the id, the ego, & the single misfiring brain cell

My literature students are working on their first paper for me at the moment. This is not even a major paper. It's a starter paper, so I get an idea where they are, where they excel, and where they need help, appropriately called an "Informal Writing" assignment. My course director, Dr. Brissett, created the assignment, so I just ran with it, curious to see how the students would respond to his ideas.*

* I'm doing the same in my freshman composition classes, just running with the course director's syllabus and lesson plans. It's been a very enlightening experience in both cases, I must say. I've learned so much from both in the mere five (?) weeks we've been back in school. 

The assignment goes something like this: From a poem provided by your instructor, find an interesting, thought-provoking question to ask about it. From that question, come up with your own answer, along with reasons--drawn from the poem--for your answer. We practiced this in class with a couple of poems (board/group work), and I was impressed with the depth of the questions my students thought of, as well as their proposed answers. I gave some pointers then. 

Long before the day I was officially supposed to pass my selected poem to my class, they were asking if they could see it early. I said ok, and posted not one but five randomly selected poems to my Sharepoint site, along with words of encouragement. One of the most important things to me is that the student not choose a "safe" (i.e., obvious, done to death, easily answerable, uninteresting) question about a poem, but rather that they ask difficult questions of it.

Literature is life. As such, it has lots of complex, sometimes unanswerable questions. Finding The Answers to those questions is not the important part to living well and fully; what is important is daring to ask those questions then trying to answer them. 

In case you're curious, these are the poems I selected: Sylvia Plath's "Two Sisters of Persephone"; XJ Kennedy's "Loose Woman"; Anthony Hecht's "The End of the Weekend"; one that slips my mind at the moment (!)*; and just on a whim, William Butler Yeats' "The Second Coming." All but the last are fairly recent poems, as far as great poetry goes. My students historically have eschewed any of that "old, difficult to understand" stuff written by "dead white guys," so I tossed it in just to see how it would compare in the eyes of my current students. 

* No matter what the list or how long, I will invariable forget one item on it. This is the one.**

** EDIT TO ADD: I remember now. Wilfred Owen's "Parable of the Old Man and the Young."

Two things I've found to be true with most cadets:

1. They do only what they have to in literature courses, and

2. They wait until the last possible moment to do it. 

With an alarming number of my current students, however, neither is the case. After begging for an early start, y'all on the poem Q&A assignment, they commenced emailing me and coming to see me with their ideas. The first two, even, had chosen Yeats! I have no doubt that a few of my students will wait, despite my warning, until the night before, then write me a panicked paper. But the number who are seeking me out for extra instruction/discussion--and who are walking into my office excited about the poem they've chosen--is already phenomenal...and this paper isn't even due for two more days. 

These are STEM students who traditionally (and consistently, in my experience) abhor what they think of as "fuzzy" subjects. 

Yeah. "Fuzzy." Y'know...when I first came to the Academy in '06, the first cadet I met told me that she enjoys "the fuzzy subjects." 

ME: I'm sorry. The what?

HER: The fuzzy subjects. You know...history and English and philosophy. 

I initially found this characterization of my discipline a bit, well...demeaning. Over time, however, I came to understand that our cadets' curriculum is overwhelmingly made up of STEM classes* (even to the extent that even our English majors graduate with a Bachelor's of Science), and inundated as they are with classes where the answers are not negotiable, and can and sometimes must be proven, anything that cannot be easily placed into a formula to be solved is thought of as "fuzzy" (and, as a rule, makes them very nervous). 

* Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math

This year, when I returned, I embraced the concept of my discipline's "fuzziness"--for both my composition and literature students. I link it to officership, which ultimately is not about how well you remember the third year of calculus or can solve a physics problem, but to how well you relate to your fellow human beings, understand how they tick, have compassion and understanding, and learn how to motivate and inspire them. Also...officership, no matter what you do, is roughly 50% writing. It's a harsh truth. I also link it to life itself, where the basic science you learn may come in handy, but your mastery of the "fuzzy" subjects will determine whether or not you succeed. 

In retrospect, I've become--in a sense--Lt Col Roy. He taught here at the zoo when I first arrived. I was nervous about teaching (the only thing I'd ever taught was martial arts), and I went around the department for two or three weeks before school began asking for advice. Every single instructor tried to allay my fears. "Just teach to your strengths," they said. To a man (and woman). 

ME: What if I don't have any?!

To which they laughed heartily, assuming I was joking.

I wasn't. 

Lt Col Roy was the only person to give me useful advice. He told me, the only thing you really have to remember is this: They don't care what you know until they know that you care. How very right he was. I've never forgotten that basic maxim. He had other admirable qualities, as well. He was insufferably optimistic and excited about what he taught. And every year, his students clearly voted him far and above the best English instructor in the department. 

I never meant to, but in many ways, I've become him. And I hope, if he ever reads this, he understands what a powerful impact he had on me and how much of an honor I consider it to be becoming the person he was.* I didn't really aspire to be. It's just that, somewhere along the line, I have changed into the sort of person who finds more benefit in encouragement and reward than in "tough love." 

* And whom, no doubt, he still is. He retired a couple of years later and immediately became the coach of the US Olympic Rifle Team. 

Yes, I grade "light." That is to say, I don't put a lot of marks on the paper. I look more for ideas than mechanics. Mechanics are basics, and if the student is motivated, she'll learn them. But ideas? Ideas are golden, and overlooking a great idea or insight because a student put a semicolon in the wrong place crushes that student's spirit--and who knows how many more ideas that student may have that could conceivably change our world--and all because I couldn't see the forest for the trees. 

I'm not cut out to break horses, either. (Oblique reference to the film Hidalgo.)

I keep waiting for my students to become complacent. It hasn't happened yet. 

I'm so lucky. Thanks again to those who taught these students before I. You did a magnificent job. 

Y'all be excellent to one another. 

d