Do I Really Scare My Students?

I recently observed a colleague’s class, during which I noticed that out of the relatively small-sized group, the same few students were raising their hands to answer questions and offer responses, while several others kept quiet for the duration. At one point during the discussion, the instructor reminded her students that she will only call on them if they raise their hands; she won’t ask anyone to speak if they’re not volunteering. Nevertheless, by the end of the class, the discussion had been pretty lively, prompted by a combination of large and small group work.

I was pretty surprised to learn of this instructor’s method, and when I mentioned it to another colleague, he told me that–again, to my surprise–he uses the same method in his classes: he only calls on students who raise their hands.

Both colleagues offered a similar explanation for this approach: the class participation component of the course grade is based on student participation in whole class discussions, in small group work, in various online activities, and the like. That is, class participation does not just mean raising one’s hand. Not all students are comfortable speaking in front of the whole class, and because they are offered a variety of ways in which to meaningfully engage in the coursework, they won’t have to speak if they don’t choose to. Students are made aware of this from the beginning of the semester, and so the classroom dynamic is initially established as non-threatening, the classroom a space where students need not fear being called on when they don’t have a response, when they might not feel like sharing their ideas with the class, or perhaps when they simply aren’t prepared to speak about the day’s reading or writing assignment.

As suggested by the title of this blog post and by my reaction to learning of my colleagues’ class participation methods, I take a very different approach. In all of my teaching, I have always striven to hear from as many different students as possible in any given class–and this sometimes entails calling on students who have not volunteered to speak. And, as I find unnervingly coincidental in light of just talking directly with fellow instructors about their reasons for not calling on their students, I received for the first time in my ten-year teaching career, a comment in a student evaluation speaking to this very issue: “Sometimes I felt scared speaking in front of the class & by calling on a student makes them more scared [sic]. When I was ready, I did speak in front of the class.” You can imagine my horror at realizing that I actually made this student (and I must be realistic here, maybe others as well) feel scared.

I hope this goes without saying, but I don’t ever call on students to scare them. Like my colleagues, I set out to create a safe and comfortable learning environment. I, too, offer (and count for students’ participation grades) various methods of student participation inside and outside of the classroom. Nevertheless, I have always felt that by talking in class (in whole group discussions), students have the opportunity to share and see the value of their ideas, however unformed or tentative their ideas may be; also, I believe students may be more engaged by talking rather than only by listening. Also, I think it’s important to hear a variety of opinions, experiences, and interpretations; the more frequent hand-raisers themselves seem to appreciate the inclusion of other voices in the discussion. Further, I don’t call on students totally cold; that is, when students have with them something they’ve written–either before coming to class or during class time–I feel it’s fair to ask them to share what they’ve written as a means to generate or to further discussion. I also always give them the option of reading what they wrote or just explaining/summarizing/rewording it–an option that it seems to alleviate some of the self-consciousness students may have about their writing. This way, they are still able to communicate their ideas, and this exercise may even help them clarify or strengthen their ideas through discussion, which they can then potentially translate to their writing.

There’s much more I could share on the matter, but in the interest of keeping this (relatively) short, let me conclude by saying that now having learned that I may in fact be scaring some of my students(!), I will continue to seriously consider what is best for my students and for achieving the course goals.

I’d love to hear how some of you handle class participation: do you call on students as part of your regular teaching practice? Any suggestions for doing so without scaring students?

How Should “Should” Fit in to Teaching Argument?

I recently had a discussion with a highly experienced compositionist on the topic of writing effective central claims. The conversation began with an inquiry of mine over a suggestion this professor made to students as they work on writing and revising central claims: to replace linking verbs, including “should be,” with action verbs. I was somewhat alarmed by this explicit direction because in my teaching of how to develop an effective central claim, I often tell my students to write “should” statements! You can imagine my immediate feeling of embarrassment, possible wrong-doing, and confusion—how could I so clearly misunderstand what must be such a logical explanation for leading students away from the use of “should” as they try to develop supportable arguments?!

My colleague explained her logic to me: “should” statements are often statements of judgment or statements that lack rational reasoning. She wants students to identify why they think what they think and write a central claim that expresses their ideas in a more articulate, intelligent manner. Here is an example she gave me: “People should recycle” was revised to: “Although recycling is a hard habit for many people to take on, there are ways to make recycling easy enough so that we can all benefit from a cleaner world.” I agree, the latter version of the central claim sounds more thoughtful and more potentially (rationally) arguable than the former.

In subsequently reflecting on how I teach students to develop arguments, I realized that one reason I find explicitly pushing the use of “should” helpful is because it moves students away from mere observations, such as “people are often judged for their language use,” to actual argumentative positions, such as “people shouldn’t be judged for their language use.” This is a common first step for me when helping students initially address an essay assignment and to begin to formulate their own ideas on the subject. I find that using “should” helps students move away from making blanket observations that won’t lead to a purposeful essay or simply summarizing the authors we’ve read.

Improving Student Writing through Transcription?

http://chronicle.com/blogs/conversation/2013/04/10/the-summer-assignment/?cid=cr&utm_source=cr&utm_medium=en

I have been thinking about Mark Bauerlein’s article, “The Summer Assignment” (link above), since I first read it about a month ago. As though he could read my mind, Bauerlein poses the question that undoubtedly most of us face on a regular basis: “How often … do comp teachers explain the rules of grammar and norms of style only to find them broken repeatedly in the next paper assignment?” The explanation for what can at times feel like a lack of success in teaching writing, Bauerlein suggests, is that “writing isn’t a knowledge. It’s a behavior, an ingrained set of habits and symptoms.” “Teaching,” he continues, “becomes a matter not of supplying knowledge but of altering behavior. To improve student writing, in other words, we must inculcate better habits and dispositions.  Needless to say, a typical semester of freshman composition (or remedial English) isn’t enough.” Although this isn’t exactly an inspiring conclusion that Bauerlein reaches, I do believe it to be true, at least in many cases.

Bauerlein offers a few long-term solutions to teaching writing but details a more short-term assignment he plans to initiate this summer: assigning students particular “great works of clarity and expression” (Thoreau, Wolfe, Baldwin, for example) to transcribe for 30 minutes every day for 100 days. There’s no telling how committed his students might be over the course of the summer; however, he is relatively certain that through such a transcription exercise, students “will advance a deep understanding of written communication, an unconscious sense of where commas go, a feel for sentence length and rhythm, a larger vocabulary, and other usage habits.” That is, the behaviors that during the course of a busy semester might be too ingrained within our students’ writing practices to substantially change or improve, may have a chance of more organically and meaningfully changing when students regularly do nothing more than copy the writing of some of our most gifted prose writers.

I have to admit, I’m intrigued by this idea–but I’m thinking about it with two slight modifications. First, I’m considering implementing some kind of transcription notebook/journal assignment into my regular semester classes (not over the summer voluntarily). I am envisioning this notebook as a place where alongside the original written responses I ask students to write, they are also asked to transcribe instructor-chosen course texts that may, as Bauerlein suggests, slowly but surely affect how the original responses (and essay drafts) are written. The second difference I have in mind is choosing pieces for transcription that may come from our course text; that is, Bauerlein suggests great prose works to help our students improve their writing style and clarity; I’m curious if transcribing intellectual prose essays (like the ones we ask our students to read and write in 100 and 105) may help them learn what, say, a well-structured essay and paragraph looks like, or what a clear and consistent argument looks like, etc.(In other words, this second point shifts the focus slightly through the materials being transcribed from clarity and style to argument and structure/organization.)

I guess what I’m thinking is about the possibility of using some version of Bauerlein’s transcription assignment over the course of a semester to help supplement the work I do in the classroom. Any thoughts? Has anyone used a transcription-like activity or assignment before? Any pros or cons you can report? I’d love to hear from others as I ponder this over the summer!