if only i could make this up
alright, so i was all tea and roses at the end of last week because i'm teaching again. yes, you read that right -- i'm happy to be back in front of a classroom. i'm even happy to get back to work on developing a solid hunch-back from dragging home eighty tons of 10% post-consumer-waste paper every weekend. thanks gods nobody ever remembers to stape their papers together, or else we might be talking an extra pound or two for me to drag home. but that's not the point of the story.
i assigned the kiddies an initial writing sample, a diagnostic if you're hep to the lingo, and set to responding to them this afternoon. of my 32 students spread over two classes (one's an off-campus night class with enrollment of 8. call me lucky.), at least 25 of them are actually really impressive. they've got better organization, voice, prewriting, and proofreading skills, even on a handwritten, timed fluff piece than most of my students at XXX ever dreamed of thinking of aspiring to consider trying to get to. apparently, the 70% placement into developmental writing classes here is a good thing -- they learn enough before college-level writing to ::gasp!:: actually write at or near college-level! what a crazy thought.
but, again, that's not the point of the story. the point of the story is those 7 kids who aren't at college level and their obvious leader. i have a student who, no kidding, asked me after class on wednesday, when i assigned the writing sample, what i meant by "essay." and then what i meant by "writing." she is neither special needs nor a non-native speaker. she's a regular girl who apparently didn't learn or wasn't taught squat in high school. when i asked about the essay she wrote for the ACT to get into college, she didn't remember doing that part. when i looked up her ACT score in private, she scored higher than average in english, which (i think) includes the little essay thing, right? how was this possible, i thought. maybe her writing sample would prove that this whole thing was just a misunderstanding of incongruous semantics.
nope.
actual lines from the writing sample: "I make lists of things, like what movies I want to see and the bands I like or that I have heard of. [insert a bunch more types of lists] I have a list of my favorite flowers, and all the countries I want to go to. And of course, I have a list to tell me what coins I have, how old they are, and how many of them I have. The last time I wrote a paper, it was more like a report I guess. It was about horses, and all I did was copy stuff down off the internet. The one I did before that was on Merlin. That one all I did was type in Merlin and printed stuff." and then there's a list of the papers she wrote before the one she printed about merlin. oh, and the of course emphasis is mine. of course.
no wonder the girl doesn't know what an essay is. or even what writing is. if she got credit for printing a website about merlin as a "paper," no wonder she's confused that i'm asking her to put to paper her own thoughts.
how does this happen? how does this happen in the same place where i have 25 rocking students? crap.
i assigned the kiddies an initial writing sample, a diagnostic if you're hep to the lingo, and set to responding to them this afternoon. of my 32 students spread over two classes (one's an off-campus night class with enrollment of 8. call me lucky.), at least 25 of them are actually really impressive. they've got better organization, voice, prewriting, and proofreading skills, even on a handwritten, timed fluff piece than most of my students at XXX ever dreamed of thinking of aspiring to consider trying to get to. apparently, the 70% placement into developmental writing classes here is a good thing -- they learn enough before college-level writing to ::gasp!:: actually write at or near college-level! what a crazy thought.
but, again, that's not the point of the story. the point of the story is those 7 kids who aren't at college level and their obvious leader. i have a student who, no kidding, asked me after class on wednesday, when i assigned the writing sample, what i meant by "essay." and then what i meant by "writing." she is neither special needs nor a non-native speaker. she's a regular girl who apparently didn't learn or wasn't taught squat in high school. when i asked about the essay she wrote for the ACT to get into college, she didn't remember doing that part. when i looked up her ACT score in private, she scored higher than average in english, which (i think) includes the little essay thing, right? how was this possible, i thought. maybe her writing sample would prove that this whole thing was just a misunderstanding of incongruous semantics.
nope.
actual lines from the writing sample: "I make lists of things, like what movies I want to see and the bands I like or that I have heard of. [insert a bunch more types of lists] I have a list of my favorite flowers, and all the countries I want to go to. And of course, I have a list to tell me what coins I have, how old they are, and how many of them I have. The last time I wrote a paper, it was more like a report I guess. It was about horses, and all I did was copy stuff down off the internet. The one I did before that was on Merlin. That one all I did was type in Merlin and printed stuff." and then there's a list of the papers she wrote before the one she printed about merlin. oh, and the of course emphasis is mine. of course.
no wonder the girl doesn't know what an essay is. or even what writing is. if she got credit for printing a website about merlin as a "paper," no wonder she's confused that i'm asking her to put to paper her own thoughts.
how does this happen? how does this happen in the same place where i have 25 rocking students? crap.
posted by stella at 11:00 PM
2 Comments:
and you wanted us to call you lucky!
There was a ballerina (if you could realy award her that title) in my company who could actually not count to 8 properly and in time. It baffled the mind that she had been through an arts school and an apprentice program at a very prestigious California company. Sometimes these people slip through...is she cute, your student? This dancer was. Maybe they just charm their way through life?
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