Discussing Papers

Most of my free time this weekend was spent preparing for class this morning. I pawed through drafts slowly, writing insightful comments here and there, asking questions meant to provoke thought. I finished last night around one in the morning, and then crashed. Beeping groceries for eight hours and then reading intro level papers can lead to wonderful exhaustion of both the physical and mental state. Nonetheless, I prevailed.

The first time I graded* papers at this level I was a bit insecure - second guessing my comments, questioning whether or not they answered the assignment. I am one who sees a lot of "gray matter," and consequently I will stretch the parameters of an assignment. While this isn't always a bad thing, sometimes it can be a bit problematic. So far it hasn't. This is the fourth time I've graded papers for this class, and I'm finally gaining a sort of comfort writing comments, although I'm still a bit uneasy stamping a grade on a text. Unfortunately, it is something I will probably always have a problem with - this whole idea of a student "earning" an A, or a B all the way down to an F. I can see definitive levels in things, but it's the picking apart, the ranking that is difficult for me to do as I've grown up trying to find worth in everything.

Anyway, back on topic, today I had three groups to discuss papers with, and overall, it went rather well. The first time we had group conferences students were unprepared, not having read each others documents, which ended up having me discuss the person's paper one-on-one while the other group members sat there. This time only one student - that told me - didn't read one paper. The discussions were fruitful, and most students - I feel - walked away with a clear idea of what they needed to do in their drafts.

I realized something about my teaching, and my personality today. I can come off, and I probably am, a bit of a prig. For example, in one of the groups today, it was quite obvious that one of the students didn't prepare. She didn't read the draft, and had brief critiques that where half a page at best compared to everyone else's one-and-a-half page critiques. I asked the group to re-read the introduction and conclusion of a certain paper, and asked whether or not the two were related, and if they were pertinent to the information contained in the body of the text. A pretty standard question. I gave the students a few minutes to look the piece over, and then asked students to answer my question. Through out the entire discussion one of the students was mute. That's fine. That's the way I used to be, and still am in group work. It's not so much that you aren't prepared, but that you are uncomfortable with speaking in a group. I dogged her a bit, and asked her to speak multiple times. She didn't.

I'm stuck. At the college level do we require students to speak? Even if they aren't comfortable with themselves, they need to become comfortable with speaking in groups. The only way to do this is to call on them. They are not fifth graders. They are past scaring. They've already made it to a small private liberal arts school, they must be at least semi-intelligent. These are not difficult questions. Answer them. On the other hand, they are freshman. They are new to this world of college. They are trying to make new friends and become accustomed to being away from home, partying, and balancing school work. Cut them some slack. If they have prepared the work and seem somewhat attentive, let them be. Remember what you were like. The inner-battles you had when you wanted to raise your hand to share, but couldn't convince your muscles to do so. Hopefully, like grading this is something I come to grips with eventually and learn how to handle.


*The reflection essays are graded, while the drafts are given a check if they are four pages or more as four is the requirement. I do not grade the final papers as they carry too much weight to be put on my shoulders. So I guess technically I don't grade drafts. Not with a letter.

Paper Piles

I just got done doing some work for another class I am taking and I had a few moments to pause and reflect on what I need to do this weekend while I'm not slaving at the local grocery store. At first it didn't seem like I had a lot to do. My classes where taken care of for the most part. A few things due next week, but nothing too much. Then it hit me. Monday. Ah, Monday. I TA on Monday mid-mornings, and it is this class that I must prep for.

The class is twenty-two students and they are divided into five groups of four or five. They have three unit papers due, and for each of these papers, the students exchange their drafts with the other members of their groups as well as the Professor and I. There is a sheet that was given to everyone with a list of questions meant to help the students read each others drafts critically and come back with some useful tips. The Professor and I act as facilitators, leading the discussion and giveing the students our critique as well as some pointers for the final draft.

As there are five groups and two facilitators, if you will, one of us gets three groups, while the other gets two. Since I'm only the TA, I got two groups the first time, which means I have three groups this time. This weekend on my fifteen minute break from beeping groceries, I will be assessing rough drafts and making notes for fourteen students. It's not too much of a daunting task, just a time consuming one. We kept student response papers that these drafts were meant to partially stem from. With these response papers we will be comparing drafts and the errors that were in both so we have a little bit more of an idea of where particular students are having problems.

Tough Tasks

As a substitute teacher, you often end up being a glorified baby sitter. Teachers seldom want you to teach new material to students, because chances are you'll do it wrong, and then they'll have to spend the next class undoing the damage the substitute did. For the most part I showed video's, administered tests of some sort, or gave out packets of class work. Occasionally I would have to grade the tests I gave, and this is where I had a dilemma. It's one thing to grade a multiple choice test, but grading short answer can be problematic.

In the class I TA, I grade half of the assignments. For the most part they are small assignments - reflection pieces, drafts. I do not grade final drafts. This is fine by me. I'd rather not grade final drafts that carry large weight in regards to students final grades. I don't mind grading papers; it's not an incredibly difficult task. The problem I find is that there is no real rubric to grade papers on. There is an assignment, but not a rubric so I'm left to make my own judgement calls.

Another important piece that I've figured out about grading my third time through, is that I cannot sit down and grade twenty pieces at a time. Potentially I could, but it's not fair to the class. Even when I grade five papers, I find myself being more lenient towards the end of the grading process. I'm not sure if it's because I just want it to be over with and it's easier to give a "B" then to think about it, or if my brain gets tired and I miss mistakes and stop thinking about what I'm reading.

Two things I've learned so far:

1. I need a rubric. I will always have a rubric for assignments I give. Even if it is a basic, one-page assignment, there will be a rubric.
2. I need time to grade. It's important to space out the grading process. Maybe as I progress I'll be able to grade more papers at a time, but for now I need to break it up.

Surprise Run-Ons

With the new unit being taught in class, we've had two guest speakers visit class to talk about their trade and discuss how they got there, and what their jobs mean to them. The first was the Professors father - a school psychologist somewhere in Colorado - and the second was a young female lawyer from a local firm. The lawyer was the most recent of our visitors as she stopped in on Wednesday; however, she was a minute or two late and the Professor wanted to wait for her outside the building. With the Professor gone, I was left in charge of the class with a brief assignment given to me from the Professor as she was walking out the door: teach run-on sentences.

Most individuals have an idea of what a run-on sentence consists of. It is two complete clauses joined together with no punctuation, or in some cases they can be joined with a comma. I know this. I'm an English major and I was a huge comma splicer back in my early days of writing. If you didn't follow that link and read what it had to say, you should. A comma splice is basically the joining of two independent clauses with a comma. There are times that it may be acceptable use, but for the purposes of an English 101 class, we're going to say that the comma splice is illegal.


This should not have been a difficult task for me to complete, but suddenly it became problematic for me. I had no time to prepare, and started trying to think on my feet while at the same time keeping the attention of the class. If you've ever had to think on your feet in front of a room full of people four years your minor, you might know that it can be a bit daunting. I wanted to come up with an example of a run-on sentence that was simple, yet I could not think of anything but the simplest of run-ons. "The dog was hungry it ate the cat." As I neared the end of my sentence, the students I knew from substitute teaching high school classes began giggling. I turned around, and started asking them questions about my sentence. "What's wrong with this sentence? What can we do to make it correct?" Some of them raised their hands; others blurted out answers. They were all correct telling me that it was a run-on of sorts, and it needed some punctuation, like an "and." At this point I broke into the hook of "Conjunction Junction" to which many of the students looked at me rather awkwardly. Never mind the awkwardness, they understood - I think - what I was getting at.

Overall, I think it went alright. The students knew what I was talking about, and when they attempted to find run-ons in their peers' papers, for the most part they were able to do it. I feel that I was able to explain run-ons, but I wanted to go further into grammar and explain more about clauses being independent, or dependent and how to make them such. While explaining these things takes little time, I feel they are seldom taught in the English classroom and students are simply expected to know them. If every English teacher took five minutes every other class to explain some grammar concept, I think knowledge of grammar would improve momentously.

Ways to Fix a Run-On:
1. Add a conjunction preceded by a comma.
Ex.) The dog was hungry, and it ate the cat.
2. Add a semi-colon. Although the semi-colon can be tricky and is not recommended by some in early writing, it is a suitable way to fix a run-on. A semi-colon can be used when the two clauses are closely related.
Ex.) The dog was hungry; it ate the cat.
3. Add a period and create two separate clauses.
Ex.) The dog was hungry. It ate the cat.

A Brief Overview

Through out the class we will be using basically two texts and one style guide. The first text is an anthology put together by Diane Durkin and Lisa Gerrard called Seeking Common Cause: Reading and Writing in Action. Now I don't actually own this book as I use copies of the texts to be read provided for me. The second text that we are using is the New York Times. As I am not a student of the class, I don't have to buy this, but it is provided for me which is really quite nice in the grand scheme of things.

The class is broken into three units - the first of which was completed on October first with the submission of the students first "long" paper of six pages. In this unit the students looked at the image of self in regards to the popular media. We looked at images in the New York Times and advertisements in magazines such as People, US Weekly, and others of that sort. We also read pieces that were concerned with plastic surgery and body image. While still in this unit we took a trip to a local art gallery to view artwork that was concerned with women in suburbia. Students also used these images to frame their final paper for the unit.

With the closure of the unit we have moved to the image of self in the work place. We are looking at different jobs and perhaps sexism, or racism in the workplace as the class is all females with a handful of non-white students. We have not really delved into this unit too far yet as the first class and a half was spent watching a documentary on Wal-Mart and how awful the corporation really is. Then Columbus Day struck and we missed class. We began by reading a piece by Mike Rose and students are looking at different types of jobs, and what they mean to the individual.

In the most recent class, students were asked to create a collage based on the themes we have been discussing and their personal feelings. Some students took pictures from magazines, while others took titles or words from the New York Times. Students were then asked to write a response paper for next class, explaining individual pieces of their collages and the overall grand view of them.

Now that I'm caught up - to a degree - I can keep this thing updated when I get back from class.