang is, or a gossiwor, or who Pemmer Harge rem ir Tibe is): it's a hell of a lot of work, but it was the trade-off for being able to have more time on their papers. I hope they ultimately decide the benefits are worth it.
I'll be most curious to see how tomorrow's class handles the same thing. Given past experience, I suspect we'll spend more time getting them to understand the reading journal and glossary process (they tend to ask lots and lots and lots of questions to make sure they really follow) and possibly less actually reading, but I'd like to get to the same point in the first chapter.
And then, next week, I'll be most curious to see what they are starting to get a handle on, what remains opaque, how well they're keeping up.
Next week things will start to heat up in Advisement. I've been seeing more students, but registration begins next Wednesday, so that's when we'll have students in a holding pattern, practically circling the building waiting to come in for a landing. So I want to try to get as much nailed down this week as I possibly can.
But I need a breather. Just tonight, but I need to take a step back from the work and do something, anything, else. My plan is to leave campus as soon as I can; I'll finish here just before 5, will trot back to the office just long enough to drop off my (brand new and very nice) wheelie pack and pick up anything I left in the office (my travel mug), and then I plan to head home. I was going to have dinner with Paul tonight, but my body is telling me that I need to take much more tender care of it right now: an enormous slab of animal flesh, fat-soaked potatoes, and a tumbler of booze may be just a little more input than my system can take at the moment. So he and I are postponing until next week, and tonight, I want to be home and still. I'm not sure, but I think I can get away without setting an alarm, too: I need to check my calendar, but I think I am not actually required on campus until my office hour at 1 p.m. That would be heavenly, to sleep as long as my body needs and then get in to campus and start working. Bliss.
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Grinding away
The short story papers are moving through my red-pen mill relatively rapidly, but I've not been very successful at finding as much time as I'd like to work on them. Little annoying bits that must be tended to keep swarming around my head like gnats, and until I can swat them away, I can't focus. I'm also facing the law of diminishing returns: I'm getting tired enough, after cranking all day, that I'm not reading: my eyes are running over the pages, but nothing is getting through the brain barriers. This indicates it's time to pack it in for the night, which will mean a pearly early start to the day tomorrow--but that is nothing particularly new, now, is it.
I'd like to report a piece of good news--or at least a gratifying moment--having nothing whatever to do with me or my work but having to do with the fight against the administration. There was a move afoot to institute a computerized scoring system to read placement essays and determine which students should go into remediation and which were prepared for college-level course work. The particular scoring system has some serious flaws--such as the fact that it would award higher scores to lengthy but meaningless sentences than to those that are pithy and powerful. Other illustrations of problems abound, but the administration was ready to institute this test without ever having met with the Placement Coordinator to get her feedback. In fact, they were ready to institute it without listening to any concerns from anyone--even though a pilot study run over the summer showed that something like 39% of students using the computerized system were misplaced, either too high or too low.
After repeated attempts to get the two administrators in charge of this to listen to concerns, the issue was brought before the Academic Senate today--and all reports are that our Placement Coordinator (my colleague and friend Cathy) and Bruce knocked it out of the park; they utterly crushed the administrators with their presentation of data. Further, the student representative to the Board of Trustees came in with his own crushing response. I'm inventing the words here, but as I understand it (cribbing from Paul's report), the student said, "So, let me get this straight. You thought 39% misplacement--which I think is obscene--was tolerable, but what level of misplacement would have led you to believe that the system was not workable? 50%? 75%?" The administrators huffed and blustered--and then another faculty member got up and said, "I'd actually like to hear your answer to his question." I wasn't even there, and I want to get up and cheer my colleagues, the student, the forces of good and righteousness and education, embattled as we are by the forces of corporatized, stupefying mindlessness.
Of course, who knows what will happen next, but at least for the moment, the administration has had to back down.
I must note, however, that in this particular instance, the thing I find most disturbing is that the two administrators at fault in this particular rhubarb are both women I had worked with as faculty colleagues and liked very much. Now I find I want to spit at the sound of their names. I feel personally betrayed.
Still, they got checked and checked hard on this. Find images from hockey games of guys getting "checked": like that. Thank god.
Class today was generally great. One poor student is really struggling, and I should encourage her to withdraw. If she doesn't show significant improvement on her revision, I'll have to urge her to leave the class. She is sweet as all get out and wants very badly to do well, but she does not get the help that she needs in order to understand what's going on. She keeps saying she needs to get a counselor with the Center for Students with Disabilities--and she does, but I can't make her do that. She needs to take the initiative. And until she does, I'm afraid I have reached the end of my ability to help her see what's needed.
Two of my gang of four--the two young men--were funny today. I think one of their compadres is getting a more than a bit annoyed with them, as both are aggressive about getting attention from me, whereas she tends to be more accommodating of others' needs. I did put the "boys" on hold at one point--the two of them could easily consume the entire class period, asking me to check their work in detail. But I find them charming, and they're working hard--and doing good work--so I actually enjoy devoting the energy to them. On the other hand, I also have to ensure that the other, less aggressive, students also get as much of my time and attention as they want. That said, however, two of the students who needed the most help (apart from the young lady mentioned above) didn't ask me a single question that I can recall--except one of them asked why her paper was considered two days late when one wasn't a day when we have class. (Answer: it's still a day, and if you'd paid any attention to the syllabus, you'd see that the late penalty accrues for each 24 hour period, not class session.) But most of the students asked at least a few questions--or felt that they'd already addressed my comments to the best of their ability. (Fair enough.)
It's an interesting corollary, however: it doesn't hold invariably, but mostly. The better writers want the most time from me; the worst, the least. I hate to say it, but I suspect that reflects the fact that the worst writers feel it's simply hopeless, that they have too much to do so they simply give up. I agonize over that. I want them to keep trying--it's the only way they'll learn--but I don't want to give them a false sense of where they stand in terms of what they need to be able to do. I've never been sure how to handle that paradox.
I do recognize that it is part of my job to help students hang in there and keep trying as long as possible--but sometimes, it's also part of my job to tell someone the hard truth. I just wrote a letter to a student in the short story class, telling him that purely on a sentence level, his writing is too poor to be considered college level. (That's apart from his ideas, which are also woefully deficient, but he could potentially scrape by with a D if he could at least write a sentence that made sense.) He's getting that news from me at this late date because this is the first actual writing assignment (other than a reading journal) that he's submitted: there have been three mini-papers to this point, and he hasn't turned in one. The only formal writing assignment he turned in was his first substantial paper (which was supposed to be 5-7 pages and was 2 1/2)--and I gave him ten points for turning in something, as a mercy. On top of that, 21% of his final grade is a zero, because of all the assignments he's missed. He can't come back from that, unless he is capable of suddenly producing B-level work for every single assignment for the rest of the term. He did get a B in 102. Was he doing something radically different from what he's doing now, or is this--as I suspect it is--an instance of one of my colleagues having no standards to speak of in terms of grading? I confess that in this case, I don't feel too bad for the student. He dug himself into this hole, and he'll find that once one is in a hole, to continue digging simply makes the hole deeper.
Ah well.
On a personal level, I am going to skip my dance class again tonight. The last two weeks it's been easy to miss, not only because of my work load but also because the instructor I like was away. This week he's back, and I'd love to go to class, but I'd get home too late. In order to wake up in the morning with any shred of the intelligence needed to finish those papers, I must head for home now. Or, well, in a little bit: there are a few more of those gnats that I need to swat first.
I'd like to report a piece of good news--or at least a gratifying moment--having nothing whatever to do with me or my work but having to do with the fight against the administration. There was a move afoot to institute a computerized scoring system to read placement essays and determine which students should go into remediation and which were prepared for college-level course work. The particular scoring system has some serious flaws--such as the fact that it would award higher scores to lengthy but meaningless sentences than to those that are pithy and powerful. Other illustrations of problems abound, but the administration was ready to institute this test without ever having met with the Placement Coordinator to get her feedback. In fact, they were ready to institute it without listening to any concerns from anyone--even though a pilot study run over the summer showed that something like 39% of students using the computerized system were misplaced, either too high or too low.
After repeated attempts to get the two administrators in charge of this to listen to concerns, the issue was brought before the Academic Senate today--and all reports are that our Placement Coordinator (my colleague and friend Cathy) and Bruce knocked it out of the park; they utterly crushed the administrators with their presentation of data. Further, the student representative to the Board of Trustees came in with his own crushing response. I'm inventing the words here, but as I understand it (cribbing from Paul's report), the student said, "So, let me get this straight. You thought 39% misplacement--which I think is obscene--was tolerable, but what level of misplacement would have led you to believe that the system was not workable? 50%? 75%?" The administrators huffed and blustered--and then another faculty member got up and said, "I'd actually like to hear your answer to his question." I wasn't even there, and I want to get up and cheer my colleagues, the student, the forces of good and righteousness and education, embattled as we are by the forces of corporatized, stupefying mindlessness.
Of course, who knows what will happen next, but at least for the moment, the administration has had to back down.
I must note, however, that in this particular instance, the thing I find most disturbing is that the two administrators at fault in this particular rhubarb are both women I had worked with as faculty colleagues and liked very much. Now I find I want to spit at the sound of their names. I feel personally betrayed.
Still, they got checked and checked hard on this. Find images from hockey games of guys getting "checked": like that. Thank god.
Class today was generally great. One poor student is really struggling, and I should encourage her to withdraw. If she doesn't show significant improvement on her revision, I'll have to urge her to leave the class. She is sweet as all get out and wants very badly to do well, but she does not get the help that she needs in order to understand what's going on. She keeps saying she needs to get a counselor with the Center for Students with Disabilities--and she does, but I can't make her do that. She needs to take the initiative. And until she does, I'm afraid I have reached the end of my ability to help her see what's needed.
Two of my gang of four--the two young men--were funny today. I think one of their compadres is getting a more than a bit annoyed with them, as both are aggressive about getting attention from me, whereas she tends to be more accommodating of others' needs. I did put the "boys" on hold at one point--the two of them could easily consume the entire class period, asking me to check their work in detail. But I find them charming, and they're working hard--and doing good work--so I actually enjoy devoting the energy to them. On the other hand, I also have to ensure that the other, less aggressive, students also get as much of my time and attention as they want. That said, however, two of the students who needed the most help (apart from the young lady mentioned above) didn't ask me a single question that I can recall--except one of them asked why her paper was considered two days late when one wasn't a day when we have class. (Answer: it's still a day, and if you'd paid any attention to the syllabus, you'd see that the late penalty accrues for each 24 hour period, not class session.) But most of the students asked at least a few questions--or felt that they'd already addressed my comments to the best of their ability. (Fair enough.)
It's an interesting corollary, however: it doesn't hold invariably, but mostly. The better writers want the most time from me; the worst, the least. I hate to say it, but I suspect that reflects the fact that the worst writers feel it's simply hopeless, that they have too much to do so they simply give up. I agonize over that. I want them to keep trying--it's the only way they'll learn--but I don't want to give them a false sense of where they stand in terms of what they need to be able to do. I've never been sure how to handle that paradox.
I do recognize that it is part of my job to help students hang in there and keep trying as long as possible--but sometimes, it's also part of my job to tell someone the hard truth. I just wrote a letter to a student in the short story class, telling him that purely on a sentence level, his writing is too poor to be considered college level. (That's apart from his ideas, which are also woefully deficient, but he could potentially scrape by with a D if he could at least write a sentence that made sense.) He's getting that news from me at this late date because this is the first actual writing assignment (other than a reading journal) that he's submitted: there have been three mini-papers to this point, and he hasn't turned in one. The only formal writing assignment he turned in was his first substantial paper (which was supposed to be 5-7 pages and was 2 1/2)--and I gave him ten points for turning in something, as a mercy. On top of that, 21% of his final grade is a zero, because of all the assignments he's missed. He can't come back from that, unless he is capable of suddenly producing B-level work for every single assignment for the rest of the term. He did get a B in 102. Was he doing something radically different from what he's doing now, or is this--as I suspect it is--an instance of one of my colleagues having no standards to speak of in terms of grading? I confess that in this case, I don't feel too bad for the student. He dug himself into this hole, and he'll find that once one is in a hole, to continue digging simply makes the hole deeper.
Ah well.
On a personal level, I am going to skip my dance class again tonight. The last two weeks it's been easy to miss, not only because of my work load but also because the instructor I like was away. This week he's back, and I'd love to go to class, but I'd get home too late. In order to wake up in the morning with any shred of the intelligence needed to finish those papers, I must head for home now. Or, well, in a little bit: there are a few more of those gnats that I need to swat first.
Monday, October 31, 2011
Whee-hawken!
(Title is a Pogo reference. If you don't know Pogo, you should.)
I've actually been advising today, which is great, as the time has gone much more quickly than usual, but of course I was really hoping I'd have time to grade papers. I've promised my short story class that I'll have their papers back to them by Wednesday--and I've not started marking yet. Yikes, and likewise zoiks. But I will say that grading their papers is a hellova lot easier than marking papers for the comp sections, as I don't have to be as detailed about the mechanics of writing in my feedback. Their papers are not necessarily any better--in fact, often worse--but I can simply say "You need to get help on this" without being the person to help. There also aren't many of them left. There were 13 in class today; one more may still be hanging on by the skin of his teeth, but really, I think I'm down to 12 in that class, when all is said and done.
That's more than 50% attrition. But I hasten to say that I'm not alone in that category. Many of my colleagues have the same experience: it seems to be a common occurrence at any community college. In fact, I recall, when I was at La Guardia, we had a column on our final grade rosters for last date of attendance, and students who simply stopped coming prior to a specific cut off date were considered to have withdrawn.
So far, I'm hanging on to more of my students in the comp sections. Of course, they haven't embarked on The Left Hand of Darkness yet, and the process of reading that novel can be the hurdle that some of them simply cannot get over. The problem is partly that some simply cannot make sense of a world so strange and unfamiliar--or make sense of the sophistication of Le Guin's prose. But part of the problem is simply that some of them have never had to sustain awareness of anything for that length of time: reading a novel (I am realizing for the first time) requires being able to keep characters, places, plot points in one's mind over an extended period of time--days, weeks, months. Many of them have never had to keep something in mind anywhere near that long. Even in a class, in which certain information must be retained, students can return to notes or a text-book and continually refresh their memories. With a novel, one cannot perpetually start from the beginning and reread up to the current point in the narrative.
Last night, as I was thinking about it, I was half tempted to tell my Tuesday/Thursday class that they can skip the chapters that do not deal directly with the narrative. (Le Guin intersperses "hearth tales," ethnographic reports, myths and legends, with the "actual" story.) The only reason to do that is because I only see them once next week, and I'm worried about how much we can cover in that one class so they feel confident moving on. The other option is to postpone their proposals by a day--but then that puts them in a crunch in terms of their final papers.
I just now thought, maybe I could hold a study session outside of class, open to any student who can make it. I rather like that idea, actually. I'll take a look at my schedule and see when I have any time next week (other than Tuesday: for a split second I thought, "Oh, I could do it on Tuesday, which follows a Friday schedule" but then my saner mind intervened and said, "No, dammit, I need the day off.") Hmmmm.
Today's 102 went well: students were getting the hang of what they need to do. One student is going to be disappointed, however. I'm very happy with her new thesis; she's done good work--but she thinks she has a shot at an A, and I'm afraid she doesn't. I don't know how to make students understand that "very good" is not the same as "excellent," and only excellence earns an A--from this professor, anyway. To a certain extent, A's are born, not made: there is a certain kind of intelligence that has to be innate in order for a student to break that barrier. Notice I say a kind of intelligence, not an amount: students can be utterly brilliant in some areas and simply not be wired for certain kinds of thinking or expression. I have a pretty damned good brain, but no matter how hard I might try, there are certain levels of math (or physics, or who knows what else) that would always be opaque to me: I'd never be able to crack into the higher echelons. I know the stakes are different when one is an undergraduate--the ambitious ones are still trying to become straight A students--but not everyone has a brain that can do equally well in all areas.
As I was writing that, I had a moment of panic--and I was right to. I suddenly thought, "Did I have any observations this week?" And I did: today. I missed it. I just was on automatic pilot and came right over to Advisement like I always do, and completely forgot until just now that I was supposed to observe a colleague at 2:00. I just sent her an e-mail, apologizing all over the place, but now I have to reschedule that observation, dammit. And suddenly I'm thinking about all the other things I have to do: not just grade those papers, but look at promotion folders and write letters of recommendation, and write up last week's observations, and and and.
Shit. I mean it. Shit. But oh well. What can I do but keep on doing? I was going to cancel my evening office hour tonight, but no: I'm going to stay in the office and get as much work done as I can before the roof caves in.
I feel so unbearably stupid about missing that observation. I wonder how long I'll kick myself about that? Damn and blast and hell and oh well, but... repeat ad infinitum.
I've actually been advising today, which is great, as the time has gone much more quickly than usual, but of course I was really hoping I'd have time to grade papers. I've promised my short story class that I'll have their papers back to them by Wednesday--and I've not started marking yet. Yikes, and likewise zoiks. But I will say that grading their papers is a hellova lot easier than marking papers for the comp sections, as I don't have to be as detailed about the mechanics of writing in my feedback. Their papers are not necessarily any better--in fact, often worse--but I can simply say "You need to get help on this" without being the person to help. There also aren't many of them left. There were 13 in class today; one more may still be hanging on by the skin of his teeth, but really, I think I'm down to 12 in that class, when all is said and done.
That's more than 50% attrition. But I hasten to say that I'm not alone in that category. Many of my colleagues have the same experience: it seems to be a common occurrence at any community college. In fact, I recall, when I was at La Guardia, we had a column on our final grade rosters for last date of attendance, and students who simply stopped coming prior to a specific cut off date were considered to have withdrawn.
So far, I'm hanging on to more of my students in the comp sections. Of course, they haven't embarked on The Left Hand of Darkness yet, and the process of reading that novel can be the hurdle that some of them simply cannot get over. The problem is partly that some simply cannot make sense of a world so strange and unfamiliar--or make sense of the sophistication of Le Guin's prose. But part of the problem is simply that some of them have never had to sustain awareness of anything for that length of time: reading a novel (I am realizing for the first time) requires being able to keep characters, places, plot points in one's mind over an extended period of time--days, weeks, months. Many of them have never had to keep something in mind anywhere near that long. Even in a class, in which certain information must be retained, students can return to notes or a text-book and continually refresh their memories. With a novel, one cannot perpetually start from the beginning and reread up to the current point in the narrative.
Last night, as I was thinking about it, I was half tempted to tell my Tuesday/Thursday class that they can skip the chapters that do not deal directly with the narrative. (Le Guin intersperses "hearth tales," ethnographic reports, myths and legends, with the "actual" story.) The only reason to do that is because I only see them once next week, and I'm worried about how much we can cover in that one class so they feel confident moving on. The other option is to postpone their proposals by a day--but then that puts them in a crunch in terms of their final papers.
I just now thought, maybe I could hold a study session outside of class, open to any student who can make it. I rather like that idea, actually. I'll take a look at my schedule and see when I have any time next week (other than Tuesday: for a split second I thought, "Oh, I could do it on Tuesday, which follows a Friday schedule" but then my saner mind intervened and said, "No, dammit, I need the day off.") Hmmmm.
Today's 102 went well: students were getting the hang of what they need to do. One student is going to be disappointed, however. I'm very happy with her new thesis; she's done good work--but she thinks she has a shot at an A, and I'm afraid she doesn't. I don't know how to make students understand that "very good" is not the same as "excellent," and only excellence earns an A--from this professor, anyway. To a certain extent, A's are born, not made: there is a certain kind of intelligence that has to be innate in order for a student to break that barrier. Notice I say a kind of intelligence, not an amount: students can be utterly brilliant in some areas and simply not be wired for certain kinds of thinking or expression. I have a pretty damned good brain, but no matter how hard I might try, there are certain levels of math (or physics, or who knows what else) that would always be opaque to me: I'd never be able to crack into the higher echelons. I know the stakes are different when one is an undergraduate--the ambitious ones are still trying to become straight A students--but not everyone has a brain that can do equally well in all areas.
As I was writing that, I had a moment of panic--and I was right to. I suddenly thought, "Did I have any observations this week?" And I did: today. I missed it. I just was on automatic pilot and came right over to Advisement like I always do, and completely forgot until just now that I was supposed to observe a colleague at 2:00. I just sent her an e-mail, apologizing all over the place, but now I have to reschedule that observation, dammit. And suddenly I'm thinking about all the other things I have to do: not just grade those papers, but look at promotion folders and write letters of recommendation, and write up last week's observations, and and and.
Shit. I mean it. Shit. But oh well. What can I do but keep on doing? I was going to cancel my evening office hour tonight, but no: I'm going to stay in the office and get as much work done as I can before the roof caves in.
I feel so unbearably stupid about missing that observation. I wonder how long I'll kick myself about that? Damn and blast and hell and oh well, but... repeat ad infinitum.
Thursday, October 27, 2011
P.S.
I want to be sure to make note of this: As I was getting ready to leave Advisement, I was told I had a phone call. It was a student, to my surprise. He said he had meant to say something when he'd seen me earlier, hadn't, and wanted to be sure to talk to me about some issue. He started to tell me about his math professor, how he'd taken a test more than two weeks before and hadn't gotten the grades back until just now. I was expecting him to ask me if this was something he could lodge a complaint about, or how he could express his unhappiness about that to his professor--but no. He said, "That professor took two and a half weeks to return test grades, and you returned our graded papers in two days. That is evidence of how much you care." If you are reading this, my student, thank you. Truly and sincerely, thank you.
I don't know if students understand how seldom we receive any recognition from them--not so much about the work we do (this is, after all, my job) but about the fact that we care. OK, not all of us, but most of us. We truly, deeply care about our students and their success. It seems that most students don't think of their professors as actual human beings, and insofar as they do think about our motivations, they seem to believe that our only raison d'etre is to torture them. What a bunch of sadists we are--or at best, utterly without feelings of any kind. So to have a student recognize the emotional commitment that goes into the work is manna indeed.
I'm marginally incoherent about this (long day at the end of a long week, and my brains are starting to seize up), but truly, that was a sterling moment, one I will treasure and hold on to, polish with repeated remembering over not only months but probably the rest of my career. And that came on top of a comment overheard in class today. Students were practically bleeding out their ears from the effort they were putting into their revisions, they were working alone as well as checking in with classmates, and calling me over to ask questions--and I overheard a student--I'm not even sure who, just a female voice--say "I love this class." That, when she is being put through a mangle. That's praise, too.
And that's the sweet taste I carry in my mouth as I leave campus this week. I have a bag full of more papers to mark (my poor short story students have been getting the fuzzy end of the lollipop for over a week; it's time now to put my attention into getting work back to them), but the immediate searing pressure is off, and I take home that manna, that nectar of praise. Heavenly days.
I don't know if students understand how seldom we receive any recognition from them--not so much about the work we do (this is, after all, my job) but about the fact that we care. OK, not all of us, but most of us. We truly, deeply care about our students and their success. It seems that most students don't think of their professors as actual human beings, and insofar as they do think about our motivations, they seem to believe that our only raison d'etre is to torture them. What a bunch of sadists we are--or at best, utterly without feelings of any kind. So to have a student recognize the emotional commitment that goes into the work is manna indeed.
I'm marginally incoherent about this (long day at the end of a long week, and my brains are starting to seize up), but truly, that was a sterling moment, one I will treasure and hold on to, polish with repeated remembering over not only months but probably the rest of my career. And that came on top of a comment overheard in class today. Students were practically bleeding out their ears from the effort they were putting into their revisions, they were working alone as well as checking in with classmates, and calling me over to ask questions--and I overheard a student--I'm not even sure who, just a female voice--say "I love this class." That, when she is being put through a mangle. That's praise, too.
And that's the sweet taste I carry in my mouth as I leave campus this week. I have a bag full of more papers to mark (my poor short story students have been getting the fuzzy end of the lollipop for over a week; it's time now to put my attention into getting work back to them), but the immediate searing pressure is off, and I take home that manna, that nectar of praise. Heavenly days.
Brief week in review
I have about ten minutes before I have to go to an observation--after which I am blasting out of here as fast as I can go. But even though I said I wouldn't blog this week, I just have to say how much I'm liking this process of revision. It still needs tweaking, here and there, but I think it works better than anything I've tried. I think the two days in class of working on version two are especially useful. Both yesterday and today, being in class was a little like being pulled apart by hungry beasts, as each student wanted more more more of my time. But it was great to be able to circulate around the room and answer specific questions, point out problems, ask more questions for them to work on, cajole, push, encourage, praise, tease--and in one case, damned near fight.
That one case was in yesterday's class. The student was fighting me tooth and nail about my comments. That cycle from "But I did that!" (no, you didn't) to "You're telling me not to..." (no, I'm telling you that you must--but you didn't) to "How can I when you tell me I'm not allowed to..." (no, I'm telling you not to do X but to do Y instead). Among the specific issues: the student kept referring to the poet and her life and her thoughts and not talking about the poetry. When I said she needed to focus on the poetry, the student said, "But how can I talk about that if I can't mention the poet?" and "What, I'm supposed to act like I wrote the poem?" She was being willfully dense, because she doesn't want to have to change her paper--or how she thinks. I kept saying to her, "Don't fight me on this"--and even then she said, "I'm not fighting you!"
Breathe, Tonia; breathe.
In yesterday's class, two of the students there didn't ask me a single question. Those two are not by any stretch the strongest writers in the class. A few more only asked one or two questions. Ditto. The best writers are generally the ones who have the most questions about what to do, how to improve.
Today, the only students who didn't ask questions were the ones who hadn't turned in their first versions on Tuesday and so who don't yet have any feedback from me. (Again, not the best writers in the class.) Everyone else wanted my time--lots of it, more than I had to give. Which is why I'm glad we're doing this again next week. I hope that they work on trying to address my comments over the weekend so they can run changes by me to see if they're effective. But we'll see.
The short story class is pulling together nicely as well. I shuffled the groups a little yesterday, and they did very well together in the new configurations. Nice.
That's about it. I may have to see another student right now; if so I hope I can hustle him out of here pretty quickly so I can get to my observation on time. If not, I'll be out of here in five minutes....
And up this post goes, unrevised, unproofed, unexamined--raw from the keyboard.
That one case was in yesterday's class. The student was fighting me tooth and nail about my comments. That cycle from "But I did that!" (no, you didn't) to "You're telling me not to..." (no, I'm telling you that you must--but you didn't) to "How can I when you tell me I'm not allowed to..." (no, I'm telling you not to do X but to do Y instead). Among the specific issues: the student kept referring to the poet and her life and her thoughts and not talking about the poetry. When I said she needed to focus on the poetry, the student said, "But how can I talk about that if I can't mention the poet?" and "What, I'm supposed to act like I wrote the poem?" She was being willfully dense, because she doesn't want to have to change her paper--or how she thinks. I kept saying to her, "Don't fight me on this"--and even then she said, "I'm not fighting you!"
Breathe, Tonia; breathe.
In yesterday's class, two of the students there didn't ask me a single question. Those two are not by any stretch the strongest writers in the class. A few more only asked one or two questions. Ditto. The best writers are generally the ones who have the most questions about what to do, how to improve.
Today, the only students who didn't ask questions were the ones who hadn't turned in their first versions on Tuesday and so who don't yet have any feedback from me. (Again, not the best writers in the class.) Everyone else wanted my time--lots of it, more than I had to give. Which is why I'm glad we're doing this again next week. I hope that they work on trying to address my comments over the weekend so they can run changes by me to see if they're effective. But we'll see.
The short story class is pulling together nicely as well. I shuffled the groups a little yesterday, and they did very well together in the new configurations. Nice.
That's about it. I may have to see another student right now; if so I hope I can hustle him out of here pretty quickly so I can get to my observation on time. If not, I'll be out of here in five minutes....
And up this post goes, unrevised, unproofed, unexamined--raw from the keyboard.
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