I don’t feel good about this… My first essay got me a 73% and I was happy with it. I’m not happy with this essay, so whats that worth (though I know my view of quality differs in many places from the actual grade I receive). Here’s the plan: I need to have brunch with my mother 1/2 an hour away at 11:00. The essay is due at 5:00. That gives me a good 4 hours to turn this literary vomit into a beautiful vomit sculpture.
Edit: So I finished the essay… It’s not as good as I would have hoped, but it’s about as good as I would expect myself to write. I’m just happy this class is over. I learned a lot from these three weeks, but it’s not easy to synthesize the entirety of what I learned into a linear essay… I always had trouble with that part.
New essay prompt: What is teaching? Please describe in a 5 page essay what teaching means to you. Don’t forget to cite the 20 classes you’ve taken on the subject, 200 books and 2000 articles you’ve read. The essay should be a well-constructed stream of consciousness with a clear beginning, middle and end. Also, make the essay groundbreaking and revolutionary. It is due Saturday night at midnight. Keep posted for the ten page list of criteria we will use to grade the essay.
I was disappointed with my grade as well. Your new essay prompt beautifully captures what I felt were the key shortcomings of the course (I accidentally typed “curse” initially though). I would add one aspect to it though as follows. “Please describe, in excruciating detail, why others, feel the way they do about teaching, as well, knowing that you did not have any time to probe them for the why behind their feelings. As a teacher committed to understanding your students, you should be able to intuit their indigenous meanings and prior schemas without having asked them. So deal with it!”
BTW, I learned from the class, as well, but not nearly as much as I could have learned…and I believe it emphasized writing skill over content dialogic discourse…a missed opportunity in my words and I let them know same.