I must admit that I have not read anybody's blog over the weekend. I didn't have any access to the internet this weekend to see who else might be writing about this, but I'm certain there are more than a couple of people blogging about this very topic.

Most of us are finishing up the textual analysis unit. This is actually one of my favorite units. I like telling students how media, politicians and friends manipulate them. They appeal to emotion, use logical fallacies and use invalid arguments as solid fact. It's an eye-opener. It is a little bit of a shock to the students, though. They are so used to looking up at three computer monitors and seeing "blonde... brunette... redhead." And, now they have to pay attention to the code (That metaphor brought to you by the Wachowski brothers. If you want a good first act, grab a Wachowski!). Of course, the students are so overwhelmed at having to look at the argumentation techniques rather than the argument that I fear they are missing out on the significance of the assignment. I mean, we are letting them have a relatively easy assignment followed by the hardest assignment in the class. In fact, as soon as the students turn in their memoir, I tell them, "This was the easiest paper you will write in the class; the next one is the hardest." It's a technique I learned from Dr. Ellis. It always gets their attention.

Anyway, the problem I'm running into is that I had a chance to look at the rough drafts of the textual analyses and it broke down to about 1/3 of the class having fantastic textual analyses, 5/9 of the class arguing with or against the author on their chosen topic, and the rest summarizing the article. Now, out of 18 students who turned in their textual analysis drafts, how many turned in a summary?

Seriously, there has to be a way to teach the textual analysis paper so that everybody is at least on the right track for the rough draft. I had a day planned out for a fun activity, MLA citation and a mock election with the remaining candidates. But, after reading the rough drafts, I discovered I had to discuss the problems in the class. I decided to go over the problems and review MLA format in the same day. It was a long 50 minutes.

I've modeled the analysis technique, explained that the issue being argued is a footnote to the topic of the analysis, mentioned in passing and brought up in order to give the reader a context for the rest of the paper. I begged them to not put the paper off until the day before. "Please, I'm begging you, do not procrastinate and read the article on the night before the paper is due!" But, many students openly admitted to this when I told them they have a long way to go with their drafts. They said it almost with a sense of pride, in the same tone they would say, "I can do a lot better when I actually try at something." Then they smile brightly and I try to hide the fact that they just figuratively spit in my face and are now smiling brightly about it.

So, I want to hear from EVERYBODY. What had been the turnout for your analyses? I'd like to know the breakdown of perfect papers, arguing the topic and summary, because I know those are the three categories; they always are. There has to be somebody out there who has 100% analysis, and I want to know your secret!

I don't know how everyone's attendance was in their classes on wednesday, but mine was positively atrocious. To top it all off, my MWF classes (Monday was cancelled) was bookended by a three day weekend on both sides. Now, I was expecting my attendance to be low on Friday. I've come to expect that Fridays before three-day weekends (and especially Spring Break) will have low attendance. But, with the mini-ice storm we had, Presidents Day and the ice storm completely ruined a whole week of classes for me.
I passed back the memoirs on Wednesday. Only half of them left my hands. We went over the common grammar areas which need improvement (some of you have seen the sheet I passed out), but only half of the class saw the sheet! I answered questions about the textual analysis, led students on an analysis of an essay and showed a film which was used for analysis purposes all on Wednesday and Friday, and only half of my students were in class on those days. What am I supposed to do? Reteach that stuff???
My 100 students presented a similar problem. On Friday, only six students showed up to class. That's not a typo; there were actually only six students in my class when I walked in. Now, this was not an all-time low for me. Some of you may recall late in the Fall semester when only three students showed up to my class (two of which had not done the required reading or the rough draft of the research paper, one student had not attended my class for two weeks and only one was totally prepared for class.).
I wouldn't have been so angry on that day, but I put time and effort in to thinking up lesson plans, hand-outs and teaching strategies on those days.
And then....AND THEN, students started emailing me after my classes about what they missed with attachments of their drafts! It dawned on me later that I should have had a quiz on those days, but ENG 100 has really tied my hands since I can't assign grammar quizzes, reading quizzes, extra credit, homework assignments, enforce the attendance policy or use participation as a grading tool. Everything in ENG 100 is based on the honor system and the portfolio. For those of you who have not yet taught ENG 100, this can be both a good thing and a bad thing. It's hard to describe.

Well, I started the textual analysis paper today. I've been telling the students about the paper all week with what the literary types call "Forshadowing." The textual analysis is something the students have never had to do before. They have been able to write papers about themselves, summarize works they've contacted and regurgitated ideas on paper for a quiz. They've never had to THINK before. I explained the textual analysis, and I could see a look clouding over each of them. It was a sort of confused fear like if someone ran into the room and shouted that there was a box full of puppies on fire outside the building. Should we do something? Why did he run in here? Are we responsible for this? Is the box on fire or are the puppies on fire?

It looked like I had just brought them all out to the pool before they learned to swim and then gently pushed them away from the edge. They all had that "I'm going to die" look in their eyes.

When I introduced the textual analysis unit last semester (and this semester) I started off with the assignment sheet, then I walk them through an analysis of Jimmy Carter's essay in Lunsford Rusc. The students were doing an okay job, today. They would give a few points, furtively testing the water to see if they could, indeed, float. "It seems like a lot of his points are opinion," eyes wide, glancing up at me for approval. "I'm just not a big fan of Jimmy Carter." Will pretends to lose interest and casuall mark on the corner of his book. Then, Bryce asked the dreaded question: "Do you have an example?"

My philosophy of a model essay is that it is something a high school teacher uses to "teach" with after they have told their students they should put a comma in whenever they pause. Model essays are for people who can't teach and don't want creativity. A model essay is something you hand-out to the students with the unspoken subtext being, "I expect your papers to be as much like this one as possible. The less your paper is like this one, the lower your grade will be."

But, I looked out over the students who had shown up for class. Half of them were gone as there was something of a micro-blizzard which swept through Missouri the day before, but was almost entirely melted by five o'clock. They wanted the model essay. They wanted the cookie cutter. They wanted their paper to fit in and thus not stand out. I felt like they were asking me to make them the store managers of area McDonalds'. I wanted to scream, "Don't you want to at least try? You can do this! It's just the first day. We can all do this our own way!"

So, what's the verdict? Should I give them their model essay? Am I being irrational by wanting them to be creative and individual?

603.1

I've built up a rapport with my students. It's something upon which I pride myself, but, after this first week of classes, I have begun to ask myself if there is such a thing as too much of a relaxed classroom atmosphere. I caught myself going off on a tangent on Friday. It wasn't a long tangent (only about 1 minute of classtime) The students were engaged throughout the class, but I walked out of the class afterward and shook my head. "What did that tangent have to do with anything?" "Did I just waste my students' time with that?" I like presenting the students with an atmosphere where I'm just like them, but I happen to be able to help out with writing and lead classroom discussion. Those of you who have read my teaching philosophy know that I like to see myself as a coach in the classroom. I like being the person who can joke around with their students before we get down to the meat of the class material. There are conversations going on while I take role, the first few minutes of class are usually reserved for "what did you do this weekend? what did you do over the weekend? What did you do Wednesday night" sort of banter and there's a casual dialogue. It's the way I like the class, and the students seem to be accepting of this atmosphere. However, lately I'm starting to wonder if this is the best way I should be running the class. I like running the class that way. the students like the class. But, is it as effective as I can be teaching?

Study of Teacher Error

I enjoyed the Sara Biggs Chaney articlebecause it brought several things into perspective. As I brought up in class, I'd never thought of plagiarism as a form of resistance. Resistance, for me, always meant a student was reluctant to write a paper or turn in an assignment. Maybe they would only write half of the required pages or something of that nature. Plagiarism always fell in a category by itself. But, I suppose plagiarism is a form of resistance. I mean, it is a refusal of the student to complete the assignment. And, it begs the question of what was the student thinking? Could she have possibly thought she could get away with it?
One thing which really bothered me about the paper was that Chaney, though she had been careful to point out what plagiarism was and how it was used, somehow blamed herself for the student's choice (32). She spends pages explaining the process of telling the students about plagiarism, as well as examples. She went to great lengths to show that plagiarism is dishonest. But, she still wondered, "What am I doing wrong?"
Now, I think all teachers go through this sort of nagging feeling when grading a test. If some of the studentss fail, the first question we ask ourselves is, "What am I doing wrong?" I can understand trying to better your instruction methods in order to reach more students but, The fact of the matter is that "Amber" made a concious choice that did not involve the instruction of the class. She knew the possible punishment of such an action and was aware that it was dishonest, and she did it anyway. Some kids are just going to do bad things and it has nothing to do with teaching methods.

My article

http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdf?vid=4&hid=7&sid=17fe6de0-6651-4552-9fac-4515ce5cd910%40sessionmgr2

Jerrie Cobb Scott

In "Literacies and Deficits Revisited," Jerrie Cobb Scott talks about a way to define literacy. One part in the article that I could not get out of my head is when the author explains that defining literacy as the ability to read and write would break the cultures of the world into two groups: literate and oral societies. Cobb explains that defining literacy as the ability to read and write "is inherently biased against oral culture." (206)
It's hard to disagree with this assertion, but is it possible to be biased against something as obviously inferior? That's right, I see illiterate societies as inferior to non-literate societies based upon the number of societies with literate cultures thriving as industrialized nations versus the number of orally literate cultures thriving as industrialized nations. Show me a successfully thriving culture based on Oral literacy and I'll show you 80 thriving cultures based on being literate.
It's a small point, easily skimmed over, but it stuck out to me and I had to get that off my chest.
That being said, I agree with a lot that Cobb says in the rest of the article. Cobb explains that we are presenting a sort of Utopia to our students. If the students work hard, they will be rewarded for their efforts (209). Cobb calls for us to be realistic about this sort of ideal, and I have to agree. Just look at the number of people who are laid-off when an automobile manufacturer moves to Mexico. We can't justify that all of the workers just weren't trying hard enough at their jobs, so we look the other way and tell the students that life is fair in its rewards.
But, then, how can we sell our product (a good education) if the product doesn't garner the promised results? Man, in reflection, this was a far more depressing article than any of the others we've read in class.