Chiming In

There's an interesting post and discussion at vitia about the differences between the two-year and four-year student. Although Mike isn't a community college faculty member, he often offers inciteful and respectful commentary on teaching English at our institutions.

A Topic on Topics

I've always operated with the belief that if I let my students choose their own topics for their papers, then their papers will be better because the student will at least be writing about something that s/he is interested in. The only time that I break this caveat is for argumentative papers, as I normally give my students a choice of topics to write about for a persuasive essay. I've just found that this is easier for them as they tend to get much anxiety when they have to choose a topic and are asked for an opinion about an "issue."

There are definitely pitfalls to this approach. One semester I had a student who wrote a descriptive essay on street drag racing, wrote a process essay about what he does to prepare for a street race, wrote a personal narrative on how he was arrested once for participating in this illegal activity, and a comparison/contrast essay that had also something to do with street racing. The two reasons I let him do this were because 1)He was ESL and really struggling with the language and the class was giving him major anxiety and 2) All four of the papers were actually very different from each other and he met the requirements of the class. But now I can't help if I in some way did him a disservice by not making him choose other topics, for there is a lesson to be learned in writing about things that are difficult to write about.

Now that I am headlong into this semester and it is time for my students to start working on their portfolios, I am wondering if I should just assign topics or again let them choose their own.

The Greatest Job (If Only)

I often imagine what it would be like if I could teach English at the college level and not have to respond to student papers. If I could do some reading, go to class, ask stimulating questions, impart the few interesting things I know about being a good writer, and hang out for an hour and twenty with those motivated (for the most part), amiable people who register for my courses. If after doing that I could go home and watch Law & Order reruns all night without thinking about that stack of papers I should be reading. . .

Like all fantasies, it's just that. And so every semester I look for a way to make it easier, less time-consuming, and more palatable to respond to student papers. And every semester I fail. I've tried it all: grading rubrics, shorthand systems, responding to one issue only, trying to do most of it in conferencing. No matter what, I spend an inordinate amount of time not only responding but avoiding responding to student papers because I hate it so much. I don't hate reading them--I often look forward to that to see what they've done--but commenting is the bane of my existence as an English teacher.

I know I'm not alone in this, and I know it isn't just a community college teaching issue. But the community colleges are where instructors are more likely to be teaching three to four (or even five) composition-based courses per semester. I think it is an especially important issue for us because the burnout which can result inevitably has deleterious effects on our students.

Maybe it's a dead horse, but somehow I cling to the hope that if we keep talking about it, we'll come up with a solution.

Sad Truths?

Despite its typical let's-blame-the-liberals-for-mucking-with-the-educational-system tone, this piece from The New York Post accurately describes much of what I see in my first-year writing students.