Posted in College, Education, English, Essay, Students, Teaching on Sep 28th, 2007 2 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 No 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 2 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 No Comments »
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 6 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 College, Comparison/Contrast, Education, English, Students, Teaching, Writing on Aug 2nd, 2007 2 Comments »
From this morning’s AP wire:
California’s budget is again overdue, and education is at the heart of the delay. While one side refuses to allow more cuts in the area of education, the other is demanding more cuts be made. The result: the members of the state legislature are embroiled in a tug-of-war that […]
Posted in Education, English, Students, Teaching on Jul 8th, 2007 14 Comments »
More and more, I am faced with students who are certain their failures are my fault or out of their control due to a variety of stumbling blocks the world sets out as a means to foil their otherwise responsible intentions.
Many of my students have been conditioned to believe that if they don’t like something, […]
Posted in College, English, Students, Teaching on Jun 18th, 2007 3 Comments »
Having made it through the whirlwind of WEEK ONE of summer school, here’s where things stand:
THE GOOD
Each of my classes is full, and most of my students appear to be motivated for the rigors of summer session.
It only took three days to get the keys I needed to get into the classrooms I’m using.
The parking […]
Posted in College, Education, English, Teaching, Writing on Jun 7th, 2007 2 Comments »
Summer Session Countdown: T-Minus 4 Days
I think I have the most of what I’m going to need for my first week of school squared away. The job has been made a bit easier by the recent, bad weather: there’s been no temptation to wile away my time in the sun while gazing at the […]
Summer Session Countdown: T-Minus 6 Days
I spent the better part of yesterday revamping the Web site I use to augment my English classes. It is one of the things I seem to do on an almost semester-by-semester basis, yet someplace in the back of my mind, I know the site doesn’t get used to […]