You know how it is. You read your students' papers and you just want to fill up the margins with big red letters asking, "What the fuck?!" You hold back--you don't want to be that mean. But you're certain that they didn't try at all, that they haven't been listening or reading or caring. You try to look for the effort in the work, but you are pretty sure it's all just a lot of blather.
I've had this experience way too many times this semester. Then, the other night, I ran across an old college paper, from my later Brit survey. It was about Hopkins--God's Grandeur, Binsey Poplars, inscape, instress. It was just a short paper, 3 pages. I got a bad grade on it, a big old B-. And my teacher's comments were mean. He told me that I was just using words to impress, without thinking about what they mean. He said that the ideas didn't seem considered at all, just a bunch of blather. He actually said "blather." I remember writing this paper. I was really excited about my idea (I loved Hopkins) and I couldn't exactly work it out. But I tried. I actually wanted to work out my thoughts. I also remember being very disappointed with my teacher's comments (mean old Dr. Best); I was less concerned about the grade then the complete dismissal of my thoughts and efforts.
So now I'm thinking that I'm turning into the mean old teacher and maybe I need to remember that just because my students don't get it exactly right doesn't mean that they aren't trying or thinking. It's a bit eye-opening. I think maybe I should read those Dr. Best comments before every batch of grading, just to keep perspective.
Side note that may or may not ruin my epiphany: today a student who has been a complete slacker--he submitted a lame review of The Fast and the Furious when he was supposed to do Critical Discourse Analysis--gave me a draft of his final project. Apparently his IQ has gone up about 100 points in the last week. Totally plagiarized. This is a new one for me--submitting a plagiarized draft (and I didn't even ask them for one).
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8 comments:
That was a nice reminder for me; I guess we should try to remember more often what it feels like to be an undergrad.
Still, I think it would be cool if we all had a "wtf?" stamp and ink pad.
I do think it's good to remind ourselves of our own "I'm trying to use a language I don't have full control of" moments. I tend to remember myself as a genius writer from when I was younger, but your story reminds me of the reaching we all do when we're trying to do something we're still learning to do.
It's good to be reminded, but you also have to keep you bullshit meter turned on.
limon, i'm glad i can still be your "mentor," if only in the virtual world.
don't worry mb, my bullshit meter is still clicking away.
I totally need some mentoring. Please mentor away; I will take notes.
ha, ha--what do I know?
I intentionally have a folder of my old papers in my office for this very purpose. Man, they are shit--I already know this but actually reading them is something else. Still, even having them there, I struggle to remember the extent of my difficulties as a less exp writer and, more worrisome, to detect the difference between "really struggling" and "not really trying."
Even so it would feel so good, so right, to write "What the fuck?" on certain papers. Must withhold the urge, at least till after I'm tenured.
Ah the trickiness of authority. Peer consultants have it a lot easier, although they too have to gauge their responses so as not to just create estrangement and argumentation. It is particularly difficult to work with a writer who has a point of view that one either ardently disagrees with or is completely half-baked. I often get neophyte writing consultants asking me "but what if I don't want to help this person write a better [insert your favortie whacko subject here such as gun rights, anti-abortion, anti-feminist etc, global-warming-doesn't-exist]. It is a question that is sometimes difficult to answer.
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