Timewaster's Guide Archive
General => Rants and Stuff => Topic started by: EUOL on February 02, 2004, 08:58:50 PM
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So, in my English 115 class, I have to teach my students how to write a 'personal essay.' What is a personal essay you ask? Well, it's an introspective look at the self, mediated by a specific narrative used to express one's individuality while at the same time bridging the gap to the reader and heightening the unity of everyone's common humanity.
And it is something that is INSANELY difficult to explain to freshmen.
What is the English department thinking? I understand that they want to teach the students to better express themselves, but this medium is just too difficult to cover in a three-week unit. The personal essay is a very rich and complex genre, and my students are absolutely butchering it. The worst part is, I can't find any way to teach them to do otherwise.
If you can't tell, I've been grading papers this afternoon...
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Someone had to get it right... You can't have a bunch of kids who can't learn the material in the alotted amount of time. As for your english department, I have a gnome problem I could share with them...
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speaking as someone with no experience teaching this:
I'd start with a personal narrative. Have them do one or two pages on that. Then have them do a personal narrative with self editorial interjected. then add in that they have to connect to someone with it.
The biggest problem, as I see it, is they need immediate feedback if they're going to do multiple essays, which means you ahve to act VERY fast to give them all comments.
Well, sucks to be you.
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Ehlers, that actually sounds like it would work! :o
This coming from someone not to far from the age group your probably trying to teach it to too...
But, of coarse, that may not be what the department wants taught...
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SE: That's a good suggestion. In fact, that's exactly the way I approach the unit.
The problem is, once they write a narrative, they really have problems including an essay portion. Almost every paper I get is a personal narrative, not a personal essay. However, they're even poor narratives because the students try to interject meaning that just doesn't fit with the story they're trying to tell.
If they do include some sort of theme or essay, it invariably turns into soap-boxing--and many just tell a story, then add a neat, Sunday-school-style moral at the end.
Gorgon: Yes, some few do (thankfully) get it. However, I can't really justify giving the rest of them D's and C's just because the material is generally over their heads. Personal essays are just hard to do right--I don't even know if I could do it.
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I haven't tried to do it or anything, but it doesn't sound to difficult. However it would require no slacking, which I, personally, would have an enormous problem accomplishing, especially in lit...
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lol. I think you hit on something pretty lucid there, Gorgon. The people in my Freshman Comp class aren't English majors. It's a GE (general education), which means it's a required class. They don't really want to be in it, so there's no real reason for them to invest a lot of effort into learning a complex compositional form.
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I've done... er... well... one that I can think of. Good one anyway. I used to do one a week for teh Dream Forge. And then there was my "piece of writing" from high school. A lot of that could have been refined.
EUOL, speaking of the "sunday school" moral, do you think that's why they have such a problem? I've heard a million talks, some even by GA's that do the same. They include a story because it's neat, and then force it to fit into the theme. (I've even done it).
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Well, we also live in America, you know, the land of the free and lazy... Ringing any bells?
Maybe it's just me living in Michigan, the statistically laziest and fattest region of the world...
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SE: Yeah, I think that's a big part of it. If I weren't teaching at the Y, then I don't think I'd have as many students try and package a neat, moralistic ending on the back of their essays. I talk to them about it in class, but I swear they just ignore the advice. To them, a story isn't complete unless you explain what you learned, and how you're a much better person now. I'll confront them about it when they have me read drafts, and they'll admit that the problems they've addressed haven't really been solved as neatly as the essay implies, but they have real difficulty cutting off the preachy endings.
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I had to write an essay like that last year... it ws really annoying.
I saw a lot of those problems in my peers work. And a little in my own. Especially because I wasn't a better person because of my scenerio. In fact, I can't remember a single scenerio which I did become a better person... Maybe there's a problem...
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see, that's the point. it's not necessarily supposed to teach a moral lesson like a fable by Aesop. It's supposed to be a little more philosophical. Be an insight not just into YOUR soul, but the nature of humanity.
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See! Billy Idol gets it! Why can't my students get it too?
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Yes, I see... a little... I just wont go into anything literature based... ever...
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Now I'm Billy Idol? Or the Wonder Cow is Billy Idol?
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Now you've lost me...totally. Like your over here and I'm WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYY
over here >>>>>>> ???
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Sorry. Obscure Adam Sandler movie reference. I wonder if he's ever been mentioned in a thread relating to literary genres....
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EUOL, I sent you a piece I wrote for my Mort Sci class. I had to write about myself, so I did. Not sure if it helps, but hey. There you go.
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Thanks, gemm. I'll have a look at it.
As for the students, I just ran across a good one! Hurray! The writer related his own tying of an M-80 to a dog's tail to random acts of violence perpetuated in warfare, and was very honest with his questions about himself. Turned out very nicely. So yes, some of them can do it.
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Tacking a sunday school moral onto the end of a story, just for the sake of it? Sounds like Covenant!
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I never got people who like sunday school morals. Happy stuff is so depressing. I think religon is to. So are vegetables. And gnomes...
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the problem with the "sunday school ending" is not that it's "happy." it's that it is trite, often forced, and not truly introspective.
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Yes, I suppose. But aren't forced endings fun to read? Like when we friggin' peer edit and the ending of someones friggin' story is jammed into the margins with friggin' corrections. I hate peer editing other people's crap. It takes to long.
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EUOL, that was very imformative. I will have to remember that when I go back to school.
It's too bad I can't take your class when I go back for my masters.