CORE CLASS: Fecho ch. 7-9

Teaching for the Students:  Habits of Heart, Mind, and Practice in the Engaged Classroom (2011) 

by Bob Fecho

 

Every Spring semester I teach my students how to write an argumentative research paper and every Spring semester I struggle with the process and with how best to work with my students to ensure that their writing improves.  I spend approximately 10 hours of my time outside of class reviewing, revising, and approving thesis statements.  I spend another 20 or so hours of my weeknights and weekends reviewing, making comments, and approving note and source cards.  I spend yet another 20 or more hours of my time reviewing and making comments on outlines that in almost every instance have to be revised for a second review and approval.  That's over 60 hours of work before the first draft of their paper is even written.  They draft and revise and peer edit and revise again before submitting their final work.  And although I know that most of my students look at my comments and try to improve, I don't see enough evidence of improvement for my liking, especially not given the amount of time I spend reviewing and commenting on their work.  Every year I feel like there has to be a better way to connect with them about their writing, but I am always at a loss at how to do this.  In chapter 7, Fecho makes an interesting point about taking a visible interest in student's work via conferences.  Certainly, this is not the first time I have heard of having writing conferences with students, but this is the first time that I encountered such a compelling argument.  Although my students know that I spend anywhere from five to ten minutes with each step of their research paper process, although my students know that I care about them, although my students read my comments and try to apply them to their work, those comments are just not the same as a dialogue.  A dialogue offers the opportunity for a mutual connection and commitment to making the work better together.  My comments instruct them on what needs revision, but students don't have a chance to ask why that revision needs to occur or how it makes their work stronger.  I think this is a crucial missing piece to my research paper process, however, the question remains as to how to schedule the time to have meaningful writing conferences with all of my students given the amount of curriculum that must be covered in the Spring semester.  This is definitely something that I am going to consider while planning for next year. 

In chapter 8, Fecho introduces the idea of taking advantage of the shifting contexts of each class period.  He suggests that although each period should have the opportunity to generate their own responses to the text, exposing students to the perspectives generated in other periods provides a wider context in which to consider the work.  Although I have done this on occasion by mentioning an interesting point or question raised by an earlier class period to a later one, I like the idea of opening up more than one point and also allowing the first class of the day to benefit from what later classes have pondered.  Fecho mentions the use of a wiki for this purpose.  The LMS that my school has adopted this year will allow me to experiment with taking advantage of the different contexts of each class period.

The environment in which I teach has a quite homogenized culture, but there are still some significant differences among my students.  Some students have been born and raised in Miami and barely speak Spanish, while others spend their summers with extended family in their country of birth and are quite fluent.  Some students come from very wealthy families, others come from families who struggle or work extra jobs to send them to the school, and many others receive a partial or full scholarship.  I have Mexican, Venezuelan, Argentinian, Ecuadorian, Cuban, Puerto Rican, Haitian, African-American, Asian and Caucasian students.  I have students who are Catholic, atheist, agnostic, or Jewish.  Although I was born and raised in South Florida to Cuban-born parents, my cultural experiences differ quite a bit from many of my students.  As Fecho mentions in chapter 9, I know that I can't expect to know all about all of the nuances of their cultures.  I like to think, however, that there is space in my classroom for dialogue among the cultures.  I like to think that although there are sometimes startling differences between some of the cultures sitting in my classroom, every student feels comfortable engaging in dialogue that demonstrates their cultural contribution to my class.