My first round of grading student papers was exciting and scary. I felt so incredibly blessed to be participating in the development of student growth by reading and commenting on their well thought out work. The next round of papers, well not so much. The negative attitudes of bored (and sometimes angry) students started to show in their work. I realized that most were’t listening to me at all, and still couldn’t tell me what MLA stood for. Their papers were long and filled with confusing tangents. Between the poor writing (which I was sure was purposeful) and equally poor attitude I was being turned into Edna Krabappel.
There are some obvious differences between myself and Ms. Krabappel like our hair color. Also, the chain smoking, love affair with an overly dependent principal, and of course the chain smoking. But we both were frustrated with our students, annoyed with the work we were receiving and assigning, and in dire need of an outlet. While I noticed this transformation taking place, I decided to make some in class changes. I kept up with the random questions at the beginning of class. It interested my students and me too. I gave free writing, journal assignments (and participated in them), and asked students for suggestions and opinions. Every day wasn’t perfect of course since I still had my very own Bart Simpson, but I felt better and never started chain smoking. So yeah, improvement.