Computer Writing and Research Lab | University of Texas at Austin

Teaching Nightmare

Submitted by Ljones on October 24, 2007 - 12:49pm

My students just turned in their first paper of the semester, and they are so clueless. How I wish I could laugh heartily at the mistakes and outlandish statements in student compositions, the way Anne of Green Gables does. Instead, I get mad. Real mad. First at the students, and then at myself.

To prepare the students to write this paper, they wrote no less than nine informal papers. After they turned in each response, I e-mailed them personally with comments explaining how to do better on the final paper. They were given two reading quizzes on their textbook. In addition to making the assignment instructions available on-line, I gave the students two other step-by-step instruction sheets to writing and revising—specific to this paper. I gave them a full class period to work on revision. We analyzed not just any examples in class, but examples from the students’ own writing. We graded a sample paper together in class.

The class average is a 65. One student received a grade of 20%. Two students that I met with to discuss early drafts both received a D. One student who went to the Undergraduate Writing Center twice received an F.

Amanda told me that confusion is productive for the students, and they aren’t supposed to get it right away. I don’t know. Before I taught, I always thought I was a naturally talented. I never dreamed my darkest hours as a graduate student would involve doubting my ability to teach.

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Don't beat yourself up.

Submitted by wdmartin on October 25, 2007 - 7:12pm.

Don't beat yourself up over this; really. The fact that your students have turned in crappy work is NOT a searing indictment of your skill as a teacher. It reflects the fact that they are inexperienced writers. It reflects the fact that many of them aren't in your class by choice. It reflects all kinds of outside factors. Yes, your teaching plays an important role in the work that they do. But they are the ones doing the work. They are free to ignore, misinterpret, or misunderstand everything you've said.

Stuff to do for your students: Give them detailed feedback. Ask questions in the margins. Hold paper conferences where you get each student alone. Have them read their papers aloud to you - when they are looking silently at text on a screen or a page, in their heads they hear what the meant to write, rather than what they actually wrote. The fact that you really are willing to hand out failing grades on real papers that count towards the final course grade will quite definitely get their attention. You may find it easier to get them to work with you now.

Stuff to do for you: Develop some distance from your students' work. Just as you did, I felt intense anger, guilt, and shock over my students' writing the first time I taught 306. But you just cannot sustain that level of emotional involvement. It's not emotionally feasible; you would drive yourself insane, quite possibly in a literal sense of the word.

Look at the paper. Acknowledge that it's crappy. You can't fix it for them, and it would be a mistake to try. You need to give them feedback so THEY can fix it. That's where the majority of the actual learning in 306 takes place - it happens in your students' heads when they're sitting alone and typing. The papers are their problem.

In order to give good feedback, you need distance. I can't offer you a formula for gaining that distance. I don't quite know how I gained it myself - just one day I was sitting at a paper conference with a student and I found that I cared about the student but not about the paper. The paper - the whole assignment - is nothing but a tool. You use it to:

- Give the student practice writing and thinking
- Measure the student's current skill
- Diagnose any notable problems with their writing (e.g. "this" addiction)
- Provide feedback when (not "if") they do badly so they can try again

Don't let yourself care too much about the tool. It's the student you should care about, and I think you do, or you wouldn't have had such a strong reaction.

Take a deep breath. You're not the Wicked Witch of the West. It'll be harder than you thought. Your experience is normal thus far. You'll be fine, and so will your students.

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Sounds like a pickle.

Submitted by jonathanlamb on October 24, 2007 - 8:21pm.

It seems like a pretty rough situation, though, having taught the 306 curriculum, I don't think you should beat yourself up about it.

Is there a chance that in all the hubbub leading up to the essay, the students lost sight of its main purpose? If I'm understanding you correctly, they've just turned in Essay 1, which isn't supposed to be a rhetorical analysis at all but rather a summary or "map" of their individual controversies. Is there a chance that all the prep, which I'm sure was helpful, nevertheless gave them the wrong idea of what the assignment is supposed to accomplish?

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