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

At the beginning of the semester, Sean (one of my colleagues, an Academy grad and now captain) told me in confidence that one of my students--we'll call him Jim--had come to him to see if he could get out of my 411 class. English 411 is the non-English major course which combines war literature, composition, and public speaking; it's weirdly hybrid but I've taught it many times and believe it's an important and worthwhile course. Sean had told Jim that he'd be okay, that I knew what I was doing. I asked Sean why Jim wanted out of my course. He shrugged and said, “Oh, he's just a path-of-least-resistance guy.” I said okay, and thanks. Word maybe gets around that I don't make the course easy.

Side note: Teachers, at least for the first few years, often go through different approaches to teaching and grading. Is it more important to require students to be able to spell and write grammatically-correct sentences, or is insight more important? Is it better to be the “cool” teacher, funny and relaxed, or to be intense and passionate? Should I care whether my students have read their lessons, or should I leave it up to them (after all, it's their education—let them do with it what they like)? I've settled into being the teacher who is unapologetically intense and passionate about literature, composition, and public speaking. I care whether my students have read; I teach literature, and if they haven't read the text, about 80% of the course's value is already lost on them; I know from experience that if I don't push them to read and think about what they've read, they'll probably blow it off. I care about spelling, grammar, and insight. I make my expectations known at the outset of the semester, I reiterate those expectations throughout the semester, and I believe my students will rise to the occasion once they understand that I mean business.

(On this note, I may be the only 411 instructor who gives written homework every single night that my students have readings for the class. My homework is to write one discussion question about the reading. It's harder than it sounds. What sorts of implied truth claims does the text make? Do we agree with the author's claims? Who was the intended audience for this text and what implications would the text have to them? What would you do in the same situation? What kinds of questions should we ask of literature and why?)

But I digress. I didn't mention my conversation with Sean to Jim. I just pressed on with my lessons. I explained at the outset of the course that while most of them believe they are masters of time management by now (athletic and military and extracurricular requirements coupled with 18 academic semester hours every semester for four years tends to convince them of this), most of them have merely mastered survival, in which they write papers start to finish the night before they are due. For most classes—history, science, math—they can get away with this because little or no insight is needed, but writing about literature is different. They have to start two to three weeks before the paper is due, spend time with the literature, and give themselves time to have insights if they hope to write even decent papers.

Then I mentor them as we go, requiring in some cases that they select literature to write about well in advance and tell me what they'll be writing (and speaking) about, etc. (I learned this last semester when I didn't do this, expecting them to work it out on their own.)

My seniors turned in their mid-term papers two weeks ago and commenced giving their related speeches. I graded each paper the day before the student was scheduled to speak. Three of my students failed their papers outright, and all of them were scheduled to speak on the same day—last Wednesday. So the day before, I sent each an email advising them that they had failed the paper. In each case, I explained why and offered them a chance to rewrite. If they chose to do so, they would have to see me for extra instruction (EI). Also, I would shift their speeches to the next scheduled class day (which was yesterday). All three took me up on my offer and saw me for EI last Wednesday.

One of the three—let's call him Xander—had grossly misread the poem he'd chosen to write about and had thus written an untenable paper. Xander's writing was fine, but his arguments and evidence were vacuous. It was a basic reading comprehension problem (which shocked me, as he is a good student). Sometimes, though, a student will get an incorrect first impression about the text and become weirdly blind to any evidence that contradicts his initial understanding. Xander needed only one EI session, in which we read through the poem then discussed his paper. I pointed out the contradictions, had him rethink his position, and off he went. 

Jim and Dylan, both athletes,* had written papers that were simply an embarrassment to higher education. The sentences were short and vague; the papers said nothing.

* This is not a comment on the stupidity of jocks nor is it a remark about how the system just lets them slide through if they're stars on the field. Neither of these, in my experience, is true at the Academy. If anything, our athletes have a harder life and fuller schedule than the non-jocks. So there.

Here is a sample of Jim's opening salvo, just to give you a taste:

Death is a reality to be faced by all, but for some it comes too soon. In the poem, “Burying the War Dead” by Donnarkevic, a young soldier is depicted burying herds of men shallowly beneath the earth’s surface. However, the key moments of the poem are the dramatic experiences that come with burying the dead, which can only be seen after their last breaths. The poem portrays the images of the dead soldiers with specific references and questions about who the people are and what they have lost. Through symbolic words such as “Gallows Elm,” the author depicts characteristics that emphasize the end of life. In order to understand the voice of “Burying the War Dead” it is more important to understand the implied truth claims in lieu of the obvious ones. The two implied truth claims that can be argued in this poem are, the image of death is something impossible to forget and a person’s final guise can leave endless questions.

It continues like that, going in all directions while seeming to say something but saying nothing at all. Clearly, Jim hadn't spent time with the poem, had nothing to say about it, and had tried to BS his way through the paper with literary buzzwords and broad claims. I sent a copy of the paper to Sean because he was interested in Jim's progress; he read it and said he could kinda see what Jim was getting at, but agreed that the paper was pretty awful.

Dylan had made some striking observations about his selected poem,* but had resoundingly failed to pull them together coherently. 

* The poems for this project, by the way, must come from War, Literature and the Arts, the Academy's literary journal. All of the poetry is about war (one of the main subjects of the class), and none of it, to my knowledge, has been written about professionally, which means the students can't lean on any summary literature like SparkNotes, nor can they use some scholar's analysis of the poem. They are on their own with each poem—no shortcuts.

Jim and Dylan worked with me the first day and I sent them off with questions to research. They asked to come back and see me Friday, which I was about to ask them to do anyway, so we met again Friday and worked some more (individually, of course). I offered them the chance to see me again Monday to make sure they had good organization and content, and they jumped at the chance.

After EI, most students stand up, come to attention, salute, and say, “Will that be all, Ma'am?” Instead, Dylan stood, leaned over my desk, shook my hand, and said, “Thank you so much for all the extra help and the second chance, Ma'am.” I thanked him for all his hard work and sent him on his way. I had now shifted Jim's and Dylan's speeches to Thursday, along with another student who just lost his mother (!) last week. Jim and Dylan would turn in their papers via email by 0800 yesterday.

The first thing I did when I got to work yesterday was to print out Jim's and Dylan's papers and grade them. Xander had turned his in Friday, by the way, and the paper was well-considered and flawless--a 100 (!). Jim's and Dylan's rewrites were...well...nothing short of amazing. They were specific, precise, thoughtful, insightful, and well-organized.

For comparison, Jim's new opening salvo was this:

The poem, Burying the War Dead, written by Donnarkevic, tells a story of a man who’s roll [sic] in war is to bury the dead. Through the use of grave imagery Donnarkevic draws parallels between modern and arcane-theological wars. Donnarkevic does so through the analogy of the Old Testament Book of Tobias. Ultimately, Donnarkevic consoles in knowing that his burying of the dead brings justice to war and through his actions, the humans that perish on the battlefield may one day find peace in God. The truth claim in this poem is that though there are governmental and societal factors that create death and destruction through war, ultimately there is a greater force in nature, God. By paralleling the man in the poem to the acts of Tobias in the Old Testament, Donnarkevic transcends the corporal [sic] life into the spiritual, through the act of burial.

All of Jim's misspellings occur in the first paragraph, so they were easy to forget as I read on. He carefully aligns the story of Tobit/Tobias with the experiences of the poem's narrator who is burying the war dead, backing his thesis that the narrator must bury the dead to find his peace with God. After I read and graded the paper, I forwarded the electronic copy to Sean with the simple comment, “Check this the fuck out.”

Within fifteen minutes, Sean walked into my office, pointed at me, and said, “They all have it in them. All of them!” Yes. Yes they do.

Dylan made a 98 on his rewrite and Jim made a 92. I returned all papers after speeches in class that afternoon, giving high fives where due, and there was much joy in Mudville.

They can all do it. Yes they can.

It was an amazing day.

d