And I'm not so sure that I'm teaching them anything in the process--by the time they get to my class do they already know/ terminally not know and give a shit or not give a shit? I get this horrible feeling that some students are simply able to competently write (from baseline linguistic smarts and/or reading a lot and knowing what real writing should look like?) and some just can't (as they don't read so written English remains a foreign dialect? Or perhaps writing is a very particular sort of smarts that you either have or you don't? Which, if it's the case, makes me despair.).
Do ya'll Miserians know what I mean? Do some students just have it, as an innate skill (that can, however, be honed or neglected), but some don't and never will? You know those hardworking B+ students who bring in a draft and ask, "How can I make this an 'A' essay?" and you think, "I'm so very sorry, and my heart hurts for you, but I'm not sure if you can. . ."? And in terms of the very basics, if they don't arrive with it already, more or less, I don't have the time to teach them how to write a decent essay in decent English from the ground up AND my discipline. Idealistically I like the idea of multiple drafts, etc etc, but ain't nobody got time for that!
The ones who write crap because they can't be fucked to bother are one thing, so is this just a hoop to jump through for some but for some others it's just grim? Do you English comp people feel like your courses make a difference for some of them? Am I just noticing the unimprovable incorrigibles?
(Is it analogous to, say, myself and Calculus? Where I was 'good at maths' Until That, and then it seemed that no amount of hard work and time and extra explanation and tutoring was going to save me, because, at least at that moment, it appeared that my brain wasn't optimized for that skill? Why could I and my instructors accept that set of facts, but. . . maybe it is analogous. . . Should I just remember my mantra and stop worrying?)
Just venting. Back to The Stack. Or retreating to a box of wine for the evening. For the ones who try, I try to remain empathetic.
"Not that any one of them is so bad, but there are so many and it's so Sisyphean."
ReplyDeleteThat's a pretty good description of teaching an all-comp load.
Personally, I think the key issue is that they don't read/read enough. I'd very much like to try confining a bunch of students to a kindler, gentler version of a Strelnikov-style work camp for a year or so, something involving a combination of a bit of practical/housekeeping-type labor and regular outdoor exercise (preferably solo, to encourage reflection) and a lot of reading, of whatever sort they like, as long as the words are printed on paper, and regular opportunities for conversation about the reading (not necessarily formal classes; extended group mealtimes would do). There would, of course, be no TV, no internet access, and no recorded music (live music-making of all sorts would be encouraged, but limited if it started eating into reading time). Perhaps there would be limited access to old-fashioned style phones for a few hours a day, or on the weekend. There wouldn't necessarily be formal writing instruction, but corresponding on paper with friends and families, keeping journals, and pursuing any other sort of writing the participant desired would be encouraged, and would be the sharing of texts with others (orally or by passing paper around). I don't think any of the above would fully make up for years of not reading -- it would probably be better for students to have this experience for one month a year during grades 1-12 than all at once -- but I'd be interested to see the results.
I like the camp idea, and I would even add "cursive and fountain pens" to it. But I wonder if, these days, "no internet access" would be considered akin to waterboarding.
DeleteI teach a lot of FYC, and I've got a sort-of doctoral minor in comp (I'd have a real one, but the official minor got absorbed into a different program while I was in grad school) so I'm not entirely speaking out of my rectal cavity when I say this: There's no evidence that freshman comp actually helps students. We like to think it does...but it's mostly a holdover from land-grant schools imitating Harvard's English A course.
ReplyDeleteI've got serious doubts, myself, mostly along the lines of what you wrote, Dr. L. We can give students the rules for formal academic writing, and we can help dissuade them from performing atrocities upon the written English language, and sometimes we can help convince them that writing isn't a horrific torture...but yeah...the ones who "get it" just get it, and the ones who don't, don't.
I also concur with Contingent Cassandra, who wrote about the value of reading. Stephen King (far from a highbrow litur-rary author, but a skilled workman of the trade) has said that the only way to become a good writer is to be a voracious reader, and I think he's right. Readers write; TV-watchers don't.
Now 'scuse me while I go back to grading a stack of final papers from my second-semester comp students and resisting the temptation to gouge out my eyeballs.
I find that putting the fear of God into them (yes, I have tenure) and holding high expectations in my intro-astronomy course for non-majors works surprisingly well---for about half of them. Many of the rest don't give a fig, or have ESL problems, but some do improve. I also do my best not to make up my mind too soon. But then, my physics majors need that even more than my general-ed student.
ReplyDeleteAt this point of the semester--i.e., near the end--I can say without a doubt that nothing I do in the classroom matters one tea-partying bit. My comp classes are the worst.
ReplyDeleteYesterday, a student who has had feedback on his research FOR TWO TEA-PARTYING WEEKS ALREADY asked me in class what he was doing wrong with his formatting and information in his works cited page. I said, "Have you looked it up?"
He replied (and to his credit, rather sheepishly), "No."
I told him, "Go look it up, then come and talk to me about it."
The research essay is due next week. Because that's the last day of class.
Another student stubbornly insists on using a software program's inadequate formatting feature and then argued with me last night when her citation was incorrect.
I'd say that five percent of my comp students get it. Five. I hate teaching comp with every fiber of my being. Thanks to this job, I also now hate December. With every fiber of my being.
Yes, it's Sisyphean, and not just because of the sheer volume of grading. It's a ridiculous, unsustainable system. I find that my local colleagues who are able to toddle along cheerfully while teaching comp are incompetent. Don't forget that I teach at a CC where the skill level is...suspect.
One more week. One more week. One more week.
Just keep swimming, just keep swimming...
DeleteSwim UP! Swim UP!
Delete"Do some students just have it, as an innate skill (that can, however, be honed or neglected), but some don't and never will?"
ReplyDeleteI was reading the OP and going nod,nod, yes, of course...but that's math! Then I got to Lemurpants' "good at maths until Calculus". So you know. Well, Calculus is our "freshman comp". I'm convinced that those who get it, get it, those who don't, never will. And the latter group includes many who claim to want to major in engineering, or even Physics.
My former department head used to make the case, convincingly, that in many ways Math is closer to English than to (say) Physics; in particular in how it is viewed as a "service" discipline, and in how other departments believe we should be able to teach college-level material to anyone, including those who don't have it in them to "get it". And to allow a large percentage of them to pass our intro courses, regardless of whether they demonstrate having learned anything or not.
Mindbender's and Greta's comments speak to me, too. It often seems like a giant waste of time, for all but 30% of the students (yet I have to pass at least 70%, or else.) The comment based on the Stephen King quote--I think there's a lot of truth to that: people who don't read a lot can't write worth anything. And it's the same with math: unless you've spent hours poring over nontrivial problems as a young teenager, not because you had to, but for love of the challenge, you'll never be good at it; and how many people do that anymore (or ever did)?
I am happy to say that we aren't yet required to pass 70%. Our historical rate in Calculus I is 59%, and has been for decades. Interestingly, this matches the rate in AP Calculus.
DeleteI keep thinking, as my current university keeps pushing writing-in-the-disciplines and writing-across-the-curriculum approaches, that a jointly-taught class in writing in one's major would be incredibly beneficial. Get a professor from the major who knows how writing is done in the major but maybe doesn't know how to teach writing, and a professor who knows how to teach writing, and get them to team-teach a required prereq course. I don't think it would ever happen here--I get the sense that our departments are very isolated from each other and it would take an act of Congress to get something like this moving--but on the off chance that one day I'm the chair of anything, it's something I might consider pushing.
ReplyDeleteWAC programs were shown to be more effective than comp (historically), but were really hard to sustain because, to do well, they required a lot more work than many were willing to do, but writing across the curriculum actually does help and works!
DeleteCal was a writing program director a couple of places. His input would be good here.
DeleteI've taught remedial composition. This is The Awful Truth as I understand it: if you can't write a clear short essay in simple declarative sentences by the time you are 19, you never will.
ReplyDeleteFor the record, I would never say that out loud.
I'm grading a set of these right now. Same content taught to two different classes: one class is getting A's and Bs. The other solid Ds and Fs across the board on SAME final exam prompt. They've all sat in the class for 10 weeks where I've emphasized how to write thesis statements and topic sentences, and by golly, some are still unable to develop a simple paragraph. And those who are getting the A's and Bs are likely the ones who came to me that way already.
DeleteNO, if they don't read anything substantive, they don't learn how to write.
While it's probably true that writing -- at least in terms of what we expect in higher ed -- is an innate skill, I think that FYC can and often does do the job of reminding students that all communication has a purpose and an audience. This is something that 18-year-olds are developmentally able to grasp, unlike their high-school-aged brethren, and that will serve them well, if they make use of it, in all of their academic and professional work.
ReplyDeleteI have given up hope that they can learn to look up the fucking MLA citations like I did in high school (seriously, what is so damn hard about following a form? This is where the title goes, and this is where the author goes, and you literally fill in the blanks until you're done -- I do not understand the blank-faced resistance to looking at an MLA guide), and I have given up hope that they can even use EasyBib. My 16 weeks with them isn't going to make them use effect/affect or they're/their/there correctly, but I do think I can help them understand how they can write to someone and about something other than themselves, even if they hate every damn minute of it.
On the other hand, I've only been at it less than a decade and I've been teaching part-time for over two years now. I bet I'd feel differently if I had a full load of first-years. Still, I do think there's hope in teaching rhetorical context. Just a glimmer.
"but I do think I can help them understand how they can write to someone and about something other than themselves, even if they hate every damn minute of it."
DeleteThere is a fascinating dichotomy in my course where on one assignment they relate the course content to themselves- and actually write very well, with appropriate grammar and paragraph structure. In contrast, ask them to think about someone else's ideas and you would think they were all ESL students.
I don't think writing is an innate skill but I swear the ability to write is related to a willingness to read, if not an absolute pleasure in it. I firmly believe that students (or all of us) absorb the nature and structure of argument, of grammar, of sentences from what we have read. And, frankly, I don't care if it is horror novels or mysteries or whatever - just reading is a precursor to writing.
ReplyDeleteSo, if they aren't reading, they aren't writing.
I agree with you 100%. I believe that reading taught me how to write. It's an osmosis-like process.
Delete