Comp Tales Response

Adjuncts are treated differently, even when they have the same amount of teaching experience and education. 76% of college professors are part-time instructors; the trend of using adjuncts started in the 70's. From my understanding, colleges did it to bring in instructors that had real world experience and had time to teach a class in addition to their regular full-time job. In a way, this is a great idea Why not have a practicing lawyer teach a class about law? However, I think the trend has spun out of control.

Before the new health care plan, I taught seven classes per semester at one school and made $26,000 per year. Then the new health care plan made it so that schools only let adjuncts teach a certain amount of class to ensure they didn't have to provide insurance. So I could only teach 3 classes per semester. Do the math. That's not enough to live on. So I started working at three schools: one class at one, three classes at another, and two other classes an another. Scheduling was a nightmare.

Sadly, the adjunct trend is growing. I guess adjuncting works for people that only want a part-time job, but I think it may affect the quality of teachers. Several times while I was teaching, I thought about quitting and going back to my desk job at SYSCO, where I made double my adjunct salary, and I put in less hours there. I fear that great teachers may back away from their calling because full-time jobs are so hard to find. What will the long-term effects of using adjuncts be?

NPR talks about the situation, check out this link:

http://www.npr.org/2014/02/03/268427156/part-time-professors-demand-higher-pay-will-colleges-listen

Keeping up with the students

Snap Chat? What is that?

I used to be cool, what happened? Over the last five years, I have felt myself withdrawing from the younger generations. I tried to pinpoint when this shift occurred, but I think it has been a slow slide, rather than a single event. Ever since I started teaching, which has only been a few years, I like to have lunch once or twice a week in the student dining area. I sit next to groups of chatty students and eavesdrop. I know, kind of creepy. However, it helps me stay connected with the changes in culture, technology, and gossip. Why is this useful? Well, I find students are surprised when I am up to speed on some new technology or slang word, and perhaps that moment of surprise from students occasionally earns me  a bit of respect. So go on down to the Atrium and be a creeper.

Comp Tales Response

Story 111 sounded familiar to me. Donna Dunbar-Odom was mentoring a TA that said, "All this teaching is getting in the way of my real work!"

I admit, I have felt something similar to this before. I'm a literature major, and I want to teach Literature, not composition. I started my first job with this attitude, as if the job was a step on the ladder toward my dream job. This isn't to say I hate what I was teaching and still am teaching, I don't hate it. However, sometimes I feel that the journey to my ultimate goal has stagnated. I know, I know, keep thinking positively, I'll get there, but how many times can I talk about the same thing with the same amount of passion I have now? I guess this is why we have to keep changing our syllabus to keep things interesting, or being some of my interest into class. I'm curious whether other Literature or non -rhet/comp composition teachers feel this way sometimes.

End of the Semester Blues

Classes are wrapping up, and I can sense my students' anxiety and excitement about the end of the semester, but can they sense mine?

I have come to a point when I just want to be done, yet I know this is the time I need to keep up the class's moral and energy. The last ten minutes of class seem to loom on my head as my students' faces droop and their palms find their cheeks, like little resting stools. Is is wrong that sometimes I just want to shout, "I don't want to be here either, just leave!"? I know that wanting to do it, is different than doing it; I feel that I need to shake things up. Last week I started doing ice-breakers again, and it has been helpful. I've pulled in some theatrical elements and clever youtube videos, but my will is faltering. I'm hoping Thanksgiving break offers a reprieve and refresher. Have you tried any new tricks to bring life back into the classroom, or have you had similar experiences?

Comp Tales Response

Don't cry, don't cry, don't cry. Oh god, they are crying. They weren't able able to complete the assignment because their great-grandmother died of a brain tumor, and she lived in Antarctica, so they had to travel and miss class and turn in a sloppy, late assignment.

So, I may have been called Spock more than once in my life. Emotions scare me. Well, let me rephrase that. Tears scare me. I never know what to do when a student cries. Furthermore, I am often suspicious of tears. Are they real? Are they an appeal to pity? If they are real, should I hug the crier? Give them an extension on an assignment? Is hugging too personal for a teacher-student relationship? Pat their back? Awkward.

Typically, I end up standing there with a semi-scrunched face, listening. When they are silent, I say something cliched, 'I'm sorry to hear that," then I cross my fingers and hope that they don't suggest some type of specialized, biased sympathy.

I believe in fairness and consistency. If I give one student extra time, I think I should give every student extra time, so how do I deal with emotional pleas? Advice?

Observations

Observations are over. After waiting in near torture for a week, I met with my observer to discuss the class. Let me say, I was nervous. Why is it that on the day of observation, my class decided to be rambunctious hellions? Why is it that I decided to try something new on that day, logical fallacy bingo, and it took the students nearly 15 minutes to completely fill in the Bingo sheets. Were their hands broken? Why did students challenge me with completely random stories and want me to identify the fallacies in those stories. Why did I not know what type of fallacy was being committed? Why did I forget to do my 'five mechanical minutes' at the beginning of class? Why did I run out of things to say five minutes before class? Why do I ooze confidence in front of my students, but freeze in front of other professors?

We, as instructors, are going to have those types of days. Thankfully, our observers know that. I walked into the office with sweaty hands, expecting the worst, then I was told that I was a good teacher. What? How could that be, did she sit in the same class that I was kicking myself about? Yes, there were things that could have gone better, but they were things that I could change. My teaching style was 'energetic' though and I had a handle on the information. I guess those things are harder to change. The observation made me realize that we can be our own enemy sometimes, and that professors with more experience are a great resource for advice and information. All-in-all, the observation made me question/tweak some of my techniques, and it also boosted my confidence.

Grading

I've seen some others post about grading, and I'm going to add to those. I haven't figured out the perfect way to grade yet, but I have came across some good tips and some bad ones. When I first started teaching, each five-page essay took about 30 minutes to grade. Ridiculous. Add rough draft grading on top of that, and I was busy for a week, and that was when I was only teaching, no grad school.

Fast forward three years: the same essay takes me about 15 minutes now. I've stopped reading it through before marking on it (I mark on it as I read); I don't leave too much mechanical feedback, unless the mistakes are repetitive and/or disrupt the writing; I grade with a rubric point allocation system; and I use 'awk' more, rather than explaining why a sentence/thought isn't right. However, I'm thinking about returning to an earlier grading system that another professor recommended. She told me to set a timer to 8 minutes, start the timer, read and mark until the timer went off, draw a line across the paper at your stopping point, turn to the last page, then take two minutes to write final thoughts. This method takes about 10 minutes. She also told me to emphasis how I would be grading to the class and reiterate that a good paper shouldn't take more than ten minutes to read. I tried this for a semester and it worked well for me, but I worried that students weren't getting as much from it. I had no evidence to back up the usefulness or not, as my students performed (grade-wise) about the same. So what do you think? Is the ten minute grading plan possible?

Comp Tales Ch. 7

Story 89-

Tammy talks about avoiding sexist language in the classroom and relates a story about her dad to her students. Through her repetitive corrections of 'man' to 'man or woman', her dad finally changes what his phrase to 'one', rather than the sexist 'man', when he is talking to his grandchild.

A lot of students seem to think saying 'policeman' rather than 'police officer' isn't a big deal. They seem to think that no one is hurt by the sexist terminology, and perhaps some aren't, but some are hurt. If we, and our students, make an effort to change our misogynist terminology, eventually the future generations will naturally learn to speak in a non-sexist manner; so maybe, just maybe, some little girl that wants to be a 'police officer' when she grows up won't feel alienated from the profession due to how people refer to it. Also, older adults, such as the grandpa in the story, can change if they are made aware of the sexism that is present.

Miscommunication-Chapter 6

Misunderstandings are going to happen. We are not going to avoid it. Accept it, but don't just move on. Misunderstandings offer us the chance to change and avoid mistakes in the future. Shrugging them off can be tempting, but accepting our own faults and learning about our audience will be much more advantageous.

Miscommunication and  misunderstandings happen because of us and to us, if that makes sense. Sometimes my assignments are not clear enough, sometimes my students's questions weren't clear enough, sometimes I zone out and try to fill in the missing spots in a conversation or lecture, sometimes my students are still learning English, sometimes I just didn't take the time to do something right or listen completely. However, all of these instances are stepping stones to understanding, but only if we recognize them and ask ourselves what we could do differently and implement those changes.

Conferences

Oh dear God, why didn't someone warn me? I was 30 minutes into my first conference and the second one was waiting. What was I doing? I knew I had to speed up, but I didn't want to leave anything out. I persevered and my last conference of the day couldn't end soon enough; it took 45 minutes. I had naively thought that canceling class for conferences would free up some time for me to get some work done. Wrong. That was Thursday.

Today, I spent six hours doing conferences, with a break to attend my teaching practicum class. I filled up on Skittles and Pepsi on the way to my second shift of meetings. By the time my 6:00 PM conference finished, I had the sugar shakes.

I have realized that I have a love-hate relationship with conferences. I feel that the students benefited but I stressed myself out in the process.This semester was the first time I have ever scheduled conferences into the syllabus and had one with every student. I'm not sure why I waited so long, but normally I reserved meetings for students that were having issues. That being said, those meetings didn't take that long because I knew what had to be worked on, having suggested the conference for a reason.

Okay, so I began with 30 minute slots and had students bring their essays to the meeting. That was my first mistake. I have heard some great advice from other Graduate Assistants (Morgan and Tara), and I know that from now on, I will be having the students fill out a form about what they want to work on. Does anyone else have some tips about conferences?

Paying for A's

How do we determine who receives an A, B, C, D, or F? Grading right? Well, not at The Place (aforementioned college in previous blogs that shall remained unnamed). I'm still surprised that they didn't fire me before I quit, but a firing would have been unethical, legally, I think.

The first time I was called into the Assistant Dean's office, I was curious about the reasoning behind the summons. I calmly sat down and incorrectly wondered if I were going to get a raise. After a few minutes of small talk, Student X came was brought up by the Dean. Apparently I had submitted midterm grades a few weeks ago and she, the Dean, wanted an update. I proceeded to tell her that he still missed two classes for every one he showed up to, did even less homework than his attendance would suggest, and could barely write a coherent sentence, much less an essay. I was stunned when she proceeded to tell me that my class was his third attempt at English Composition 101. I would have expected a little more effort if it were his third time taking the course. The Dean went on to explain how his financial aid would be cut off and that The Place needed him to pass the course because he wasn't going to pay out of pocket. The two of us sat in silence for a few moments, what did she want from me? I knew, but I wasn't taking the bait.

The Dean continued with examples of ways Student X might be able to pass the class: extra credit assignments, acceptance of late work, ignoring the attendance rule, giving him an incomplete for the course and extending the term for him until he passed. I thought about the possibilities, and I thought about Student X's lack of respect and effort in and out of the classroom. I looked at the Dean and said, "No, he earned his F and that's what he'll get unless he can miraculously pull himself up by completing the rest of the assignments and the same extra credit assignments that are offered to the entire class." The Dean shook her head and smiled, and I left the office. This type of meeting happened two more times that term and once the next term, with the same result.

Further into the next term I was pulled into the Dean's office again, this time I knew what was coming, or at least I thought I did. I was wrong. She welcomed me and got right into the meeting. The Place was changing some of its pay policies. They would be giving teacher's bonuses for each A their students earned. My smile was forced and I left the meeting wondering what this would do to teachers and students. I hoped most teachers would still continue to grade the same, but I could see how a financial reward might be tempting to grade a B as an A. At The Place a few teachers might have needed to put some vigor and effort into their teaching, but for the most part the teachers were competent. More often than not, at least in my composition classes, students weren't getting A's because they weren't turning in their assignments or showing up to class. The new incentive didn't encourage student effort, but it did make the student's artificial success seem inflated to potential employers that thought they were hiring A students. I didn't agree with the concept, so I continued to grade as I had done in the past.

A few weeks later I had a violent student in the classroom (view previous blog), and I quit The Place.

Danger Zone

The first college I taught at should not exist, but it does. I will call it The Place, even-though it doesn't deserve the anonymity. The Place was rife with bad practices, many of which will probably fill future posts, but today's post deals with an occurrence that resulted with me handing in my resignation.

I didn't want to answer the phone as I could see it was The Place calling, and they could only be calling for one thing: they needed a substitute. Money had been short lately as a result of adjuncting as a career, and The Place paid by the hour in the classroom, so I reluctantly answered the phone. Within an hour I was standing in the computer lab of The Place's small, un-air-conditioned, seven-story, downtown building. It was 5:30 PM and class started in 30 minutes. I picked up the plans for the class and was horrified to see that the plans only said teach them about Microsoft Word. What about Word? Bibliographies? MLA? Resumes? How to type in Word? I swallowed the panic and realized that since the class was a beginners computer class, I probably just had to show them the basic uses alongside of some potential uses for the future. At 6:00 PM, the class started to enter the class, it wasn't until 6:30 PM that the majority of the class showed up. I guessed timeliness wasn't stressed in the class. I completed an icebreaker and started my interactive lecture. Suddenly I heard a bag rustling, the kind of rustling that a Sun Chips bag makes, and then I heard sfizzzz as someone unscrewed a soda lid. Looking back, I handled the situation all wrong.

I took a break and informed the entire class that no food or drinks were allowed in class, then I continued. I was interrupted by a loud female voice, "who the fuck do you think you are, we ain't children?" I looked to the back corner of the room and there was a woman eating chips while giving me the stink-eye. Stay calm I told myself.

"Those are the rules, sorry, they apply to everyone, even me." I smiled waiting for her response. She kept eating her chips and staring at me. What was I supposed to do? If I didn't stop her I would lose my authority I thought. "Please, dispose of the food, or put it away for later, We will be taking a break soon." She stood up; now, I consider myself a competent woman that can handle herself in just about any situation, including a physical one, but the speaker looked like one of the few women that could eat me for lunch. She was taller than me, larger than me, and had a do-rag on, which conjured up false stereotypes that seemed true in the moment.

"I'm a grown woman, and some white bitch ain't going to tell me what to do. What you gonna do if I don't listen? Nothin, that's what. Punk ass." She raised her arms in the air and mockingly lurched my direction. The class was silent, but my mind was panicking.

"This doesn't have to be a big deal; if you want to talk about it the hall we can, but this type of behavior is disrespectful and unacceptable. Please, let's talk about it."

"I ain't talkin about nothin, go on an teach yo stupid lesson, I'm staying here."

I didn't know what to do; no one had ever gone over a circumstance like this, so I told her to excuse herself from the room or I would have security do it. The truth was, I didn't even know if security was on duty yet as they usually got in around 8:00 PM or so, and I didn't know how to get a hold of them.

She charged my desk and swiped it with her arm, sending my laptop (in its case) flying. I froze; she was blocking the door. Then she grabbed my purse and threw it across the room. Suddenly, I snapped. "Get out! Now! I'm calling security!" I grabbed a student's phone off of the desk in front of me and started to turn the screen on. She ran out of the room. The class went crazy. I ran for my purse and got out my phone and started to call the operator at The Place in hopes they knew about security. As I was doing this I asked if everyone was okay. After that, I told them to go on break but to stay on that floor. I eventually reached the desk of a teacher on another floor. She told me that The Place no longer had a security officer, so that teacher gathered another teacher and they went looking for the girl. Ten minutes or so later, they reported that they thought she had left the building. Thought? What if she went to get a gun, or was waiting for me outside? I nervously went on with the class that night without anymore incidents. Before I left, I filled out an incident report. Another teacher walked me to my car.

The next week I was called into a meeting about the incident. Apparently, the girl had been recruited from a drop-in shelter in the city. She didn't have a place to live, so she was under a lot of stress. The Place then informed me that what I had done was all wrong, that I should have taken the girl away from the class and not been so firm on the rules. Finally, they said the girl was willing to apologize and we would have another meeting next week when she would say sorry to me. She was going to get absolutely no punishment except to say sorry. Well, I didn't agree but I needed the job, so I showed up the next week, but the girl didn't. The Place said she must be under some sort of stress and that I should understand that, and that she would remain enrolled. So many thoughts went through my head, but it became clear that The Place thought of her as a much needed paycheck, since the student population had dropped from 500 to 220 within that last year, and they thought of me as replaceable. I finished the term, but when they asked for my availability for the next term, I gave them my resignation letter and started at a real community college that restored some respect to my views of community colleges.

Yes, when I look back at this story there are things I did wrong, but I had never been trained to deal with a possibly violent student, and I would do things differently next time. However, I don't completely blame the student; recruiting homeless students seems so wrong to me; how is a student supposed to concentrate on schoolwork and class when they don't know where they will sleep that night? Also, what type of school doesn't have security, or chooses to side with an aggressive student? While I'm not glad the experience happened, it woke me up to potential dangers of being in a classroom and gave me the confidence to deal with potential ones in the future. Another incident did happen a year later, that student was dealing with PTSD. Because of the first incident, I was able to handle the second one well enough that most of class hadn't realized anything had happened, then the situation led to teacher training that dealt with PTSD, to which I was able to share my experience and growth.

Response: Comp Tales Ch. 5

In regards to story 50 by Mark Israel:

Mark's roommate was Swiss-German and incorrectly substituted 'sparingly' for the word 'funny' in a paper. Mark later realized this was most likely because his word checker said, "The word 'funny' is trite. Use sparingly."

This story is very relevant as colleges continue to diversify and include more foreign students. When I first read the story it was easy to laugh at, but then I started to think that the struggles non-native English speakers face daily are probably immense. English is so complex that I often wonder if all professors should be required to take a TESL course or two just to understand how and when misinterpretations occur.

In my last teaching position, there were many foreign students, and I struggled with teaching composition to them because of the language differences. I speak Spanish, so it was easier to catch errors in papers written by native Spanish speakers. However, I had one student from Sri Lanka that I just couldn't seem to grasp why he was making certain mistakes. I spent extra time with him, referred him to a TESL tutor, and signed him up for writing center visits, yet he still failed my class. I felt like I did all I could, but I also feel that the school did not do all they could have done. The entrance exams for college placement have some kinks in them, sure, but some students can pass multiple choice English-based-knowledge tests but not be able to apply those skills to composition. I'm not sure how to fix this problem, especially since I have noticed a push away from remedial courses.

Do as I say, not as you think?

Several of chapter four's comp tales deal with misunderstandings or literal interpretations by students, and I have fallen victim to these situations.

Geoff, my most influential boss and the English Department chair, once told me that teaching didn't have a learning curve, instead it was a learning spike. He went on to tell me how as a teacher I would learn so much in such a short span of time that my style and techniques would undergo dramatic change by the second semester and would continue to do so (and if it didn't I wasn't learning anything). He was right. For instance, the first comparison-contrast paper I assigned was a disappointment that required correction the next time I taught it. I went over various ways to construct and outline the paper, but I only gave one example of a sample paper. Well, on the due date, I received 20 papers that were near identical. My students had taken that one sample paper as gospel and mimicked its structure, and some even used very similar topics. I thought about he results, so the next semester, I made an assignment sheet that had two sample outlines, rather than papers. Well, on that due date, I received 20 papers in one of the two purposed formats.

Okay, I decided to change it again. The next semester, I included the outlines and shared the sample paper. The results were similar to past two semesters, but still lacked variety. I was determined to get it right, so the next semester I gave the sample outlines, sample paper, and assigned sample readings that ranged from narrative to persuasive. The combination of lecture, sample outlines, a sample student paper, and a multitude of readings that demonstrated comparison-contrast resulted in a variety of papers that I was finally happy with. However, the changes I made meant changing my syllabus's schedule, which lead to a restructuring of the course to fit in the extra material.

Geoff was right; at the end of one year, my syllabus was nearly unrecognizable, my approach had changed, and the work I was receiving from my students was much better.

Response-Comp Tales Ch. 4

In reference to the comp tale by Linda Bergman (p.42):

Linda found fault in her students' papers' transitions, so she had them rewrite the papers with transitions. One student wrote "moving right along to the next paragraph" as transition to every paragraph.

Several things went through my mind as I read this: was the student being a 'smart ass' or did they lack common sense? I have had both types of students in class and both can be frustrating. The first one is easier to deal with, especially if the behavior is recognized before instructions are given. If we have students that always try to get away with less work by finding a loophole in our assignments, they are great practice for precise communication. Also, precise and clear communication should be something we strive for anyway, so by assuming we are always dealing with the smart ass student, we may be able to effectively reach more students in general.

The second type of student, the one without common sense, is more difficult, but not for the reasons we may assume. Sometimes a teacher's definition of common sense differs from a students. Isn't it possible that we lack some commonsense? If we think that a student thinks as we do, then we may lack some commonsense. Therefore, both types of students are challenging, but they only help us 'up our game' by forcing us to think as others would, which can be challenging.

Technology

Works cited pages plagued me during my undergraduate degree. I seemed to always forget some seemingly vital piece of information, confuse a comma for a period, or format it in correctly. Then, during my senior year, I found some websites that did the work for you. Genius! Or at least I thought. 

'My professors will never know, technology has triumphed over knowledge!' I thought, and to some extent, it had, for I rarely missed points for anything concerning my works cited pages. Fast forward several yeas to my first or second time teaching first year composition. 

I thought, as Adjunct Professor, I could not reveal the secrets of bibme.com and easybib.com, so I studied the writer's handbook and was determined to teach my students how to do a works cited page from scratch. That was my job as an instructor, right? I erased the knowledge of 'cheaters' websites and persevered thought the bored faces and lack of questions. Then everything changed.

R****l was in her mid-twenties and she hated taking FYC, and she had been placed in my class. She challenged me on nearly every topic, and insisted on using words such as participle, dangling modifier, and faulty predication, words that I tended to keep out of a community college classroom for a variety of reasons. I can still hear the students groan when R****l would put her two cents in on every topic we covered. She was challenging as she lacked social awareness and tact, not to mention she never turned anything in, which was why she was taking ENG101 for the third time. 

However, the class sided with her one day: Works Cited day. As I started my lecture, R****l raised and waived her hand like an anxious kindergartner. "Yes, R****l?" I asked. She went on to explain that websites could now do what I was teaching them. Ah, but I was ready for this attack. I told her that I needed to explain the concepts so that if the internet were down or something like that they would know how to put it together, but I soon realized I had been led into a trap, for she then revealed that Word could do it too. Yeah, right, I thought, yet, she continued to urge me to show the students as I was making it harder than it had to be. The problem was, I didn't know how to use Word for that purpose, but as I looked around the classroom, I realized the students were more interested the easy way. I paused. Then I admitted defeat and told the class that maybe we would learn something new together that day, and we did. I'm still not sure if I handled that day right, for R****l seemed to gloat after that and one of my reviews said that I didn't know what I was doing one day and the student had to teach me the material. No doubt from the first person usage, R****l had left the review, but I wondered if other students thought the same thing. Either way, I was glad that I learned the information, but also confused to whether or not I had given the students a short-cut instead of teaching them the material.  

Now in class, I teach the students how to do a Works Cited page though Word, and I seem to receive better Works Cited pages. 

Response-Comp Tale Ch. 3

(BTW, I have no idea how to remove that gigantic photo at the top of this blog; I meant to make it my profile picture, not a massive shrine to myself, sorry.)

The first story involving 'shun' words is a situation that probably sounds very familiar to new instructors. I suppose veteran instructors encounter similar situations too as new/unfamiliar words and theories start to emerge into an instructors jargon. The simple misunderstanding of ‘shun’ words though is a great reminder to ask for clarification from colleagues. Every colleague has something to offer in terms of experience or information, and if nobody asks, nobody gains what they have to offer. Frequently, at least for me, new instructors can feel intimidated by colleagues that have been at an institution for a much longer time period. Not many people like to expose themselves as ignorant or unaware, so they may avoid questioning their colleagues with what they may think are simple questions. However, instructors sometimes need to take the advice they give their students, “there are no dumb questions.” Now, I know that some professors are thinking, “yes, there are,” but for the most part, if one person wants/needs to know, somebody else does too. In this way, if teachers ask for clarification, they will gain the knowledge and be able to answer the same question if they are asked by another person, thus a dissemination of knowledge occurs.  

Things are going to go wrong...

"Pull out a piece of scrap paper, or even tear a piece of paper in half and give the other half to someone next to you; let's save some trees people. We are going to have a reading pop quiz." The students groan and the sound of shuffling and ripping papers fill the air. Where is it? I know I saved the quiz on this USB thingy-ma-jig. Where is it?! (The class waits expectantly for me to load up the quiz on the screen) This is what I get for trying to go green...

That was me during my first semester teaching. I was over the initial jitters of teaching, but I felt them come rushing back to me as the students quieted and waited expectantly. I was engaging in a mental battle because last week I had chastised some students who claimed they lost their saved essays on the day they were due. Keep it together, act professionally, I silently chanted. I smiled, looked up and admitted that I had brought the wrong USB and did not have the quiz with me. However, I crushed their hopes when I informed them that I remembered the questions. So I pulled up a blank word document and typed the questions as I read them to the class. All-in-all, it went fairly well. What the students didn't realize, I don't think, was that I didn't know where the correct USB was, and the quiz was quite a bit easier than it was originally, because I couldn't remember the specifics (I don't think they minded though).

Also, I realized how important it is to be prepared, but not just by bringing the right supplies to class. As an instructor, I have to be prepared for things to go wrong because they inevitably will go wrong. Breathing, laughing, and honesty have gotten me through most situations, and I imagine they will continue to do so.

Chapter 2-Comp Tales

Story 5 Response:

This was an amusing story that illustrated how important it is to not take ourselves too seriously. I have had instructors that ranged from sever to incredibly casual. On one end of the spectrum, one refused to break away from a strict demeanor, oppressing moments of hilarity or potential endearing scenarios. Once I had a professor fart in front of the class, but she just kept on teaching, which in a way I partly admired because it took some guts, considering several people were near dying from laughter. However, I was often intimidated by her, and she seemed so unreal and cut off from emotion, but I also felt like she was a bit silly too for forging ahead when the class was obviously disrupted. The combination didn't work for me. Would it have been that hard to turn to the class, and laughingly stutter, "it happens to the best of us" before continuing the lecture?

Yet, on the other end of the spectrum, I've had several great professors that acknowledged they were human in some pretty funny ways; one really did involve a porn pop-up such as the one talked about in the introduction to chapter two. These professors were memorable and real; I wanted to know what they knew, and their humanness/humility made that possible.

Narrative: Fair Warning

"Please except it, please"
"It's two weeks late, so I cant, sorry"
"You're such a cool teacher; I'm learning so much. How could you let this hurt my grade; you know how hard I'm trying[...]"
"Well...maybe..."

At first, conversations like the one above tortured me, yet flattered me. I was cool? These students liked me, right, yet I wasn't going to be that teacher that let her students walk all over her, or was I? Oftentimes, in the beginning, I was fooled by the flattery and wanted to maintain a certain coolness, so I would let deadlines slide with some additional deductions. Well, fuck that. I think I have lost a certain amount of compassion for excuses over the last three years, but I have become a better teacher. How could a lack of compassion equate better teaching? I think it depends on the type of compassion that is pulled back and what type is still given. I love teaching; I love seeing my students learn; I love learning from my students; I hate enabling them.

As we progress as teachers, our style might change and along with that, policy. At first I was a young teacher with no experience, thrown into a classroom with students that saw right through my forced bravado. Occasionally, I felt like a babysitter with kids that kept telling me they were allowed to watch rated R movies and have their friends stay the night, and their parents never answered the phone to verify the information. I made many mistakes, much to my disappointment, but I learned from them. Eventually I found a combination of several changes allowed me to step out of the caregiver role and into the instructor's role.

First, I realized that my casual teaching style was confusing to students; I wanted to encourage candid discussions, but my friendliness was used against me when assignments were late or not up to par with my expectations. However, attempts to be formal were difficult and felt unnatural.

Second, I realized that my syllabus and assignment guidelines needed to be clear and succinct. Students had more difficulty sweet-talking a teacher with a solid syllabus and a clear set of expectations.

Lastly, I realized that caring for my students didn't mean making excuses for them. For every student that came to me a with a sob story, one may be silently suffering in his/her seat, not expecting special treatment. I wasn't being fair by allowing some students more privileges than others.

Once I realized these three things, I tweaked my style to best fit me and my students. While it is not perfect, I have found that honest conversation with my students about my expectations and their expectations at the beginning of the semester really opens up dialogue and sets the stage for a sturdy semester. I tell them about my holistic and casual teaching style, but I reinforce that my policies are formal and are not up for debate. Also, throughout the semester I try to really understand what they are going through academically and personally, which allows me to connect and foresee problems before they occur. This style seems to work for me, and now when students come to me I can confidently answers questions about the course and assignments. While firm, I'm still flexible, but that flexibility is worked into the syllabus with late policies and exemption policies. In addition to the syllabus, I verbally reiterate what is expected and the consequences if expectations aren't met before every assignment.

Response: Comp Tales, Ch.1

I found the first story to be fairly accurate concerning the differences in community college students. While the same connection might not occur that often in a classroom, the variation from Jailer to the Jailed is standard. However, the author focuses on his failure as a teacher at the end, but he does not go into what he would have done differently if he had J. Johnson again. I didn't want the story to end. I wanted to read more about how to incorporate narrative into the classroom. If the author had J. Johnson again, would the result be the same, would Johnson pass? How much of passing/failing is determined by the student, regardless of teaching methods?

Story two seems familiar in many ways. I remember watching a movie called Urban Legends while I was in high school, and although the horror element was missing in Comp Tales, the story was used much like an urban legend: to scare and deter. Did the unnamed teacher exist? Perhaps. If so, was her story the same as the one circulated? Probably not. Hopefully teachers worry about how to positively affect their students, and if so that would mean they should think about how to change their curriculum and teaching styles to benefit those students, but change is scary.  Change often requires approval from department heads or other teachers, who might not approve of the methods. Also, change is often experimental and may result in a disproportionate amount of students passing or failing. I have been told frequently that all my students shouldn't get all A's and all of them should fail either, but what if they do? Have I failed? Will I be fired? The comp tale reflects on this fear, but it should also acknowledge that with these changes sometimes better practices are discovered, and more students may acquire the knowledge professors are paid to bestow on them. Therefore, change should be encouraged, not talked about as a myth worthy of being fired for.