Tomorrow is Monday

Probably by the time you read this it will be Monday, but whatever.

I have been thinking, as I watch the TV in front of me and put off going to bed, that I don’t want it to be Monday.

Now, I know Monday’s generally suck, but the thing is I’ve been looking forward to the weeks passing. As the weeks move more quickly that means my finishing my coursework comes closer to being complete. It also means I’m closer to moving to the same city as my boyfriend and can finally have relationship with him with us both living in the same zip code. I crave this so much. These past three years have been tough with this long distance thing. I feel like I’m missing a half. Look, I know it’s cliche but that’s exactly how if feels.

This is the first Monday in a very long time (I’ll go ahead and say the first time in at least three years) that I haven’t been looking forward to tomorrow. I’m still not in the student mood. I can’t get into this huge writing project I’ve signed up for and I’m getting stressed out. Not that being stressed out is something foreign to me but I feel overwhelmed and scared.

I’m scared I’m not going to finish my school work if I keep up with this procrastinating.

Procrastinating is a kind of new thing for me. I never used to such a procrastinator. I used to be the student to get work done early. Now, I wait until the pressure is on to get cracking. I don’t like this. I need to revert back to my old ways. I’ve been finding the most ridiculous ways to procrastinate too.

For example: This weekend my younger sister by a lot of years was attending her first prom. I felt it necessary that I be there when she got picked up by her date. I needed to be there at the nail salon as she, my mother and I all got pedicures. That is nuts!

Instead, I should have staying at my apartment, an hour away from my parents house, focused. What the hell?

I will say that for the first time in a long time I did get some writing done at my parents house, but it wasn’t nearly enough. I did complete a story to be sent out and I finished my reading for my class on Monday. I’m ready to rock and roll for Monday, but come Tuesday and the rest of the week, I’m soooo not ready.

My Monday work aside, I also found myself up at two in the morning writing my other sister a letter. I don’t know what possessed me to start this letter and I don’t know if I’m going to give it to her, but it’s a long letter and there is some solid writing in it. What I don’t understand is why I didn’t take that energy and apply to the writing project I’m working on? What is my deal?

I don’t know how many of you writers out there have ever experienced this kind of rut, but if you have I really need some advice. I know this is my second, maybe third post about this but I’m struggling here. I’m a young writer trying to figure this writing career thing out.

Help a sista out.

You call this a Break? HA!

So the spring semester has come to its end and in a week summer classes will commence. In. One. Week.

I’m fine with having only seven days to rejuvenate and refresh, what I have a problem with is professors who assign readings before class has even started.

W.

T.

F.

All semester we have to read and write and do work. Can’t we have a week to not think and just be? I mean really. Isn’t it bad enough we don’t get a spring break because we’re catching up on the semesters work on top of having work assigned over spring break.

I’ve been teaching now for two years and when I started I was teaching high school. While spring break doesn’t carry the same weight with high school students as it does with college students, it still is a well deserved break. I will sadly admit I nearly gave into the temptation to assign a book to read, but I decided against it. It was their break, their time to refresh, hit restart. Assigning work would have just pushed them towards burning out. I also didn’t assign work to my college students during their spring break, since it felt like a cruel punishment.

Here’s the thing, I get it, it’s a summer class there are only 6 weeks to do 18 weeks of work, but it’s SUMMER. Come ON!  Students enrolled in summer classes have most likely gone through fall and spring classess as well. This is our week to recover. I don’t for see much recovery for myself. In the short time I have off these are the few assignments I must have done by next week. Part of this work load stems from my having to have complete draft of my thesis by December, but still.

1) Read about 80pgs for one class

2) Read another 30 something pages for another class

Let me stress reading 150 pages isn’t that big of a deal. I promise I’m not that much a lame ass complainer. What I have a problem with is:

3) Having to write about 60-80 pages of my novel for my thesis chair.

I’m pretty sure I’m not going to get number three done. I’m being a realist and have also decided that refreshing is more important than writing. I know I know, what kind of writer am I?

Oh let’s not forget number four.

4) Read Dante’s Inferno to help my little sister in high school with a ridiculous paper she has to write. Have I mentioned I’ve never read Dante before? Well I haven’t, this should be some great light reading to do while I’m on vacation…

I feel like a giant complainer, but you know what? It’s my blog and if I want to complain and be a baby I will be. Actually, after I wrote out what I needed to get to done I realized, it’s actually not that much. I’ve already finished the first 150 pgs of reading today. So, I’m doing pretty awesome. I don’t officially leave for vacation until Wednesday, I wonder if I could bang out twenty pages of writing by tomorrow night?

Your thoughts on assigning work during summer and spring break? I’d love to hear from the teachers and professors out there.

A Poem

I started to write this as a joke while I sat  in class, but I liked the concept and finished it. I would love some feedback on it. Suggestions for improvement, what you think about it.

Emotional Cheeseburger

(copyright www.onemeanmfa.wordpress.com)

 

I cried once,

eating a Wendy’s dollar menu cheeseburger.

My hunger palpable.

The pangs banging against

the inner lining of my belly.

 

Growl.

 

I’m fucking starving, I kept thinking.

Had you asked me what starvation was

I would have answered,

 

Empty.

 

We sat in the drive-through

 

Waiting.

 

I want my damn burger,

Give it to me.

I need the meat.

 

 

We drove, the car smelled like

potatoes drenched in reused oil and refrigeration.

Give it to me.

 

It was passed over

white paper bags and

cardboard potato holders.

The smell: greasy paper wrapped meat nestled

between white bleached bread

soaked with condiments and a meaty residue.

 

One bite

So satisfied

The lettuce ripped apart by

Teeth.

Meat, pickles, and ketchup

Ground together bringing tears to my eyes.

 

Copyright: www.onemeanmfa.wordpress.com

 

Thanks again for the feedback, in advance.

The Final Paper

My students have handed in their final paper for the semester yesterday and you know what? They stink.

It’s quite upsetting since they should be improving. What is even more upsetting is that they had TWO WEEKS to complete it. It’s no different of a paper assignment in comparison to the other writing they’ve done this semester.  It’s very clear that they don’t care. The mistakes they are making are errors I’ve been commenting on all semester. These papers aren’t proofread and not well thought out.

At first, I thought I would inflate the grades. Maybe it’s me? I thought. But NO! I’m not going to compromise on my standards when I’ve seen my students write well. While it will lower the average grades for the class, I don’t want my students to get away with writing trash and be rewarded for it.

The mistakes they are making on these final papers are errors in formatting, lack of thesis, and organization, as well as an obvious neglect in proofreading. I’m sorry, but I’m frustrated.

While I still love teaching. I am convinced I have chromosome or something that makes me a teacher. I’m just wired that way. It’s just seeing college level students not give a F*&! is sad. Shouldn’t you be self motivated in college? I’m not saying, I want  my students to all strive for A’s. I know that is not going to happen because sometimes you just want to get by, but not caring when you’re going to get a D or F is ridiculous. I am tempted sometimes to tell them “you don’t deserve to be in college,” but that would be mean and the wrong thing for a teacher to say. 

I need some motivation to teach this summer. I don’t know where I’m going to get it. Do they sell motivation at Target?

Advice? Comments?

Copyright www.onemeanmfa.wordpress.com

The Writing Experiment: The Results

Before I go into the results of this experiment, I would like to apologize for not writing as often as I intended. I found myself looking for excuses to not write everyday and this scared me. I don’t want to fall into a well of excuses and not be writing. It is my career choice after all. Please forgive me and thanks for continuing to stop by and read. Okay, enough of that, and on to the results.

  To review, the students were complaining about the prompt that had been assigned and so I suggested we write a prompt as a class. This excited the students and it forced them to have the reading complete in order to participate in the discussion.

I first provided them with the original prompt assigned for the reading. Then as a class we discussed what the goals were for this prompt. What major issues should the paper discuss if using this prompt, issues like ethics, social concerns, and government control (just as an example). We then took the original prompt, the goals for writing the papers, and created another prompt that encompassed the same goals. The prompt that students ended up writing was very close to the departmental prompt, but they claimed they understood it better.

Finally, they had to actually write the paper. I will admit I was quite concerned with what the outcome would be. I was so concerned I allowed the students to choose from either prompt. While the papers would undeniably be very similar as far as the big picture, letting the students decide allowed them to feel in control.

So what happened? Well, the papers were great! I was so pleasantly surprised. In the past, using the prompt style of teaching writing I found that students end up writing about the same general topics; inevitably topics discussed in class. This time, however, I read about so many different topics. I am so sure this is because in writing the prompt themselves the students were able to think of topics that they were excited about. Instead of reading 40 some odd papers about abortion and illegal immigration, I was reading about different cultures, fascinating ethical issues, technologies, and so many other unique topics. I was thrilled.

While I’ll be teaching again this summer and next fall, I will not be using the department’s reading choices and prompts, instead, I’m choosing to write my own prompts, and decide on whatever readings I please. I still think I will allow the students to attempt writing the prompt again. This will not only provide them with a better understanding of the reading but it will also provide me with more prompts to use in the future.

I would love to hear some feedback on what you think about this experiment and if you teachers out there have done anything similar.

Sorry Sorry Sorry

Sorry I haven’t posted in forever, it’s the end of the semester and the work is piled high. I promise to get back on track soon. The update for the writing experiment is coming soon.

The Writing Experiment: Part 3

So they handed me their rough drafts some time in the middle of last week, and here were some of the issues/postitives that I noticed.

Let’s do the good stuff first.

Well, for the first time all semester I noticed they had picked topics that they were excited and passionate about. It was great to seem them taking more time to think about what they wanted to write about versus them trying to please me. While I enjoy being pleased, I think what students don’t realize is how much better papers turn out when there is passion and excitement behind them. I couldn’t care less about the topic; regardless, my students (and I don’t think this is exclusive to my classroom) tend to try and please me, which ends up resulting in papers that lack any excitement for them or myself.

The second and final positive I noticed with their rough drafts is the attempt to find something to prove to me. The entire program is based on essays that essentially require the students to use the text as evidence. While this is good practice for future writing, I do think they would benefit from some self reflection (which I make them do anyway) and learning other types of writing besides, here’s a topic, pick a side, prove to me you’re right.

Okay, so there are some negative or rather not so great moments to this experiment.

While the writing, overall, was well done, I did not notice that they are still struggling with the concept of writing a thesis statement. I don’t understand why this is such a difficult concept to grasp for many of my students, I do spend a lot, maybe too much, time trying to get them to write thesis statements that aren’t overly general and do pick a side with out pushing their opinion on the reader.  Even though, I continue to show them what not to do and what to do using student examples they STILL make the same errors. Suggestions on how to fix this or teach the thesis statement are more than welcome, they are needed.

The other issue I had was the outlining. My students HATE outlining, and I don’t understand why. You student readers out there PLEASE tell me,  what is the problem with outlines? We even did an outline on the board and I required it, still I had students not complete the assignment. It seemed so simple.  Take the four or five big picture goals and apply them to an outline, find quotes from the text to prove your point, bing bang boom your paper is essentially written for you!

Finally, as mentioned above, the writing is improving still I’m getting overly general papers that have no point or organziation and it seems to me the reason for this is because the prompt is still being misunderstood. I don’t know what else I can do to make these students understand it.

I’ll be collecting their final drafts this week  and after discussing the issues I have mentioned above, I’m looking forward to some decent papers. While I don’t except Shakespearean quality work from them, I do expect them to be creative, and proofread. I don’t think that is asking too much…but then again, maybe it is. 

Please feel free to leave some suggestions for getting students to write about topics they are passionate about and hwo to write a thesis statement these are the two issues I am having a difficult time with and welcome some veterans to pass along some wisdom. I’ll keep you posted on the final drafts.

The Writing Experiment: Part Two

So we did it. We wrote our own prompt as a class.  The new promopt was almost identical to the one the department had written, but because they wrote it they felt confident about the assignement. Here’s how I did it:

First, I had them look at the old prompt and establish goals for the paper. For instance, I had them decide as a class what broad topics they would discuss for the paper like morals/ethics, regulations, gov’t and so on. The simple I question I asked them to have them think about these goals was, “what major points are you going to have when writing this paper?” And so, they rattled off the basics.

Then I had them think about the goals and we applied them when writing the second prompt. I had them put these basics into a prompt which to my surprise (I sadly wasn’t expecting this experiment to do as well as it did) they wrote a really thoughtful and insightful prompt both they and I were pleased with.

Though some of the students did not understand what the prompt (either one) was asking so what we did then was decide as a class what we would be looking for in a paper using this prompt. This was the best part of the experiment because it forced them to think about the readings and what they wanted to write about. We listed all of these things on the board and all I could see was light-bulbs going off. In fact, I even had students tell me, “Miss, this is the best way you’ve ever explained a prompt.” That for me was enough to do it again.

Well, this happened last Tuesday and since then they’ve had to outline their papers and come up with some kind of argument. While I think it was sucessful the true test will be when I read their papers. I’ll keep you all posted.

 

p.s. My apologies for the irregular posts. I’m trying, but it is that time in the semester where it’s like 10 pgs due here 20 pgs due there, read a 400 pg novel and so it’s all a bit stressful. Not to mention I’ll be grading papers come Tuesday. You all know how that goes. Thanks for stopping by and please leave comments and suggestions. I’m curious what you all think about this experiment and how you think I could improve it.

The writing experiment: Part One

After a semester and a half of hearing students complain about the horrible prompts I am making them write I’ve decided it’s time to do something about it. First some background. The composition program at the university that I teach at has a reader and from that reader prompts, written by our department head are used. Although TA’s are encouraged to write their own prompts and sequences, many of us use the sequence and prompts provided for us. It makes our lives easier, which I believe is the departement head’s objective.

There are some issues. The book is new and is being reworked into a national edition and not all the sequences have been attempted in the classroom. Because of this the only way to see if a sequenence or prompt works is to use in the classroom. Last semester the prompts and readings went over well with the students. There were complaints but they were expected because we were making our students think and work. This semester however the complaints are warrented. The prompts are horrible and the readings are not much better. Although the readings, I don’t think, are the problem. This semester plain and simple it’s the prompts that are creating the problem.

So what am I going to do about it? I figured something had to be done because I was about to have a mutany on my hands and was not so thrilled about my students suddenly standing in the middle of lesson screaming “Mutany! Get her!” It seems as if we are headed in that direction. So to prevent being tied or taped to desk with a sign on my forehead that says, “I’m a terrible teacher” I’ve decided to let the students write their own prompt.

Tomorrow I will begin this experient. I’m first going to show them what the prompt is that was given for this reading, then as a class we are going to write our own. We will have established goals before writing the prompt looking at how the readings connect, what we as writers hope to accomplish and learn through the prompt and then ask the question that will give us the prompt. After the prompt has been written the class will vote, their prompt or the department’s. I was actually thinking of having them chose their prompt or the department prompt which would also provide me with a bit more variety when it came time to grade these papers.

I will further update you readers on the outcome of this experient. I do have some concerns. 1) Will they treat this assignment as a joke? 2) How can I get them to think in terms of writing a prompt? 3) Do I tweak the prompt to make it better for them by giving them suggestions?

I would love any feedback you guys have on this. Have any of you done something like this? If so would you do it again? If yes why? If no, why not? Do you have any suggestions for how to go about this?

Seven Days of Nothingness

Spring Break has arrived. In fact, it’s almost over. Here is my issue: Even with seven days of nothingness to get some work done, possibly get ahead so that the end of the semester doesn’t come crashing down around me, I still feel like I don’t have enough time.

After compiling a list of work to do for school, I have managed to squeeze in about 2 hours for myself to attend a museum which has an Andy Warhol exhibit going on. I thought this exhibit would also be cool to see since I’m currently enrolled in a course dealing with post-modern literature and after reading some theorists who spoke about Andy Warhol I thought, “Hey, I can check out what they hell they are talking about and not use google images.”

While it is only Wednesday and yes, there are quite a few hours left in the day to do work, I feel fried. I’ve been reading One Hundred Years of Solitude and while it is a really good read, I feel like it might be nice to finish the Twilight series over break. There is nothing wrong with a trashy read every now and then. I feel like in order for me to be ready for next week I’m actually going to have to stay up late, but not to drink and be merry with friends or to watch a movie or anything fun. I’m going to be staying up so that I won’t feel guilty when I’m at the museum and I’ll know come Monday I’ll be ready to kick some school work ass.

While I am well aware, as my boyfriend reminds me that I “signed up for this,” I still wish I wouldn’t feel so bad when I wasn’t doing work. I mentioned in an older post about having grad student guilt and I don’t know if guilt is something that comes easy to me because of the the Catholic upbringing but when I took 30 minutes to prepare lunch today and had the TV while I ate it, I felt bad.

I will say I’m glad I’m in this program and I’m really glad that I’m doing it at a faster rate (I’m squeezing a three year program into two). I know that is part of the reason why I’ve got so much to do and while the next few semesters will be exhausting the reward of having completed it will replace the stress. For now, I guess I need to just deal with the guilt, get the work done and stop complaining.

I’m glad I have this blog to vent about this stuff because my co-workers simply tell me I’m crazy for taking four classes. The funny thing is I don’t find the school work is what takes up so much of my time, it’s dealing with student excuses, grading papers, and planning lessons that actually eats away at my school work. While I do love teaching, sometimes I think I’m not being a very good teacher because, let’s be honest, I’m a student first and everything else second.

I was discussing this whole idea of teaching cutting into my time as a student with one of my professors. She made a great comment that I have taken to heart. She said, “you have to do what is best for you first, then worry about everything else.” I think she’s right. That’s why, although I will feel guilty at the museum tomorrow and while sometimes I cut my runs short because I have ton of work to do, I still do the stuff that is important for me. I do my school work, my exercise, and even manage to occasionally squeeze a little entertainment in my life.

The teaching stuff, while important, comes second. When I’m a full time professor and I’m not living below the poverty line I will then spend more time being a great teacher. I do the best with the time and resources that I have and while I still carry that grad student guilt I’m going to enjoy what’s left of this week, put off reading the Twilight series but enjoy the museum and not having to be on campus.

How does that sound?