The semester winds down

I am in the midst of grading finals for my classes this semester. It is partially by intent that I have not written much about teaching and partially by default because teaching (and preparation and grading) has consumed a great deal of time. I taught two classes this semester, Freshman Composition and Introduction to Literature.  After teaching for four semesters now, I’m beginning to see the benefits of experience – and to see how much more experience I need.

For the first two semesters at MGCCC, I felt like I was floundering, as I’ve mentioned before. The second semester spent teaching World Literature went much more smoothly, but the first semester flopped.  Never having taken Freshman Composition, I had no idea how to manage the class time. The students looked perpetually bored. Since I was a replacement for a teacher who left unexpectedly early in the semester, I didn’t have time to prepare, nor did I have a firm concept of goals or capabilities. A number of the students failed, mainly because they didn’t turn in their assignments, but I can’t help but feel I failed to teach any of them how to write a college paper.

I still question my ability to teach analytical writing, but after scouring the internet for some teaching ideas and devising a syllabus that divided up the work into small chunks, I found a groove that seemed to work.  Class began with a short writing prompt, after which we read and analyzed sample essays. Then the class worked on applying some technique or other to their own writing – writing a hook for their introductions, crafting thesis statements, adding transitions, varying sentence length.  Sometimes I brought in a grammar worksheet to review, and sometimes we did group critiques to fill out the hour and a half of class time. 

I struggled a bit to find readings and prompts. Their text needs to be tweaked for this island audience, a mixed age group, most of whom work and have families. One student came from the prison through the study-release program. Finding essays that appealed and applied to their lives was more difficult than I anticipated. Their text contains a decent selection of essays, but many seem chosen for college students who live in dorms off their parents’ pennies – what may be relevant for many students just seemed vacuous here.  A friend mentioned that his freshman writing class was taught by a film professor and the whole semester focused on writing about classic movies. Perhaps choosing a theme for the semester would help unify my teaching and help the students with invention.

Another hurdle was been adjusting expectations.  MGCCC required 5000 words of written work over the semester. GCC doesn’t have a set requirement, so I assigned 3 papers instead of 5, based on the recommendation of another teacher.  I ended up adding three shorter papers, which I'll do again next year, although I definitely won't do a literary analysis first and a process paper last. I tried to be somewhat systematic about what needed to be included in their essays, but I can see how it would have been helpful to break down the assignments even more and to spend more time on generating ideas.

Ideas might have come easier if I weren't so determined to stay away from current political issues.  I just didn’t want to get into gay marriage and abortion in class, although a few students chose those topics for their papers. I recommended they chose topics that applied to their majors or to their work or to the local community (for instance, in preparation for their argument papers, we had an in class debate about the proposition on the ballot here to legalize for-profit bingo), but invariably a third or so chose generic political topics that they treated superficially. I suppose this is every composition teacher’s bane. How to encourage critical thinking without getting into a debate?  The thought of tackling anything political made me feel rather cynical and curmudgeonly.  I am so thankful to have only experienced the periphery of politics this year.

Surprisingly, a couple of students thanked me as they turned in their finals. But I'm sure a few who didn't show up to the final will curse me...

***

The literature class went more smoothly, mostly because I feel more comfortable with the material and how to present it, but also because I had a lively and engaged group of students, even though we met late in the evening – 8-9:30 pm. All credit for their liveliness goes to food.  We ate, then we talked. Starting about a third of the way into the semester one of the older students brought in fresh donuts.  They were devoured, and a tradition was started.  Some student or other usually brought snacks, and I’ll occasionally brought in something – shiu pao when we read “A Pair of Tickets,” teas and coffees when we read “The Things They Carried,” which makes me thirsty, and chocolate chip cookies with southern pecans for “Everyday Use.” 

One of my students was a grandmother who delighted in bringing soups, noodles, rice – nearly full meals. After I mentioned that my husband liked the pickled papaya her husband made, she brought in a large bag of it. And after her nephew’s wedding, she brought homemade lumpia for the class, plus a huge bag for me to take home.  She had a colorful life experience to match almost all of our stories.  I especially was curious about a love potion she was talking about during the class we read love poems. A few other students confirmed that there is some local spicy potion that makes women stay with their dead-beat husbands, and makes men fall in love with homely girls.

On the last day of class, we had a veritable fiesta: red and white rice (mandatory at every celebration), short ribs, shrimp kelaguen, spam kelaguen, baked spaghetti, brownies and blondies (my contribution), oreo cake, cheese cake, grilled eggplant in vinegar that was super yum, pan de sal, tea and soda.  Did I mention that there are only 10 people in my class?  Even though they were talking about class, I had to make them stop eating with about 45 mins of class left so they could take their test, and everyone hung around after the test to talk and eat more.

They also gave me presents: a story board, a hat, a mug, a beach towel. . . I was so touched, and felt cheap for having nothing for them but a card.  Their generosity was overwhelming, considering one of the older ladies was homeless for a couple weeks, and a couple of the younger students are living on their own, going to school, and trying to live off minimum wage jobs. I was tempted to give them all A's; at any rate, I know they at least will remember their literature class with fondness, and perhaps come back to some of the stories and remember how much fun they had making up skits for their poetry projects. 

About the class: initially, I thought I would stay with the stories and poems I had picked for MGCCC because they were by famous authors or I liked them. But after multiple complaints about all the death in the stories we were reading (almost everyone disliked “A Good Man is Hard to Find”), I tried to pick stories with more upbeat endings. (They loved “Gift of the Magi” and “A Pair of Tickets.”)  For the poetry unit also, I tried to incorporate some more contemporary poems – so often a bit melancholy - in addition to the poems I felt were “significant.” But some of these were too inaccessible. Autumn and Spring are simply concepts, not experiences, for most of the students.  “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” was received with complaints and incomprehension. Meanwhile, Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “How do I love thee” sonnet, which I thought to use to illustrate hyperbole, was received with sighs and praise.

But why not enjoy poems to appeal to popular sentiment? Dana Gioia’s essay “CanPoetry Matter” critiques poetry that only speaks to other poets or to the critics in academia.  If I want my students to enjoy poetry, to come back to it, they need to read some poems that resonate with their lives, poems that are fun, poems that don’t require footnotes. So I wish Gioia as editor of our literature text had included even more happy poems that weren't Shakespearean sonnets.

I don't think I want to be like Yvor Winters teaching corrosion and distrust . . . 

On Teaching the Young

BY YVOR WINTERS

     The young are quick of speech.

     Grown middle-aged, I teach

     Corrosion and distrust,

     Exacting what I must.

       A poem is what stands

      When imperceptive hands,

     Feeling, have gone astray.

     It is what one should say.

     Few minds will come to this.

     The poet’s only bliss

     Is in cold certitude—

     Laurel, archaic, rude.

Yvor Winters, “On Teaching the Young” from The Selected Poems of Yvor Winters, edited by R. L. Barth. Used by permission of Ohio University
from www.poetryfoundation.org