Week 5

The Good:


Without a doubt, my highlight for the entire week was taking a handful of young women (from my young women's empowerment group, called RAW -- which stands for REAL Ambitious Women) and young men (from the young men's circle, called BAM -- which stands for Be a Man) to the Walk Against Domestic and Teen Dating Violence at Lake Merritt on Saturday, October 1. "A Safe Place," a women's shelter in Oakland, organized the event, which consisted of a breakfast, speakers, some spoken word poetry and a 3.5 mile walk around Lake Merritt. My students CHOSE to wake up at 7:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning to support our community. I have never been SO proud, nor so INSPIRED by the compassionate and thoughtful acts of young people. :)

However, I also enjoyed working with Annie and Maggie on their scholarship essays this week. Both young women worked with me for upwards of five hours. I deeply enjoyed getting back to the  experience of one-on-one tutoring. I also enjoyed really pushing and challenging young, motivated writers. I have to say that while I love teaching in general, my favorite aspect has to be intensive one-on-one work, especially when writing is involved! Now, I completely understand why many teachers are such strong advocates of smaller class sizes! Students really LEARN when they receive one-on-one attention, and that is just IMPOSSIBLE to do when you have 30+ students in your classroom!

The Bad:

One of the main focuses of my writing class is revision. In order to teach that valuable skill, I am requiring my students to go through an extensive drafting process for each of our major assignments. 

We are currently working on a "This I Believe" essay. My plan was that my students would go through three drafts of the assignment. After draft one, my students received immediate feedback through the writing group (peer revision) process. After draft two, my students received feedback and revision suggestions from me. My hope is that they would be turning in their third draft for their "final" grade.

Unfortunately, a good portion of my students are behind. Out of my fifty-eight students, five have not even turned in draft; twenty-five have only completed draft one. Therefore, just fewer than half of my students have actually gone through the entire drafting process as I designed it. My students will be turning in their "most" final drafts on Thursday. I am confident that the students who went multiple draft will turn in stronger essays. 

I am aware that having 50% of my students on track is a decent statistic. However, ALL of my students NEED to go through the revision process. Most, if not all, of them are missing some crucial writing skills. Basically, I'm saying that many of their first draft essays are below what I would call "grade level appropriate." The students who are going through the drafting process will begin to recognize their mistakes and will learn to challenge the thinking that goes into their essays. I can confident assert that the ones who do not practice these skills WILL NOT be ready for the demands of college writing. 

I'm worried...  

The Ugly:

I had another nasty conflict with Roxanne. During class, she made audible rude comments about me and my class. So, I asked her to stay after class. Despite my request, she refused to sit down next to me. While standing next to her, I opened the conversation with, "Roxanne, it is clear that you are not enjoying this class. What can I do to help make this space safe and enjoyable for you?" She said, "Do what you want. You're the teacher. I don't care. I'm just gonna EARN my grade." I knew that the conversation was not going to be productive after that.... I tried to explain to her that I wanted her input -- that I wanted her to be an active member of our classroom. But, she remained resolute; she just wanted to do her work and not have anything to do with me.

These interactions with Roxanne upset me because she is so incredibly bright. She is a capable thinker and a good writer. And, I feel like I'm in her way. I feel like her attitude about me and my class is getting in the way of her potential, and it makes me feel guilty.... Hopefully, I'll find a way to break through her shell by the end of year. I would really like to get to know her...

Note: Roxanne and I ended up laughing together the next time we had class. It was so weird. We were talking about her essay, and then we ended up kidding around about my cat and my experience as a college student. I don't want to sound overly optimistic, but maybe our conversation (although I initially thought it was extremely negative) was more productive than I gave it credit for. We'll see...