Monday, May 2, 2011

Squeeze Through The Gate

It is the next to last week of school at the college. I have to grade 2 sets of papers yet, and am only half way through the current set. I am seeing many things I'd like to change the next time I teach this course, though I'm not going to be doing this particular syllabus again for a while, or perhaps at all.
The definition essay has been a very difficult thing for all three of my sections. A number of students have not written it at all, which really cut severely into their grades. It felt to me as though I was trying very hard to explain the paper in the clearest way possible, and a number of students did seem to get it. They got very high grades on their papers, much higher than their past papers. The others either did not do the paper at all, or did very poorly, much more so than previous papers.
I need to find another way to explain that paper, or change the way I teach it altogether, clearly.

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