Looking back on midterm reflections, I can say that overall they were a success. It was a great chance for students who needed to discuss specific things on their papers with me to do so, since evidently getting a student to actually visit you during office hours is like having a root canal. However, what I did notice is that not many students actually came prepared with questions based on my comments left in the margins. After many students failed to take my comments and corrections on their rough drafts into consideration, I’ve begun circling errors, but not giving exact corrections for some things on their papers, especially if I know we spent a lot of time on it in class. Anticipating many questions regarding my non-specific comments, I was braced for an onslaught during one on one conferences. However, my hopes were crushed as students just sat across from me and passively listened to my explanations. What I got instead was the comment “I didn’t know we had to do that on every paper.” Rather than coming to see me to find out what went wrong in their paper, or discuss ways to improve, they choose to continue making the same mistakes, and I’m not sure why. I know this sounds rather pessimistic, and I would like to stress that this is not the case for every student. I’m just astounded at the differences between when I was sitting in freshmen comp as an undergrad myself, and the behavior of my current students. BLOWS MY MIND!
Oct 142015