My classes are rarely comprised of only native English speakers, so as I was reading, I looked for a means of incorporating Bartholomae’s self-confidence building with Ferris’ work on L2 immigrant and international students to seek a harmony between these two divergent texts. Ferris argues that L2 learners work well with specific types of feedback and that, generally, these forms of feedback focus on lower order concerns, but correctly crafted higher order statements and suggestions can lead to successful revisions for students as well. The key to effective revisions is learning what works specifically for individual students. I would further argue that we cannot just provide students with the type of comments they already work well with, but we must teach them how to address comments that may not fit this mold. Ferris recommends using marked papers to teach students revision strategies and I believe this is not only a good idea, but also the key to helping build self-confidence in the writers.

Ferris’ suggestion worked well with what I considered the strongest part of Bartholomae and Petrosky’s course model. Their course utilizes the students’ texts as course reading, and I believe this method could not only garner more effective revisions, but also build confidence in the writer. Often, I use student models from previous classes as examples and I know that students appreciate having a sample to work with. Several semesters ago, I used a sample from the class I was teaching and it made a great impact on the way students responded to the text. They were able to ask specific questions of the actual writer and get concrete feedback about how she had revised. Previously, I was only able to provide hypothetical information about how the model student had undertaken revisions. This shift in paper forms led to two specific changes in my classes. First, the writer gained self-confidence in her revisions and began to demonstrate this improvement in her next drafts. Second, other students began to start experimenting with more revisions on their own papers and asking that we discuss their paper during the next revision workshop. There was a gradual change in the writing styles of several members of the class, both L1 and L2 learners and this change came as a result of using a current student’s paper.

Unfortunately, I cannot give concrete evidence of the success of this model in Basic Writing; my experiment was with a Composition II class. However, I would hypothesize that this model would aid in the confidence building of Basic Writers, and improve their revision strategies. My rationale for this hypothesis lies in the fact that students gain confidence when their work is selected as the class sample; it demonstrates that their writing was “good enough” for this display. Also, given the opportunity to speak to real writers about real revisions has the potential to aid students in better understanding the revision process by providing them with concrete examples that are well explained.

Teachers of writing struggle every day to help their students overcome the belief that they are “bad writers.” Teachers of Basic Writing struggle even more with this problem because of the stigma automatically attached to the class they teach. Students of Basic Writing register for a class that, I believe, should require a supplemental class in self esteem. These students pay for a class that they receive no credit for at most universities and yet a class they are required to pass just to become a “real” college student. I’ve always faulted K-12 education for this stigma; the students in Basic Writing, regardless of what we call the class, know they have now been relegated to the same status as the remedial students led away to separate math and reading classes throughout the K-12 period. I never thought I would find fault in the academic world to which I belong.

The problem started when the American dream entered academia. The Civil Rights Act, The G.I. Bill, the Morrill Land Grant and many similar programs all encouraged a different group of minorities and lower class citizens to include college in their American dream. Unfortunately, the elitists in academia did not feel this American dream belonged to everybody. Their response to the desegregation of American colleges in the 1960s was segregation. Students who failed to reach appropriate scores on standardized tests were segregated into a program segregated into its own “subdepartment” (McAlexander and Greene 4). The courses were taught in second class locations segregated from other academics and were taught by instructors segregated from the elite tenure-track faculty (McAlexander and Greene 8-9). As if this was not enough emphasis on the separation of academic and Basic Writing, students also had to grapple with the fact that even after paying the money and working hard to pass the class, there would be no credit for the class.

The problem has not stopped. Yes, there are tenured professors teaching Basic Writing and many programs have access to the same classrooms as regular composition classes. Yet, we continue to charge students for classes they will receive no credit for and we continue to grapple with segregation in the program. Now, though, the segregation has changed.  We concern ourselves with the question of separate writing classes for ESL learners and native speakers. We argue over the placement of Basic Writing within the university or the community college. We argue over the experience of the Basic Writing instructor. It seems that the issue of segregation is one that Basic Writing Programs cannot escape; there will continue to be problems of segregation at some level in the program.

At the core of the problem lies the question of marginalization or mainstreaming. Do we marginalize students by placing them in Basic Writing classes? Do we avoid the potential for marginalization by placing students in regular composition classes and hope for the best? I think that to place these students in traditional composition classrooms with a list of resources is detrimental to the student. Do we continue to stigmatize these students, as David Bartholomae argues, by marginalizing them into Basic Writing classes? Do we offer a hybrid system where students take a regular composition class and are required an additional workshop course that runs concurrent with the class? None of the solutions solve the segregation problem, nor do they remove the stigma from the Basic Writer.

I don’t think the solution lies in desegregating the Basic Writer; these students are in need of separate classes that help them prepare for their college writing careers. We cannot ignore the problem by mainstreaming the students. I think that we need to work to help those outside the Basic Writing program to realize that these students are not Basic Writers because of their affiliation with any specific minority group. Instead, I think we need to find a way to spread the idea of these students not as Basic Writers, but as New Students. Mina Shaugnessey maintains a powerful influence over Basic Writing programs today not only for her influence on the teaching of the classes, but also for her recognition that there are variant factors behind the student population of Basic Writing classes. To end the stigma of Basic Writing, we need a means of demonstrating this fact to those outside the department.

Feedback is always welcome.

Getting to Know the Consultants

I knew our Writing Consultants before the summer began. I was in classes with some of them, knew others from professional organizations, and some I knew just from speaking in the hall or in another GTA’s office. But this summer, I’ve spent more time with them than I have before. For the most part, our conversations have been brief social interactions, but we do get professional as well. I think it is helpful to know the personality of the Writing Consultants when you plan to rely heavily on their input in your students’ writing development. We all know that some personalities just don’t work well together and I think it makes the relationship between Consultant and student that much better if I can recommend a specific consultant to a student based on the student’s personality.

With the first session of the summer semester nearly over, I can say in good faith that all of my students have found a consultant who best meshes with their own personality. Each of these students has learned that they can request an appointment with this tutor, even if it means that they have to wait until a later time to set their appointment. I know that this will mean that in the Fall semester they will have a better idea who they want to work with. So in the long run, it’s better for both the student and the consultant if I can give out good recommendations in the beginning.

Communicating (Professionally) with the Consultants

It goes without saying that Writing Consultants can only be as effective as you allow them to be. Our Writing Consultants work with students in all disciplines and with this comes the need for clarity on assignments. In the past, I have always told my students to take the Writing Assignment prompt with them so that the Consultant had an idea as to what the students were doing. But that is not really enough for the Consultant to work with.

This semester, I’ve spoken to the Consultants specifically about the assignments that my students have, I have forwarded them handouts I’ve provided the students and spent time speaking to them about questions they had with the assignments. I think that for this reason, the Consultants have a chance to give more concrete advice in their sessions. This is a key for a good writing consultation. If my students are getting advice that is too vague because the Consultant doesn’t know what’s going on in the class, then the students have a harder time applying the advice to their paper. So, if we can create a relationship where the students and the consultants know how to communicate about the specific things that I am looking for in an assignment, there will be much more improvement in the students work.

Availability and Access

One other thing that I’ve been working very hard to do this semester is make myself more available during my students’ writing consultations. This is somewhat simple for me since my office is literally next door to our Writing Center. With students setting up appointments during class, the Consultants know how to reach me for questions. But for students who do not have appointments during the class period, I encourage them to schedule their appointments during or close to my office hours or to let me know when they have an appointment. This allows me (for the most part) to make myself accessible to the student and consultant if they have questions.

Now, I am not saying that I’m hovering over the consultation. But knowing I am close enough to answer questions has led to several students coming into the office during a consultation to get clarity on a question. It has also led to several Consultants coming to make sure they are providing the most appropriate guidance on a sticky problem. I don’t discuss the consultation with either the student or the Consultant so that that relationship maintains the privelage that allows it to become a productive session. However, I have found that a student who is going the wrong way with an essay can be steeered back in the right direction in a consultation. I like to be nearby if I can help with this.

I have also given students permission to bring their Writing Consultant to their revision conferences. The revision portfolio is the most important part of First Year Composition and it stands to reason that if a student has worked consistently with the same Consultant for the duration of the drafts, they may want this Consultant to be present at the conference. While I have not had students take advantage of this yet, I have had several who made scrupulous notes in their conferences to take to their Consultant with their next appointment.

FInal Thoughts

I realize that the changes I have initiated over the past few weeks may not be the most feasible to every instructor and are much less feasible during the traditional academic year than in the summer. However, I plan to continue with as many of these changes as I can during the true academic year and see if I can continue to improve student writing as I have done this semester. The fact of the matter is that if only one of these changes becomes a full time part of my writing curriculum, it can make a change for the better. If I can get one more student to realize the value of the Writing Center before they leave First Year Composition, then I have one more student on the track to continual improvement in writing. All of my previous students who discovered the Writing Center in their early days of First Year Composition have continued to use the Consultation services throughout college. The key, though, is teaching the students how to put the Writing Center, the Consultants, and the consultation itself to good practice.

Then, just as class was about to start, another student took her cell phone out of class and a moment later, came back with phone in hand and announced

I have the Writing Center on the phone. Does anybody else need to make an appointment?

One of my other students then stood up, stepped outside and set up her own appointment. This is serious progress for my students. I always encourage my students to go to the Writing Center, but for some reason or another, I’ve never had this much success with one single class. So far, I’ve had all of my students schedule writing conferences at least twice this semester. I am even more impressed that I’m getting them to go frequently. I think the reason for this improvement is in the method I took to introducing them to the Writing Center.

Familiarity Aids in Willingness

I have always taken advantage of the Writing Center’s in-class features. In the past, I have always had them come to the class at the beginning of the semester and talk to my students about the benefits of working with a Writing Consultant on their papers. This will generally perk at least one or two of my average writers up and send them to set up an appointment. I’ve learned that if I can get them to set up the first appointment, it’s more likely that they are going to set up another appointment. The problem was getting more than just a few students to realize the potential for the Writing Center.

This semester, I was having a problem readjusting to teaching 2-hour summer blocks of classes and my first few days of lectures were going way too fast. So, on the second day of class–when I normally would have asked a consultant to come speak about the Writing Center–I took my small class to the Writing Center. It seems like this was a good icebreaker. I had the chance to leave them alone with the consultants for half an hour, they were able to see exactly where the Writing Center is, and they got free grammar handbooks out of the trip.

I think this worked as a great icebreaker for the students not only because they were able to find out where the Writing Center is, but they were also able to meet with not just one of the consultants, but meet all of the consultants that they could work with over the semester. Several of the students set up appointments before they left the Writing Center that day.

Adding Incentives

The familiarity was not the only thing that I did to get students to go to the Writing Center. I also gave them a semi-benefit for going. I’ve used this in the past, but it has only worked with one or two of my average students. What I did was tell them that if they would visit the Writing Center, they could have an extra 24 hours to turn their paper in. In the Fall and Spring semesters, I do the same thing. This time, it resulted in all of my students getting the extra time to turn in their paper. I don’t know how much this has to do with the amount of quick writing the students are doing during these short Summer semesters, but I do know that this is working well for the students. 

I give them this extra time to make it more worth their time to go to the Writing Center. If you think about it, if the paper is due on Tuesday and the student has the chance to make their Writing Center appointment for Monday, they may feel rushed to make the changes and still get the paper in on time. But giving them the extra 24 hours gives them the chance to work with the changes suggested by the Writing Consultant.

Changing up the Idea of the “In Class Workshop”

I think, though, that the biggest reason that the students have taken so well to the Writing Center this semester has to do with the final incentive I gave them. I always set up two days of in-class writing workshops over the course of a unit. This gives students a specific time to spend time working on their essays and gives them the chance to ask questions about their essays at a time when they can get answers before the flow of writing dissipates. In the past, I have requested a Writing Consultant to be present at the first of these workshops. This allows the students to learn what the Writing Consultant has to offer and has led a few other students to set up an appointment with the Writing Center.

I didn’t use this tactic this semester. Instead, I told my students that if they wanted to use part of their class time on these dates for an appointment with the Writing Center, they could do so. I put parameters on this idea, though. They had to attend class between 8am and 9am (our class runs 8-10am), but they could set up an appointment at either 9 or 9:30 and leave for their appointment about 15 minutes early. I also told them that they could only set up these appointments on days that are clearly indicated on the syllabus as In-class writing workshops. Writing Center appointments are not a reason to miss class on any other day of the semester.

My students took a great advantage of this throughout the semester. Just last week, my class was a virtual ghost town. Why? Well, I have 8 students this semester. Three of these students had appointments at 9am, three at 9:30 am, and the two that were diligently working in class after the other six had left both had appointments for later in the day. It has worked really well.

Final Thoughts

So now that I have all of my students frequenting the Writing Center, I see much better essays. I see my students asking more detailed questions about what I’m looking for in an essay. I am sure that some of this comes from the bright students I have, but I also know that it comes from the Q&A session they do with their Writing Consultants as they begin working on the essay.

I cannot say that all of the improvements I’ve seen among students attending the Writing Center frequently are due to the changes that I made in class. Another serious factor to improving student writing using the Writing Center is due to communication between myself and the Writing Center. But this post has gotten a bit lengthy, so I’ll continue in a separate post. 

If you ask me, it’s getting way out of hand. I am no stranger to standardized testing. My family moved at the most every two years. It seemed as though I would take the assessment test at my old school, then move to a new state and start a new school just in time to participate in their standardized test. But, like many from my generation, I survived. I don’t know how well I scored on the tests, though I’m sure my mother has the reports around somewhere. We did not dwell on the material in the tests in our classes. I remember getting advice on test taking from my teachers: “get a good night’s sleep” “have a good breakfast” “bring an extra pencil.” That was it.

So when the latest article on standardized testing came out, I found myself behind approximately 98% of the contents. Specifically, this paragraph almost made me cheer:

The obvious cure in Illinois, and in other states, is to carefully limit or dispense with test preparation in class. Teachers should instead be working on the high-level academic skills that students need to perform well, not just on tests, but in college and long afterward.

I think it’s obvious that there is too much time spent on testing preparation. Honestly, I have to admit that when it’s in print in the New York Times, though, I do a little happy dance. Why? It’s getting attention outside the educational sphere. This means that the non-educator citizen is starting to pay attention. So, I say thank you, to the New York Times. I thank all of the parents who have called and complained that their child should not fail a math test for bubbling in the wrong answer when they have the work to show that they got the answer write. I applaud the parent able to de-stress their child by not stressing out over the test at home. I applaud the teachers who do not dwell on the test preparation in their classroom. I applaud Carl Chew for standing up for what was right.

Writing…the Black Sheep of the Curriculum?

I do not, however, applaud the New York Times for the ideas they put forth in the opening paragraph of their essay:

To get the well-educated, highly skilled workers that the country needs, states must strengthen public school curriculums, especially in math and science. States also need to adopt high-quality tests that show how students are performing from year to year.

Unfortunately, the New York Times has jumped on the bandwagon of bettering education without looking at the whole picture. If we are going to strengthen public school currriculums, it needs to be done across the board not “especially in math and science.” I spend a good portion of my summer grading writing placement tests and I have to say that each year, the results seem to get even more dismal. In addition to placing more students into basic writing classes because they cannot write to college standards, I hear more complaints from parents about the placement, get more pressure from administration to not place these students in basic writing and continue to grow more annoyed with the entire system. The problem with placing students in basic writing is two fold. It’s a result of bad PR for basic writing and it’s a result of less writing curriculum in the high schools.

Basic Writing (Read “Remedial Writing” to Parents and Students) is for Dummies

The biggest problem with Basic Writing is the bad PR it has gotten over the past few decades. Few schools offer this class as a credit class, which means the students enrolled in the class are paying for a class that does not in any way count towards the credit hours they need for their degree. Writing instruction in this class often begins with writing paragraphs and graduates to writing a full essay. For this reason, students who are placed in basic writing (and their parents by default) see this class as a course for remedial students or Second Language students. They feel that since they passed all of their English courses in high school and did not fail the Written portion of the Standardized Test, this is not the place for them. Unfortunately, this can create a very hostile learning environment for some students.

AP students are the worst in a Basic Writing class. This is largely because they enter into AP classes in high school with the preconceived notion that passing the AP test clears them from all need to take college writing and that if they don’t pass it, they certainly won’t be placed in Basic Writing.

The High School Writing Curriculum

In many high schools, writing is not actually part of the curriculum. Now, I don’t want to generalize, because I have seen several schools that do a great job of incorporating writing into their English classes. However, for the most part, writing instruction seems to simply involve

“Write an essay discussing the symbolism in [enter novel name here]“

When the student turns in the essay, they receive comments on whether or not they interpreted the symbolism appropriately, used MLA correctly, and used correct grammar. Unfortunately, I have found that too often writing instruction beyond these small areas consists of

• An essay has five paragraphs (introduction, 3 body paragraphs, conclusion)

• A thesis statement goes at the end of the introduction and is constructed as such: “In [the novel's name], [Author's name] uses symbolism to [item one, item two, and item three]

That’s about all it seems that my students know about writing. Even when they place into our traditional Composition I class, they don’t have the information to write a persuasive essay of any form. They can inform until the semester is over, but they can’t persuade an audience. In fact, most of them are never introduced to the ideas of writing to an audience. So it bothers me even more to see writers from the New York Times pushing for improvement in math and science curriculums.

Preconceived Notions of Writing

I think the biggest problem with writing curriculum and students’ disinterest in their writing classes comes from being in a field that they don’t believe will use writing. Over the last few years, I have heard more students say “I don’t need writing in my career, I’m going to be a [insert career here].” I’ve heard this from disciplines across the university, including:

• Business students
  • “My job is about numbers and management, not writing”
• History majors planning to attend law school
  • “I’ll have a clerk who will do my writing for me”
• Nurses
  • “All the writing that we do is notes that appear in charts”
• Chemistry
  • “I’m going to find a cure for cancer, I don’t need to know how to write.”
• Theater
  • “I’m an actor, writing isn’t my job.”
• Art
  • “I say it with paint, not words.”

I could go on and on with the disciplines, but I’ll leave it here. I’m not compiling a laundry list. I don’t know where they get the idea that their specific career is not one that requires writing, but I would love to see more emphasis on this in the curriculum. No matter how much I remind students that they will have to write in their discipline, they seem to brush it off as something their English teacher said. I don’t know anything about their discipline because I’m not part of it.

There’s a problem with the entire system. From not teaching students to write well in high school to the preconceived notions that they don’t need to write. Everything that gets done in this world today is in some way connected to a necessary document. Law students become clerks before they become lawyers. Even as lawyers, they still have to write briefs. Business students have to write proposals. Actors have to apply for jobs and those applications sometimes involve a cover letter.

In short, we need to change writing instruction now. We cannot afford to wait for another generation to slip through the cracks.  Please, teachers, start stressing how important writing is to the subject you teach. Kids need to know. If you teach English, move beyond the five-paragraph essay. If you’re a student, look into your career and see what kind of writing is going to be required; I think you would be surprised. If you or your child gets placed in a Basic Writing class, work with it. There are lots of things that you can learn from this class. I promise, it is not a remedial class. It is designed to aid you in becoming a better writer.

I’m worried now for multiple reasons. I want to start with the testing itself. A few weeks ago I, along with my FYC colleagues, received an email saying that ACT representatives would be administering the CAAP (Collegiate Assessment of Academic Proficiency) to all of our FYC classes. I paid no notice because, since I teach Basic Writing, my students would not be tested. Now, over the past few weeks I’ve heard the horror stories of teachers waiting for the officials to show up for the class, having to reschedule class plans and just be generally annoyed with the entire process. I said nothing. I’m not an advocate of standardized testing in college (or anywhere else, really), but these were not my issues. Yet today, I got an email that seemed just a little bit ludicrous. Apparently, the tests were not only given to FYC students, but also to our senior class. The senior class, it seems, rebelled. So the school’s response is not to just shrug their shoulders and go on, but to bribe students who did not take the test in their classes. By bribe, I really mean bribe. They are willing to pay these students (via a raffle) to take the test. It seems they promised ACT that a specific number of seniors would take the test and they have to meet that quota. So now the students they are attracting are not necessarily made up of a true sampling of our senior class, but will be made up partially of those who are seeking a “reward” for some kind of participation. It seems to me that this will, ultimately, throw off our sample pool.

The reason this worries me is that since our state is considering mandatory assessment. I have a strange feeling that these “experimental” tests are to help decide if this issue should become a law in the state. This means that instead of seeing what our school is doing, they are seeing how far students who need an extra few dollars in their pocket can be assessed. This sample in no way will reflect the student body graduating this year and, therefore, we run the risk of having to cater to the content of mandatory testing because a few people wanted to earn some extra money.

Still, I have not answered the overlying question of why I am against mandatory testing. Well, that all goes back to my teaching experience. I teach in a college where students not only must have specific SAT scores (1000 on the verbal and math) or a 21 composite ACT score. Truthfully, I would have just squeaked into the school as a Freshman. But that score is only valid if the student has also passed the state exit exam. I took an assessment test at the end of my junior year in high school and I did fine. But it was not a mandatory test at that time. Now, with the mandatory assessment, teachers focus too much energy on preparing students to pass the test and too little on teaching them what they need to know. When I was in high school, the test was poo-pooed as just an “experiment” so our teachers did not focus on the content of the test as the basis for our class syllabus. Now, however I spend the first few weeks of FYC teaching students that the 5-paragraph essay is not a form carved in stone–a concept they generally don’t comprehend until midterms. In addition, I have to teach them that a thesis statement does not have to specifically include the topic statement and the statement of the three topics in their essay. I have students in my class who didn’t score well enough on the state test to be placed into traditional FYC classes, but are brilliant writers. They’re in my class because they can’t write a 5 paragraph essay. Sure, I have students who can’t write a paragraph, but the majority of these students are working with problems traditionally addressed in our regular FYC classes. They feel that they are “bad” writers because they couldn’t write the 5 paragraph essay. What makes them “bad” writers–and this is not just the Basic Writing students, but a majority of our incoming freshmen, is that they don’t know what a topic sentence is and they can’t identify a thesis statement in any form other than the one they were taught to write in high school. They don’t know what plagiarism is and they can’t use any style manual to cite a reference. They don’t know these things because they weren’t emphasized in high school–they weren’t on the state test.

Now I swore that I would not make this post a “back in my day” rant, but I know that my high school English teacher would never have let us out of her class if we didn’t know the basics to writing. The basics, in her mind, included a full understanding of MLA, topic sentences, complex thesis statements, and 7-15 paragraph essays. There are times in class when I’m thinking that I’m teaching things in class that I would expect students to have learned in high school. I can’t be mad at them for not knowing this class, and, to some extent I can’t be mad at the teachers who are doing what they are told to do–prepare the students for the test. But I’m worried. What I’m worried about is that we’re going to be sending students into the real world with too much attention on what needs to be learned to pass an assessment test and not what they need to know in the real world. In other words, I’m worried that some day, somewhere, an accountant will be teaching a new secretary that they do not use the five-paragraph format in the real world.

That is my worry. And if we keep bribing students to take an “experimental test” I fear that is where we will be in the next decade. If that happens, I may hang up my PowerPoints and handouts and run for office. This state could use a former teacher as a governor. Why not me? I will be able to write more than the five paragraph essay.

Now, you may be thinking that is extremely tacky and unthoughtful of me, but I was completely within the boundaries of my syllabus and the bounds of what I would do in any other FYC class. I had students who had not turned in assignments that were due in the middle of September and the beginning of October. So, I posted an announcement on the website, made announcements in class and set a deadline of Friday at noon for students missing assignments to get these assignments to me. They needed to have these assignments back since we began the Midterm Portfolio today and they were needing comments from me to begin their revisions. Now, before I go any further, let me set up the numbers for you. I’m combining the two classes so the numbers are overall instead of individual.

30 students enrolled

- 3 students I’ve never even seen (but haven’t dropped the class)

-3 students who have stopped coming to class (but haven’t dropped)

- 4 students who dropped because they felt they were “misplaced”

-3 students I dropped over the weekend

So this puts me down to about 17 students. But, I have another 3 (what is it with threes in this class?) who didn’t show up for the peer reviews for their Midterm Portfolio. So, I may well be down to 14 students.

Whether 17 or 14, I’m going to use the smaller class size to focus more on the needs of the students that I have left. These students, in my opinion, are the ones who are working hardest (with a few exceptions) to actually pass this class and get on with their regular classes. So, I’m making the class even more student-centered. I’m doing this in three ways:

• Discussion Board posts that allow students to express their areas of concern in writing so that I can focus more on the concerns students have, not concerns I expect them to have.
• Roundtables that allow us to talk as a group, not as teacher-student. We’ve done this a time or two in the past and the students loved it. Perhaps more of this structure will allow students to feel better about communicating their concerns and discussing class material
• More in-class writing time to allow for more student-teacher time

I’m hoping that shifting will help me make the students who are still devoted to the class more successful in their final weeks. I’ve seen all of them make significant improvements over the past few weeks, and I’m hoping that having more time to devote to this small group’s needs, I can improve on their previous work and get them prepared for college life. We’ll see!

For starters, in addition to the 30 students originally enrolled in my class, I was given 6 additional students when the two classes I’m teaching were collapsed with another two sections. Then, as though 36 is not already a few too many for a class that requires so much one-on-one, an International English class created to aid new international students in preparing to meet the standards necessary to enter Basic Writing was cancelled, and three of these students somehow managed to miss filtering and become part of my class.

So, as day three of my classes began, I had a rather motley collection of students ranging from homeschooled students who didn’t get “around” to taking the state test that would evaluate their writing–this group feels that they don’t “need” the class–to students who have no English skills whatsoever–I have one in this group who cannot even seem to communicate questions with me, but instead can only gesture at her computer screen. The class discussions have been lively; you don’t have to write well to engage in the discourse. Still, I’ve wondered if they were “getting” anything.

I was spending half an hour after class summarizing the lecture for my Nigerian, who can read and write English, but apparently cannot comprehend spoken English. She’s also prone to losing things. Just the other day she wanted to me to write down what goes in the learning logs I’m requiring this semester, I explained that this was on a handout and she just looked at me dumbfounded when I provided her with another handout instead of physically writing down each component of the assignment.

Then I have the mouth and the mutterer. Mouth tries to focus the entirety of the class period on her while mutterer is really using this class as a place to pick up women. Seriously, he sits by a new girl each time and spends the class period muttering to her just loud enough that I can hear him.

Oh, and I have several of my “I don’t need this class” students who have decided that this is not a class, but is study hall. So, they bring their homework to class and work dutifully on it while in class. I don’t think those around them have noticed; they’re too busy MySpacing.

In previous semesters, this last group of students would have been ejected from class after being given a verbal warning. However, with the new rules in our department, I can’t do it. So, I’ve just taken to not mentioning it, acting as though I’m oblivious and then deciding to add a participation grade to the gradebook.

And none of this is new to my classroom; I’m used to all of this crap happening in the classroom–just not at the same time. And, I certainly wasn’t expecting this from students who need this class more than anything.

So, by the time week four rolled around and they were to turn in their first mini-assignment, many of them were so confused (due to serious lack of reading the handouts) as to what was to be turned in that they had to ask for an extension. Week four ended with their first writing assignment being turned in. As the culmination of week four, we spent an entire class period discussing the writing assignment before the class turned in their work. I received work from 2/3 of my students. Yet, yesterday, I had a student ask for clarification on an assignment related to their revisions (from WA1). When I told her that this was a sheet that would have been returned with her first essay she started acting like she didn’t know anything about the assignment (the one that we had been working on in class for two weeks). Then, she begged to know if she could turn it in late (I don’t take late work). At this point, the discussion went something like this:

She: “But, I didn’t know we had to turn it in.”

I: “You were part of the roundtable last Wednesday. Remember when it was over and I asked you to turn in your paragraph and *Sarah* asked for clarification on which one.”

She: “Yes.”

I: “So you knew you had to turn it in.”

She: “I didn’t think you meant right then. So, it was due right then.”

I: “Yes. It was.”

She: “And you don’t take no late work does you.” (I swear, that’s exactly what she said. I will never forget that line.)

I: “No, I don’t take late work.”

She: “So can I turn it in on Friday?”

Now, this discussion continues for several more minutes before she realized that I wasn’t going to take her work.

So here I was, at my wits end with these students. It was Monday, I had the beginnings of a bad migraine, and I was ready to fling myself into a brick wall just to get them to understand.

And then came Wednesday

Wednesday, with a migraine and the beginning of what has proven to be the flu, I trudged in to work. I am so glad that I did. In my first class of the day, I watched a lightbulb go on with one of my students. She had finally connected Generative Grammar to not only a homework assignment that I forced them to turn in, but also to a good strategy to writing her own paragraphs. Yeah! Then, in my next class, I had a student stop me after class and ask me if we could sit down and talk sometime because she’s learning a lot in the class, but doesn’t know how to incorporate this into her other classes.

So, I guess the moral of the story is that we should always wait until week six before giving up hope on a class. But, I think that once we reach week six, we should wait two more weeks just to be sure. Just when you’re at your wits end, some good student will throw you a rope. We just have to wait and see if they are going to pull us up or if we have to do it ourselves.

As I experimented successfully with blogging in the classroom, I began contemplating it as a dissertation topic. When I found out I was teaching developmental writing this fall, I was enthused. I was waiting patiently for a chance to experiment with blogging at such an important level.

But then the other shoe dropped. We’ve been going through some “changes” in our department this semester. We have an enthusiastic and open-minded new director that can infuse some life into our FYC classes. We have a new common syllabus that we’re allowed some flexibility with. We have random new rules. And, apparently, we have security rules too. When all this newness began, I was polite enough to ask about using blogs in the class. Now, I did this because they have gone as far as telling us to refuse to answer emails sent from students using an email address not assigned to them through the school. It had to do with “privacy” and “security.” It doesn’t make sense to me. I usually use my Gmail account because no other server that I am familiar with allows me to 1)be alerted the minute I have email, 2)keep conversations together instead of having to sift through individual emails with the same topic and 3)allowed me to make my life as simple as 54 categories in one mailbox. But, I changed.

And, in addition to changing, I was polite enough to ask if I could use blogs. Yes, I know the saying “it’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission,” but I was being nice and trying, in the long run, to save my job.

So, a week later, I get an email back telling me that the word has come down the foodchain that no blogs can be used that are not hosted on the school server. Well, in essence, the school just said that I could not blog. Why? We have one way to access a blog–through Blackboard. Not that this would be a problem, but this aspect of Blackboard is currently only available to distance learning instructors. So, I’m left with no blog.

Okay, I can work with this. I have plans once we get through this semester. But what’s really bugging me–in much the same way that I was bothered with the fact that my students could watch YouTube videos in class but nowhere else on campus–is that the reason I have been forbidden to allow my students to use a blog in the classroom is apparently for their security.

Now, understand that when I emailed about this originally, I was clear to explain the safety to the blogsite I wanted to use–this one. I also explained how blogs could be set as private and all that jazz. But no, this site is not secure enough for the school. Okay, I can see them denying it. But there should be larger concerns if they’re going to play the security card. Facebook and Myspace are still available to students from their dorm rooms, computer labs, library and even from the computers they use in the classroom.

It’s starting to sound, to me, as though this is not a privacy issue, but rather a freedom issue. We were told when they required us to use only our school email (which we can’t even forward to another account that will allow us to answer back using the school email) that this was because they could keep the emails on the main server even if we deleted them. That way, if we needed them later, we could have access to them. I’m assuming that means that they can also read any of them at any time. And, by forcing students to use only school sponsored sites, they have the ability to censor anything we say. (In fact, you should check out the changes to my “About Me” page.)

All in all, it sounds like a nice big panopticon where the administration has the ability to quash our freedom of speech, invade our privacy and censor as they wish. If you will excuse me, there’s a link I need to delete from my page before I call it a night.