something that would like to be a conclusion...

...but probably isn't...

In one of my possible writing assignments for next year, I would like my students to write about how one of their classes has helped them to understand another. I would like them to find an “interdisciplinary link,” or a place where their classes overlap in an interesting or exciting way. Part of the reason I would like them to write about this is that it happens to me every semester. It seems that no matter what classes I have, my combination of classes always influence one another. I think I’ve already mentioned that for my 18th century Br. Lit. paper, I’m looking at how Jane Austen is presented in the high school English classroom. For part of this, I am looking at writing prompts that texts give on Austen. What usually strikes me is that they ask students to write about a topic but not a thesis. So often, they ask students to pick out examples of an element in a way that does little more than demonstrate that the element exists in the text, which the question already presumed anyhow. My reading for that class has helped me realize how important a thesis can be for making a paper relevant and interesting. I remember talking in high school about thesis statements, but I don’t remember being challenged to make them interesting or original or even necessarily arguable, so long as we had something like them. Now, however, I keep finding myself telling the students in the writing lab to deal with the tensions in their paper. They shouldn’t try to skirt it, but rather deal with it and take some sort of stance on it. One student I had this morning had an interesting contradiction—well, it wasn’t so much a contradiction as a place of complexity that I encouraged him to develop. I guess I’ve managed to come full circle; I think the ABGW started by talking about “wallowing in complexity” and this semester has certainly helped prove to me the importance of that.
In some ways, I feel that now that the semester is almost over, I should be able to make some grand statement about the “function of the composition course,” but I can’t. Actually, I don’t know that I could after teaching for 30 years, or I’m sure someone would have come up with an answer by now. But I guess for me part of teaching composition is encouraging students to wrestle with complex ideas in their papers but write about them clearly. This very idea of expressing the complex clearly is never easy. Some students have the ideas but don’t quite articulate them, and I think other students are afraid to have the ideas because it would complicate their writing. Hopefully, I will be able to challenge students to complicate their thinking but at the same time give them the tools they need to feel like they have some control over their writing.
But, this leads directly to one of my questions: What business do I have teaching students how to think complexly? Do I think that my critical thinking skills are so great that I can now teach them to others? This is the part where I should probably call my mom so that she can remind me that as a teacher I don’t have to know everything—I just have to remember that I’ve learned a lot from my freshman year of undergrad (which I know I have even if I can’t remember that I have) and that I have to help students make some of those small steps in learning (they won’t learn it all in one semester of comp).
The other question still runs something along the lines of “What am I going to do with them every day?” The reality of this one is that I don’t think I can answer it till I’ve done it. I’ll go back to my mom, who has basically told me that the first year will be hell. I think she said something to the effect that I will feel like they are pulling my teeth out and I have no teeth left to give. (At times my mother can be wonderfully motivating and inspiring, but she can also be simply terrifying.) So, I will plan and then realize that sometimes it will go better and sometimes worse than planned.
Every educator I’ve every talked to has basically told me that the education classes never substitute for the experience. I’ve always been terrified about making that jump to experience, and now that it is almost here, I’m still terrified. But, I also know that I’m excited, and I’m going to try to use all the enthusiasm I can because it is enthusiasm that has made some of the best teachers I’ve ever known, and I want to dedicate my teaching to emulating them.