Posted in College, Education, English, Essay, Students, Teaching on Sep 28th, 2007 26 Comments »
I’m not sure why other people teach, and there are days I don’t know why I do, but I’m willing to bet none of us does it as a means to undermine the success of students.
There is very little joy derived from students who don’t succeed, and even if the lack of success is completely [...]
Posted in Books, College, Education, English, Essay, Students, Teaching on Sep 25th, 2007 23 Comments »
I used to try to hold regular class meetings on the days formal writing assignments were due, but I’ve learned how foolish it is to expect the average (i.e. procrastinating) student to finish up a paper and read something for a class discussion.
I’ve come up with a few ways to solve this issue:
The quick meeting: [...]
Posted in College, Education, English, Students, Teaching, Writing on Sep 21st, 2007 3 Comments »
Grading essays is such an odd task: it combines evaluation with instruction, but each message is often lost on its audience. Marking papers is a time consuming and exhausting process, and not getting paid to do it only becomes more frustrating when I consider the effort is probably going to be ignored by the [...]
Posted in College, Education, English, Students, Teaching on Sep 18th, 2007 1 Comment »
I collected my students’ first formal written assignment yesterday, and I’ll begin the grading process later this evening.
One the positive side, I had a show-up rate of about 90% which is very high on the day an assignment is due, and the first reads I did yesterday evening showed promise.
On the negative side, the death [...]
Posted in Adminstration, College, Education, English, Students, Teaching on Sep 14th, 2007 26 Comments »
The title of this post sums up the outcome of my dealings with the student who said to me,
. . .you can be as evil as you wish because I have favor with God. I can make it with out the belief of others. See you in class Wednesday and also…. thanks for nothing!
As happy [...]
Posted in Argument, Education, Students, Teaching on Sep 11th, 2007 26 Comments »
Having basically sung the praises of my first week of school, the bottom dropped out this morning when I received a particularly vicious e-mail from one of my students.
I’m posting the correspondence below, and it’s verbatim save for the student’s name which has been changed because I don’t want said student getting even five seconds [...]
Posted in Adminstration, College, Education, Students, Teaching on Sep 7th, 2007 27 Comments »
Having hit the first wall, I quickly introduced myself, told everyone to hang tight, and scurried back downstairs to the dean’s office to start the process of switching rooms.
I love beginning a semester in chaos.
Now, switching rooms makes finding a shady parking space right next to the building look like child’s play—getting it done is [...]
Posted in Education, Teaching on Sep 4th, 2007 23 Comments »
On this day in 1957, an equal education was important enough for nine students to risk their lives for nothing more than the right to attend Little Rock High School.
Forget sports greats. Forget movie stars. Forget all of the people whose financial status and/or success makes them the stuff of envy and admiration. [...]
Posted in Adminstration, College, Education, Teaching on Sep 4th, 2007 26 Comments »
The first day of the semester began with such smoothness, I thought I was dreaming. Not only did I find a spot in the small lot right next to my building, but also it was in the shade.
Each of these items separately is something akin to winning the lottery, and I scored on both [...]