Post by Tom Dvorske on Oct 26, 2005 17:11:12 GMT -5
Here's part of a response I wrote recently to an English Teacher in Georgia who wanted to know what we expect our freshman to be able to do.
Most of our freshman are shocked and discouraged when they get their first (and second, and third...) papers back because they do so much worse than ever before. From my point of view, this does not signify a failure on anyone's part. High school teachers have immense demands and clear standards to which they must teach and so students may demonstrate a high level of facility with reading and writing in high school, but are not savvy enough to recognize that writing and reading are not either/or skills, but on-going and developing processes. A lot of Comp I at West Georgia is rebuilding morale. I have a hunch (and a hope) that the new GPS will help us bridge the apparent gap between High school and College expectations. From my perspective, the GPS articulates what we already expect students to be able to do.
The biggest concern I have with my incoming freshman is not so much their writing ability is that their reading ability is often quite low. Specifically, they cannot accomplish much beyond summarizing a reading, and if it's a remotely difficult reading, they can't even do that. I spend a lot of time in my classes on the same readings and reading for specific things, then requiring students to write about those specific things. They simply do not read closely, nor do they reread. And probably the most frustrating is getting students to go beyond simplistic statements of what a text means or even that it can mean multiple things. But again, all of these things are, in my view, an ongoing process, and I guess if students come into college with that in mind, i.e. that they are here to build on what they know and that their ability to demonstrate they are learning is what will be assessed, they'd be much less disappointed.
Then I added this:
I do think that many first-year writing instructors, too, could stand to hear about what it is you guys deal with, what you teach, and how you teach. I'm not sure they have a realistic sense of what their students should be capable of doing.
So, in light of all this, I thought that it might be productive for us to discuss what it is we believe our students should know and/or actually do know when they come into our classes. Sure, we have written expectations and all, but what do our in-class observations tell us?
Most of our freshman are shocked and discouraged when they get their first (and second, and third...) papers back because they do so much worse than ever before. From my point of view, this does not signify a failure on anyone's part. High school teachers have immense demands and clear standards to which they must teach and so students may demonstrate a high level of facility with reading and writing in high school, but are not savvy enough to recognize that writing and reading are not either/or skills, but on-going and developing processes. A lot of Comp I at West Georgia is rebuilding morale. I have a hunch (and a hope) that the new GPS will help us bridge the apparent gap between High school and College expectations. From my perspective, the GPS articulates what we already expect students to be able to do.
The biggest concern I have with my incoming freshman is not so much their writing ability is that their reading ability is often quite low. Specifically, they cannot accomplish much beyond summarizing a reading, and if it's a remotely difficult reading, they can't even do that. I spend a lot of time in my classes on the same readings and reading for specific things, then requiring students to write about those specific things. They simply do not read closely, nor do they reread. And probably the most frustrating is getting students to go beyond simplistic statements of what a text means or even that it can mean multiple things. But again, all of these things are, in my view, an ongoing process, and I guess if students come into college with that in mind, i.e. that they are here to build on what they know and that their ability to demonstrate they are learning is what will be assessed, they'd be much less disappointed.
Then I added this:
I do think that many first-year writing instructors, too, could stand to hear about what it is you guys deal with, what you teach, and how you teach. I'm not sure they have a realistic sense of what their students should be capable of doing.
So, in light of all this, I thought that it might be productive for us to discuss what it is we believe our students should know and/or actually do know when they come into our classes. Sure, we have written expectations and all, but what do our in-class observations tell us?
