A Bad Day...

This is going to be a blog that serves as a forum for me to vent, so if you have already lost interest in reading this...I understand. Here goes:

I was unable to get my students to participate. I asked questions. They said nothing. I asked more pointed questions. Nothing. I rephrased the question in such a way that gave them the answer. Nothing. Are you kidding me? I practically gave them the answer and they still wouldn't say a single word. What was I doing wrong? Was it because it was 9:30 in the morning? We're already halfway through the semester, that excuse has run its course. Waiting them out doesn't work. Yet they still have to participate. They still have to do SOMETHING. They can't all just sit there, right?

Look, I'm all for mixing things up to keep them interested. I'm always looking for new ways to get my message across. I don't want to bore them to death. But this has gotten ridiculous. Every day can't be like kindergarten. Is this what they are expecting? Do we have to play games, draw pictures, watch videos, and sing songs ever other class period to get these students to take an active role in their own education? It feels as if they don't care. Sometimes I think they just want me to give them instructions on how to write the papers and send them home after ten minutes of explanation.

I feel like the expect to get good grades by just showing up (assuming that they do show up), not having to write much at all, and sitting in their seats while lectures wash over them. Are they earning an education or are they dutifully following instructions? There seems to be some way that I can test this theory. Maybe I will. Maybe what I should do is give them a list of ridiculously arbitrary instructions and see how they react to them--a list that says they have to do the following to receive an A on their next paper: (1) Learn to play "Cliffs of Dover" by Eric Johnson on guitar. (2) Make a quart of fruit juice using the following pieces of fruit: strawberries, mango, honeydew melon, grapes, and pineapple juice. (3) Purchase the following: a bottle of Dijon mustard, a loaf of bread, a 1/2 pound of salami, and some cheddar cheese. Make a sandwich. (4) Read War and Peace summarize it in less than ten words. (5) Learn to sing a song in french. (6) Take up quilting.

Then what I'll tell them is: If you want to impress me with your ability to concisely follow instructions, then bring me my sandwich and juice drink, play for me "Cliffs of Dover," quilt your summary of War and Peace into a blanket, and sing a song in french. Do that and I'll be impressed. But if you want to pass the class, participate in discussion and learn to write an effective analysis of a text.

I'm hoping for the latter, but I'm holding out for my sandwich.

"To help students develop their own point-of-view within academic writing"

Students' points-of-view? That's the first thing I wonder the moment the semester begins. Do they even know their own point-of-view or do they just fake it? We have to admit, there have been times when we've written for academia and faked a point of view. We knew we had to get the writing done. We did the research and came across an easier path. We knew there wasn't much time and we figured, I can write from this point-of-view and get the work done on time. I might not necessarily believe it, but the work gets done and everyone's happy. These have been our actual thoughts before we became so stuffy and uptight about our academic integrity. I'll never steal anyone's writing, but point-of-view is different. I don't have to believe it to get an A. Is this what it is all about? Trying to get an A? Maybe not for all of us, but I'd be willing to bet that a good portion of those who care only care for the stamp of approval. Maybe, I'm wrong. I can accept that. I know that all of the thought that swirl around in my head aren't always correct. But think of how GPA's have become such pressure for students to move beyond an undergraduate degree into a nice job or into a good graduate program. A lot of those students feel that their very future rests upon how many A's they can earn. I suffered from it. I thought that in order to get into a good graduate program, I had to have stellar grades. I thought that keeping my number close to 4.0 would impress people. Was I right?

This kind of brings into question the criteria by which we grade our students. Are we truly rewarding good product or have we been noticing the development of our young writers. Who knows the answers to these question but us. I don't wish to interrogate anyone nor assume anything. I can only say that I've been asking myself these questions lately. Sort of testing myself, if you will. In thinking about the issue I realized that I get interested in writing about something when I get emotionally charged about an issue. I am inspired to write most when I find something that really "gets my goat." So I recently figured, why not challenge them and see how they react in writing.

I found a bunch of articles on the internet that explained in various way how students are stupid today. Oh yeah, some of them made some really outlandish claims about laziness and apathy. I am going to read those printouts to my students and ask them to write about how they feel about what they just heard. I want to see if they will invest themselves into their writing. I'm going to tell them to introduce their ideas with all of the things we teachers of critical writing hate: "I feel that..."; "I believe that..."; "In my opinion..." Put it all in and tell me how you feel, I'll tell them. Then when they've written for about ten minutes, I'm going to tell them to pass their papers to the person to their left. The recipients of these papers will circle all of those phrases and pass it back to the author. Then I'm going to tell the authors that every idea that they included in their writing, every opinion, every concept is valid. But I want them to rewrite the entire essay weeding out all of the personal pronoun references for more assertive claims. Take themselves out of the essay and write as if they were writing facts....even truth. When they have finished, I am going to have them hand their essays to their person to their right and, at random, pick people to read them. I want them to see that they can insert their "opinions" about what they read, hear, or see and still sound "academic." At least, that's the plan.