What was your favorite work that we read this year?
- My favorite book was The Great Gatsby because it is a piece of work that caught my action.
What did you like most about English?
- I like our random talks.
- I liked the conversations we had every day about random things. (Trust me, these conversations were not that random. Ok, some were random, but many were less random than the students realize.)
- Mr. Chaffee's sarcasm.
- I liked that you didn't make things boring, just what we had to learn was boring.
What are one or two important things you have learned this year in English?
- I would say I have learned a lot more than two things. (Response ended here.)
- It is important to think for yourself. (Nobody told them this before?)
- I've learned that I should not plagiarize. (She did it twice.)
- Nothing really. (So sorry.)
The rest are from 11E: What did you like most about English 11E?
- ..we talked about our own ideas.
- Chaff-tangles. (For group discussions we arranged the desks around the perimeter of the room, but they didn't really make a regular geometric shape, so they called it a Chaff-tangle.)
- Being able to talk about things w/out having to raise hands and be all strict.
- It's the one class I could actually relax and laugh in.
- I liked our conversations where we talked about life. It was refreshing to learn / talk about things I wanted to discuss. (Evidence that our "curriculum" has become irrelevant?)
- I liked that we actually had intelligent discussions and they felt productive.
- That there wasn't any pressure like traditional classes in English, we could come in and discuss things without worrying about what's going to be on the test, which allowed us to develop better ideas. (Exhibit A on how testing is evil and corrupting.)
Did the teacher give you enough feedback on papers?
- Oh yes, I got plenty of "redundant" and "vague." I'll never be redundant / vague in my essays again.
- Yes you did give me enough feedback but for some reason I didn't fix the things you told me to fix. (And what do you think the reason is?)
- Yes, there was enough green ink on papers to kill me.
Do you believe you have improved as a writer this year?
- Yes, as shown in my writing folder. I'm figuring out how to use a paper to support my thesis instead of going off on random tangents. (Good start.)
Did you like / dislike the journal writing?
- I liked the journal writing when we had prompts because when we just write our reactions I just spilled crap on the page. (Well, you shouldn't keep crap so close to your journal.)
On a scale of one to ten, how hard was this class?
- I would say it wasn't really hard but the way you grade papers is more critical because we are expected to rise above average writing. (Hope it wasn't a struggle to "rise above average" in an advanced class.)
What have you learned in this class?
- I believe that I have become a more independent writer and thinker. You really pushed us out of our shells, which I needed. (True story.)
- I learned that you should come up with your own ideas and beliefs, and be able to think beyond the literal stuff.
- That I need to become more independent.
- Not everything has to be structured / organized; writing should be interesting and enjoyable. (Interesting writing? Hmm...)
- Actually, I can never recall what I've learned when I'm asked but I think I've learned more about life than English. (English IS life, sir!)
Is there anything else you'd like to say on any topic whatsoever?
- This year has taught me that grades truly don't matter. It took me all year to realize this but over the past couple days I've come to understanding. Grades are simply a number. Humans let a # control their lives. How silly. If there's one thing I could pass on to the 10E class it would be this. They are like me last year, always worrying about grades. There's so much more to life than a number.
I was thrilled to read this because this student was the most concerned with grades all year. She is not alone. The educational system takes everything that they do and puts it into a giant trash compacter and spits out a bunch of numbers, then tells them that those numbers reflect very important things about them. It's hogwash. I have told my students that grades and standardized testing (numbers and data) are the heroin of the educational system: they are terrible for our health, but nobody can, or wants to, figure out how to kick the habit. Anyway... for now, no more teachers no more books!
J
