Writers write. Did you know that? So many of my students open their papers with sentences that say little more than, "Writers write." "The author uses techniques to bring characters to life." "The author uses symbolism to display the theme." "The author uses theme to help the reader understand the story." Banal; these sentences make me want to stab holes in the paper. It' all I can do to make it to the end of the introduction. Of course, then I get sentences like the following. As always, these are from student work and my comments are in ( ).
- ... which includes violence and other workers of their castle.
- Lady Macbeth begins to plan her plan.
- What really made it real...
- Even a blind mane could tell that.
- ... is supposedly supposed to possess...
- Macbeth's gender roll...
- There are many characters in Shakespeare's play Macbeth. (Thanks for the heads up.)
- Macbeth accepts to kill King Duncan in seek of power.
- Banquo would be father to a line of kinds. (Which kinds though?)
- Without characters literature would be boring and uneventful. (Really? Then it's a good thing authors put them in there.)
- She... starts to question and think for herself in a more feminine quality.
- Cultural characteristics and differences have been defined by people's behaviors and belief statuses that are in one's society.
- Bush's policy would improve our ability to find, track, and stop tourists. (So will that Arizona law.)
- Alcohol awareness classes make sure they won't be a treat to the community. (Those drunks are a treat though, aren't they?)
- Individuals still decide to make decisions.
- A round character is one who changes overtime.
- He is the man that goes around doing nonsense jobs like cleaning the toilet and refilling toilet paper. (Yes, what nonsense.)
That's it for now. Got more ideas for posts, and more papers to read. Stay tuned.
J
4/30/11
4/18/11
By Request
Imagine you are a doctor. You have spent many years in school studying medicine, you have been an intern and a resident and now finally you are a doctor. Now let's say that in the course of a week you see ten patients who are all overweight. You sit down with each of them and map out a plan for losing those extra pounds. It includes a healthy diet and some moderate exercise. Then you reschedule them all for a checkup in six months.
Six months pass and your ten patients return. One has lost a significant amount of weight, and two more you commend for dropping a good number of pounds. Five are at the same weight as before, and admit that they have not kept to either the diet or the exercise regimen. The last two have gained weight. Only 30% of your overweight patients have made any dent in their problem.
Are you a failure as a doctor? Most people would say no. The doctor has no control over the patient. How many doctors have told smokers to quit or heavy drinkers to cut back? But we don't blame the doctor if the patient fails to improve because he fails to follow medical advice. If the advice is bad, it's on the MD; but if the advice isn't even followed, it's on the patient.
So why are teachers judged as poor if their students fail standardized tests? Studies have shown that poverty, illness, home environment, and many other factors, when combined, have a far greater effect on student test scores than teachers. Just like the doctor, we cannot follow our students home and make sure they read in their spare time or study in the evening. We can't control the time they spend watching TV or at a computer, or even the time they spend at a job for that matter. We can't be sure they have proper medical care and nutrition or that they get enough sleep so that they come to school ready to learn. But if only 30% of our students pass a test, it must be poor teaching. And the current trend in education is to evaluate teachers, pay them or fire them, based on student test scores. Would you only pay the doctor 30% of his salary because his patients are still overweight?
One last note on the analogy. Say the doctor tells the patient to follow a vegetarian diet and walk or run x number of miles a day. Then say the patient follows a different diet and hates running so he takes up cycling or joins some rec-league teams at the YMCA. And when he comes back he has lost the weight and is healthier. Three cheers for him. But in a school every student must take the same test in the same way and learn the same things in the same way. That is why they call them "standardized" tests, and they are killing our school system. But that is a topic for another time.
Six months pass and your ten patients return. One has lost a significant amount of weight, and two more you commend for dropping a good number of pounds. Five are at the same weight as before, and admit that they have not kept to either the diet or the exercise regimen. The last two have gained weight. Only 30% of your overweight patients have made any dent in their problem.
Are you a failure as a doctor? Most people would say no. The doctor has no control over the patient. How many doctors have told smokers to quit or heavy drinkers to cut back? But we don't blame the doctor if the patient fails to improve because he fails to follow medical advice. If the advice is bad, it's on the MD; but if the advice isn't even followed, it's on the patient.
So why are teachers judged as poor if their students fail standardized tests? Studies have shown that poverty, illness, home environment, and many other factors, when combined, have a far greater effect on student test scores than teachers. Just like the doctor, we cannot follow our students home and make sure they read in their spare time or study in the evening. We can't control the time they spend watching TV or at a computer, or even the time they spend at a job for that matter. We can't be sure they have proper medical care and nutrition or that they get enough sleep so that they come to school ready to learn. But if only 30% of our students pass a test, it must be poor teaching. And the current trend in education is to evaluate teachers, pay them or fire them, based on student test scores. Would you only pay the doctor 30% of his salary because his patients are still overweight?
One last note on the analogy. Say the doctor tells the patient to follow a vegetarian diet and walk or run x number of miles a day. Then say the patient follows a different diet and hates running so he takes up cycling or joins some rec-league teams at the YMCA. And when he comes back he has lost the weight and is healthier. Three cheers for him. But in a school every student must take the same test in the same way and learn the same things in the same way. That is why they call them "standardized" tests, and they are killing our school system. But that is a topic for another time.
4/8/11
Doctors All
I blame Oprah and her gurus Dr. Phil (what is he a doctor of?) and Dr. Oz. Or maybe it's WebMD. Or maybe it's the relentless advertising by pharmaceutical companies. Or maybe it's the fear inspired health reports on the evening news. Whoever is to blame, it seems that America is full of amateur doctors. We are all a bunch of self-diagnosticians; oh, and we love to diagnose our friends and neighbors, too. The only thing worse than a few million hypochondriacs is a few million hypochondriacs with web phones who type in their symptoms and who think they are doctors.
This faux-medicine shows up in my classroom in a way that may seem harmless, but which I think is subtly insidious. It is not as dramatic as my intro, but I think it represents something negative about the way we see medicine in this country. We love to diagnose the characters in the literature we read. The narrator of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" has postpartum depression; Roderick in Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher" is manic-depressive; Krebs from Hemingway's "Soldier's Home" has PTSD. And I will admit I am as guilty as anyone of diagnosing and labeling.
My problem is not that these amateur diagnoses are "wrong," or unsupported by the text. The problem is that these labels provide an illusion of knowledge which allows us to dismiss these characters. And that is what happens. Once we can label the problem the modern mind (student) believes that all these characters need is a pill and they would have been fine. If we have a label that sounds quasi-familiar, because we have heard the term before somewhere, we can be comfortable feeling superior to the characters and dismiss them.
But we are not doctors or psychiatrists who really understand what postpartum depression is, or what a soldier who suffers PTSD is going through. The label is an illusion; it is, in the words of G.K. Chesterton, "the worst illusion; it is the illusion of familiarity." Once we have the label, we don't have to look closely at the character, we don't have to immerse ourselves in the world the author has created for us. We don't have to empathize. Gilman and Poe and Hemingway and all great authors create fascinating characters who come alive on the page, and we prescribe them pills and close the book. We are familiar with PTSD because we saw that feature on the news, we have no need of this story by some dead author (who happened to have witnessed a few wars up close.)
If you have read "The Yellow Wallpaper" you may see what I think is the final irony of my idea. The narrator's husband is a doctor, and he thinks he knows what is best for her. He confines her in the room with the yellow wallpaper, forbids her to write, tells her not to let her imagination get the best of her, treats her like a child; and in the end she goes crazy. He knew what was best for her and he didn't listen to her complaints or suggestions, and she ended up crawling around a room like an animal believing she has escaped from the yellow wallpaper she had been trapped behind. A hundred years later we come along and shake our heads; if only they had known about postpartum depression and given her a Valium and some antidepressants. We don't listen to her either.
This faux-medicine shows up in my classroom in a way that may seem harmless, but which I think is subtly insidious. It is not as dramatic as my intro, but I think it represents something negative about the way we see medicine in this country. We love to diagnose the characters in the literature we read. The narrator of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" has postpartum depression; Roderick in Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher" is manic-depressive; Krebs from Hemingway's "Soldier's Home" has PTSD. And I will admit I am as guilty as anyone of diagnosing and labeling.
My problem is not that these amateur diagnoses are "wrong," or unsupported by the text. The problem is that these labels provide an illusion of knowledge which allows us to dismiss these characters. And that is what happens. Once we can label the problem the modern mind (student) believes that all these characters need is a pill and they would have been fine. If we have a label that sounds quasi-familiar, because we have heard the term before somewhere, we can be comfortable feeling superior to the characters and dismiss them.
But we are not doctors or psychiatrists who really understand what postpartum depression is, or what a soldier who suffers PTSD is going through. The label is an illusion; it is, in the words of G.K. Chesterton, "the worst illusion; it is the illusion of familiarity." Once we have the label, we don't have to look closely at the character, we don't have to immerse ourselves in the world the author has created for us. We don't have to empathize. Gilman and Poe and Hemingway and all great authors create fascinating characters who come alive on the page, and we prescribe them pills and close the book. We are familiar with PTSD because we saw that feature on the news, we have no need of this story by some dead author (who happened to have witnessed a few wars up close.)
If you have read "The Yellow Wallpaper" you may see what I think is the final irony of my idea. The narrator's husband is a doctor, and he thinks he knows what is best for her. He confines her in the room with the yellow wallpaper, forbids her to write, tells her not to let her imagination get the best of her, treats her like a child; and in the end she goes crazy. He knew what was best for her and he didn't listen to her complaints or suggestions, and she ended up crawling around a room like an animal believing she has escaped from the yellow wallpaper she had been trapped behind. A hundred years later we come along and shake our heads; if only they had known about postpartum depression and given her a Valium and some antidepressants. We don't listen to her either.
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