Usually by week 12 of the semester I've roughed out my syllabuses for the next semester. In part this is practicality, our textbook orders are due mid-October, and even though almost all my classes have open access texts as a foundation I do still have in some upper level English classes a monograph or text. I like having the majority of the syllabuses done, because then in the final weeks as an idea or reading occurs to me I can tweak and add. Years ago I switched to a live Google Doc syllabus which makes all this possible, both before the semester and during.
But that last month of the semester is always when I feel the worst. Around midterms students start to not come. The number grows as the semester continues. I often end up with 5ish students in class the last day. This is not a Covid thing, although I'm sure that has not helped, but I encountered this issue my first semester, it happens every semester, and no matter how I design the class, what policies I have, the numbers don't change.
I used to divide my composition classes into four modules, in a sixteen week semester, roughly four weeks for each module. We did practice scaffolding assignments in each module that built to a product the students created at the end. I used to do final portfolios at the end of the semester but in a lot of ways these seemed to set students up to fail. My classes are all face to face, and I run my class like workshops, so we do almost all the work in class. Policies are designed to give students grace and space if they need it, get sick, have an emergency. But my classes are not ones where work easily moves online, and certainly is not a class where you can miss for 5, 6, 7, 8 weeks and pass. You simply miss too much instruction and workshop time.
While my class policies have been the same for years with small tweaks, I have not taught my classes the same from one semester to a next. I use student feedback to change things, I theme my comp classes, I change readings, so each semester is different. I've been trying to work on finding a format, design, that works for my students and then just tailor the readings. Students choose their own topics for writing, so that works out.
Last year it seemed like the low stake assignments that led to a major writing assignment general approach I've been using for years, was not working. Mainly because while the LSAs were important to do well on the MWAs, keeping up with them seemed a trap to students, got them behind. And with four modules, the majority only showed up for three, and putting narrative as the fourth, something "fun" didn't work, because it required students to read and discuss, and that didn't happen. So this semester I designed class to have a research report due before midterms, with time to revise for a higher grade if they wanted, that we'd spend all those weeks working the parts of, but for practice and feedback not a grade. Then students would revisit the research report, use the information in it, to create a presentation that argued for a change based on the work. My thinking was this would cover the research skills the students needed from comp, but the second half of the semester was not new work per se but was revisiting/repackaging the information they had. And a presentation a little bit of fun.
Nothing changed.
I still spent last week emailing all the students who didn't turn it in reminding of final deadline. I spent yesterday emailing everyone again a reminder of yesterday's final deadline.
In my Monday classes I had maybe six students. In my classes yesterday I had one in my first and four in my second. Last week many students told me they were traveling this week and wouldn't be here. Others told me they were not coming to class next week.
Now, part of this is the schedule- two days of class before a break, then back for three days before being off for two reading days, with exams the next week is hard. If students are traveling, coming back for so little time is expensive, especially with many classes offering online classes. I get it. And our fall semester usually falls this way. But the spring semester does not and there are the same issues.
Part of my problem is that the students I need to ask what happened, how to help, don't answer emails, and aren't in class to ask. I don't have enough data to do anything. Now, I can make some educated guesses. I would guess that the reasons students stop coming, stop doing the work around midterms are interconnected. They don't feel comfortable asking for help or don't think they should need help. I know this much from my check in surveys when I ask at the end of each what help they need from me and they say nothing "it's just something I have to do." Then, because they don't get help whether it's on content or time management, or whatever, they get underwater and midterms is about when this hits. Many students can do well, swim along the first few weeks, but then start to struggle. A lot of our students are first generation, and tell me that they feel "stupid" asking things everyone else seems to know. Some have toxic beliefs about their professors, help, how class should be. These I think have been consistent issues my time here.
But this semester I think there's a rise in what used to be a smaller issue. There has always been a portion of students who had a hard time understanding consequences of actions. Surprised at the end of the semester that they failed when they hadn't turned in work or come to class. But this semester students shared more about how they feel and many said they have PTSD from Covid learning. My first year students, many of whom are 18-19, spent the majority of their high school years in a pandemic. They said that their time was chaos. They were moved online, and no one knew what was going on. The assignments were about checking boxes, worksheet type assignments, graded as complete, and a focus on compliance, not learning skills or content. No one asking about what they knew. A lot of time in front of screens, both for school, and to cope/escape everything, watching tv, movies, on phone trying to stay connected with friends they couldn't see. That they had lots of different teachers. Had to move online a lot, even when they went back to in-person. Felt disconnected.
So now in face to face classes, on campus, they feel like they don't know how to talk to classmates, make friends, take part in discussions. That they get overwhelmed with everything there is to juggle and no one telling them what to do. Not asking for help or advocating for themselves because they don't think there is any help, there hasn't been for years.
Some students have told me they're commuting from home to campus either for work or issues at home, but not like half an hour or an hour commute, like many of our students do, but hours and hours, meaning they're not on campus in their dorm at least half the week. I think this is a real Covid consequence that I started to notice last year. Students who were online for school, who didn't necessarily have synchronous instruction or work, started working during school hours, and doing school work when they could. For some, they've kept this schedule, or misunderstand that they can keep this schedule with classes that meet during the day versus designing a schedule with days and time off for work.
I know that K-12 teachers have done their best in impossible situations. I think what I am seeing is that individual great teachers cannot overcome cascading institutional failures. And all of this doesn't even take into account the strain of students experiencing death on a large scale, feeling pressure to work, help out with child care and bills. The mentla health strain this has put on all of them.
And here's the heart of the issue- teachers, even good, caring ones, cannot overcome structural and institutional failures. The best we can do is create environments that are as flexible as possible in order to respond to a variety of situations while also being explicit about help, support, suggestions, things to do.
But every semester I will make my syllabuses, then rethink them as I panic that I'm not doing enough. Rewrite whole classes. Doodle things out, trying desperately to solve the unsolvable.
So, for next semester, this is what I'm going to do.
Starting from the end, the last four weeks on narratives, reading, responding, discussing. Since I've decided to focus more on "composition" and only using readings for models, and the readings they choose for their research, this will be a chance to transition a bit to literature. Then, what comes right before that will be a final draft of a research paper on a social issue of their choice. With that being the final product, I design backwards- I want them to focus on Murray's Making Meaning, especially on how to revise for voice and style. If I want them to be able to do that, they need to see that revision is not about "fixing" it to get to minimum requirements, so we'll annotate the papers the week before for the minimum requirements and go over how to do formatting as a last step. That would be week 9.
Going back to the beginning- in the first week I want to ask them what they think the greatest social issues/challenges are. Ask them about ones that seem to be missing. I like using the United Nations 17 Sustainable Goals as a start, like I did this semester, but don't want to limit to that. I then want students to write "I believe..." statements about these issues. Then I want to introduce them to informal research, just looking up basic facts and stats for Covid, poverty, homelessness, climate change. Doing this as a first week introduces them to the work.
Building on this, week two I want to model, make sure they know how to read, annotate, discuss articles, opinion pieces, and then respond in writing, so we'll do that in class. Then I want them to learn how to ask analytical questions an how to form a thesis, so we'll do that in week four. We'll round out these basic, intro skills in week four by having them write a definition paragraph that sets the parameters of their issue, practices topic sentences, support. This practices skills on smaller level, lots of in class work and feedback.
Then in week five we shift to mini-lessons/overview at the beginning of class, reading a model and walking through it, then a big chunk of class of them applying. So first we'll talk about formal and informatl sources, we'll look at sample reference pages, look the scholars up, and talk about best sources and how we use different sources. By the end of this week they find their own sources for their social issue. In week six we cover how to interact with sources, use them, not just quote dump them. We will also cover how to organize by topic, not source, and the different effects of using "according to..." or parenthetical or footnotes as ways to engage sources as well as why different fields use different styles. So in week seven students can take this information and decide what the logical order is for presenting these topics, deciding the order they will write about them so in week eight we can talk about how to structure paragraphs, and they can write them, then once they have their body paragraphs done they can outline their papers in the introduction and talk about future steps, calls to action in their conclusion.
And all that takes us to week nine, where we pick up the end.
I want to spend more time in class informally conferencing as we do these steps, and have them continue to email prodcts (definition paragraphs, sources, body paragraphs, intro/conclusion) for feedback but not a grade, and have them conference about the final.
I want to take the every four week check in surveys and make them more reflections than surveys, since I have to report progress report grades in week 4, midterms grades in week 8, then final grades in 16. I want them to self evaluate their own progress on learning, work, behavior. I want them to set growth goals and celebrate what they've made progress on. This is the furthest ungrading I've gone, and I think I made enough movement towards this this semester that I feel confident.
Now, ideally, I'd want to take the last 2 weeks or so, including finals week and have these be in-person conferences with me, where they bring their work from the semester in, show it to me, and do an oral reflection/presentation of their learning, work, behavior, and we talk about what final grade to post. I like that this is like portfolio work, but doesn't require them to create anything extra, they're just showcasing what they have. I'm not sure about doing it during finals week, as a big part of the issue I've talked about above is the last couple of weeks. So what I may do is design the narrative chunk different. Maybe we read stories, poems, memoirs, for two weeks, then do the conferences the last two weeks.
Clear criteria- both providing list of work we did for each every four week check in, not unlike I used to supply to high school students for interactive notebooks. Providing models of how behavior affect work, learning, but are not necessarily punitive factors. Asking them to think about the skills and content they've learned. Provide feedback on using evidence, artifacts, to support. Make it clear that all of this is important, as ew go through the semester but also, a clear criteria for final grade- you must conference with me, you must present your work over the semester. Enough flexibility hopefully for students who may need to leave early, schedule early, go first, but enough time too for everyone to go, like an extension of our grade conferences.
I have two English 103 on Tuesday, Thursday that are the same prep, so I'll try this with those classes. The MWF 103 I have is themed around feminist horror, so is a four module, one product per module, more separate than building but I do want to do the reflections every four weeks instead of just check in surveys. So I can have a couple of different environments to compare and see.
I also want to be more explicit from the beginning that I am there to help, but I can only help if they communicate, but make sure I explain that is not the same as feeling like you have to share and perform trauma to "earn" being treated with basic human decency. That they don't owe me anything, but there needs to be some communication.
I also want to let them know that there's a lot I can help with, but there is a tipping point- a certain amount of time out of class, missed instruciton, a certain amount of missing work, that we reach where we just can't get caught up. Be more explicit about 1st generation issues, the stress and anxiety we can feel, how we can feel there's no help, not just sharing resources but talking about them.
I admit I struggle with this, or rather, I tend to do this, but only later in the semester, once I've built a relationship with the students. I think they can see and hear a lot of this from week one, but I don't know if they know me well enough to believe me until later.
I haven't gotten all of the end of semester reflections form this semester yet but the ones I've read so far are encouraging. A lot of the things I do in my classroom works. Students think the "choosing their own grades, grades conferencing" approach is weird at first, but they grow to like it. Say it takes stress and anxiety away. That my teaching style is "weird" but they like it. That they like how I email to check in on them, send them reminders, and know that I care. They all really like the hyperlinked syllabus, how detailed it is, and that it is always up to date. I was surprised to learn that they did not miss Blackboard at all (we didn't use it at all this semester). They said the syllabus had everything, and they knew what their grades were because they determined them, and grades were not averaged but based on growth, so their most recent grade was their grade. This made me happy, but honestly surprised me. They did say that it took some getting used to the first couple of weeks, looking in different places for classes, but that went away quickly.
From my interactions with students, I think they think I'm fair. When I tell students that because they missed weeks and weeks their assignment doesn't do what was asked, and because they missed weeks and weeks, I don't have other work to show me they knew the content, could pass, they tell me that's fair. They don't feel like I've tricked them or treated them poorly. I want to think that this is as good as I can aim for, that I provide the spaces and opportunities for students, but that they know too what their role is. But I don't know.
Now I know the students here at the end of the semester, sending me these reflections, are probably not the ones who I need to tell me how they are, what they need, what worked, what didn't. And I still don't have a solution for that. I already ask in the monthly reflections what's working for them, what their challenges are, what they need. I'll continue to noodle on how I can do this better, different.
I know a lot of this is the end of semester feelings- I always feel super high and super low. I get to see the amazing progress, growth, and projects my students produce. But I also look at the roster and see how many students aren't there. That never responded to my emails, just withdrew, or stopped coming, or whatever. And I feel every single one of those as a failure.
I think part of this is how we approach teaching in the US. We don't train teachers to be part of a collective or to reflect on their mistakes honestly. Once we're in jobs I think so many teachers are so afraid of punishment and retaliation that teachers don't share what is going on in their classes, so we don't see that so many of us are experiencing the same thing, so we don't brainstorm and talk through what's going on. I'm not saying I think we can fix all the issues, like I've said again and again, individuals cannot overcome structural and institutional issues like racism, poverty, food and housing insecurity, no health care, no child care, abyssmal education prep. But I like to believe that if we talked and worked like a collective we could try things, share things, build a network where maybe I don't catch everyone but I catch these, and you catch those, and he catches these others, and so on.
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