I am often frustrated by my inability to get through to my students.  I wrote a note in my class book, “I often feel like a first year teacher; so much more to learn.”  I don’t know for sure how first year teachers feel, but I feel that I am not completing my task.

I think of myself as a student, and I remember my best teachers.  I have excellent models for teaching, so I try to remember what those teachers did.  In every case, the answer is that the students had to participate in doing the work, whatever it was.  For example, in the quilt club, to use a non school setting, the teacher showed her own work, and made a step by step presentation of how to do it.  Then the learners went to their machines and did the task, bringing it back to the teacher for comment. Sometimes, the teacher said, “No, this isn’t right,” and I had to do it again. But, the joy when she said “Nice work” was deeply satisfying.

In my writing classes, I use the class time for the students to write.  Then I read their work and make comments on each paper.  Next, I use that very work for examples of problems, or of good work — if I can find any — in the following classes.  In my four sophomore writing classes, our goal is a standard format five paragraph essay.  Alas, some students write three. In my three freshman classes, our goal is one coherent paragraph. Alas, some students write three.   I have said repeatedly, “A paragraph, for our purposes, must have more than one sentence.”  Alas, the one sentence paragraph is popular.  We have fairly good textbooks, but the students don’t do their homework.  I was shocked to learn that the students had never learned the basic rules of punctuation or capitalization.  Six of the seven classes meet only every other week, so in the six weeks remaining of the term, they will each meet only three times.  Then I must give an exam that they can pass.  It won’t be acceptable for them to fail.

Do I really want to spend that final week reading student work that is barely passable, and marking it with a passing grade?  Maybe not.  So, I am searching for an exam idea that all may pass and that will be easy for me to grade.  Perhaps a “fill in the blank” style reading.  Thus have I arrived at the feeling that it doesn’t matter much what I do.  I fight the feeling and keep looking for snappy ways to get the students’ attention.  I keep looking for the light to go on.  I keep hoping for a paper that shows that the light has gone on.  Of my 215 students, maybe 10 can write a coherent paragraph or essay, but they will still have problems with the verb tenses and sentence structure. Does this fact mean that I have failed to teach them how to write English?

In the midst of my feelings of failure comes a note from a former student: “You taught us so much more than English.”  What will my focus be for the final three classes?  Life skills, or proper capitalization?  Actually, knowing what deserves a capital letter and what does not is a life skill.  When is life at a comma, just a pause, or when a period, full stop?  When should we declare, when ask, when exclaim, and how do we know? All valuable life questions.  My choice at this juncture is to exclaim, “Onward!”