I'm in the last week of my five-week summer course at CCBC. While I realize that teaching summer courses is different from teaching fall and spring courses because of the pacing and the different student population that emerges in the summertime, I'm still AMAZED by what has happened this summer. The success I'm having with this course may just completely change the way I teach college composition. Part of me is afraid to make a huge, sweeping statement like that, mostly because of the differences between summer and fall/spring students and courses, but another part of me is ready to shout this from the rooftops.

Let me summarize. ( Read more...Collapse )

I would like to share something overheard between two students (one Ecuadorian and one a Marylander) in my Monday/Wednesday afternoon ENG101 class:

Samantha: So, tell me, what's the deal with this whole Cinco de Mayo thing anyway?

Diego: Um, well, that's only the Mexicans and you Americans. We don't have that in my country.

Samantha (looking genuinely confused): Really? I thought all of you Hispanics celebrated Cinco de Mayo.

Diego (shaking his head and grimacing): No. That's just Mexicans. I'm from Ecuador.


Note: Samantha has adopted Diego as her new "Hispanic best friend." Thus, he is expected to be her key to all things Latino. Quipped Diego just last week as Samantha regaled him with a tale of her newest experiences listening to the Spanish station on the radio, "Wow, I can't wait until English class is over!"

Neither can I, Diego. Neither can I!

Happy Cinco de Mayo, everyone (unless you are from someplace BESIDES Mexico or the parts of the US with a large population of newly-arrived Mexican immigrants. Most Mexican Americans I know don't give a damn about Cinco de Mayo).

Just when I think the lousy pay, lack of benefits, and erratic schedules are no longer worth it, a student will say or do something to reel me back in and remind me of why I got into this line of work in the first place. This week, I received the following response from a developmental writing student after we'd had an in-class writing conference and after I'd followed up on an e-mailed request for assistance with an assignment:

Hi Professor Mary Jo:
I did recieve your e-mail with the websites. Also I would like to take this time to tell you how I see your method of teaching as accurate, and very non-assuming in terms of putting every one of us on the page at first-gear (if you will). In other words your method of teaching is tight! Don't change because many of us, or speaking for myself, have not gotten this type of break down in many years and the newer teachers who taught english writing in the community college were a JOKE!!* Also, if it were not for you taking one tiny moment of your time last evening to explain to me what the gist of my essay in my other class was asking, I would still be confused, you made it clear- as -a- bell. Hopefully I can follow through and give my instructor what she is asking, however I have a better idea of how to approach the task.

Thank you,
Name withheld


*I should note that this student is enrolled in an upper-division university, but most of the teaching I do is at a local community college. And for those of you reading and thinking to yourselves, "Ohmigawd, the grammar! How can she be proud of this?" Well, let me just say that you should have seen her writing only a month and a half ago! This represents a vast improvement. Teaching developmental writing is more rewarding than teaching any other level of composition for this reason; students can make monumental strides in a single semester.