Pedablogue, by Harvest Bird
teaching beyond tips and techniques
Chagrin
18 June 2004, 2:25 pm
18 June 2004, 2:11 pm
I am curious concerning what student answers to my prep lit exam will be like when I begin marking next week, given that the response was that it was so "hard".
Throughout the course I've told students that the point of a literature exam is for them to show the marker (ie me) what they know and what they can do. On reflection, perhaps I should have said what they know and what can do within the constraints of the question.
In a sense, the engaging content and ideas of this course may have worked against students' ability to feel like they could answer the questions. By this I mean that the exam not only tested what they knew but also how they could adapt it to the structure demanded by an essay answer.
This second part of doing literary study is built into the first to a large extent, but I may not have emphasised this sufficiently for students going into the exam.
Having said that, I also think that most of them will have done a better job than they think they have at this stage. My feeling has always been that a "good" literature exam is one where you are stretched to the point that you focus entirely on constructing and writing an answer, not one where you write with ease and finish with half an hour to spare.
We shall see.
NZS3
18 June 2004, 1:46 pm
I've now spent two weeks with my latest New Zealand Studies class, almost all of whom are from China. I feel much more on top of things these days than when I started teaching this subject three years ago, and it's a good thing, because the same potential limitations show themselves for students each year.
It's been my experience both on and off campus that most people are highly ambivalent about the concept of studying and reflecting on culture in general, unless you count what I would call the stuffed sheep and paua ashtrays level of culture (which is really more of a level of consumption).
Many new students who come to New Zealand Studies are almost embarrassed by certain aspects of the surroundings that we take for granted: low-rise houses, little weeknight nightlife (especially for young people), and people's informality and preference for an outdoor life. These things often appear primitive to students from highly industrialised and urban cities on the Chinese eastern seaboard. At the same time as they profess dislike of the vertical hierarchies of Confucian heritage culture, they perceive the the laid-back locals as rustic or quaint. This applies especially to Maori culture and Maori contexts.
Since New Zealand Studies proceeds from a Maori as well as Pakeha base, Maori content in early lessons is often greeted with embarrassed laughter. (This is also typical of much younger students in New Zealand schools. I remember repeating words like "whakapapa" and "whakarongo" in all sorts of contexts at the age of around eleven, since they sounded so inappropriate even thought I knew they weren't.)
At this stage of the programme, students aren't used to interacting with content or thinking for themselves. Ask them to answer a question verbally and they scramble for handouts, looking for the written answer that they can repeat. Even though they listen patiently while what we are doing is explained, it makes no sense to them at this stage, any more than the requirement that a student under a Zen master sit motionless for hours makes sense to someone with no knowledge of Zen (and of course even when you understand the reasoning, you may still not agree with or approve of it).
The "how" of these skills is built into the course as much as the "what" of content; indeed, the two proceed together. The reasoning that underpins the course's very existence is that these are things that need to be foregrounded, that culture needs to be taken seriously as a force and phenomenon that affects students' ability to participate effectively in learning in a tertiary context. (You would be correct to infer from this post that this view is itself contested among the programme's staff.) But there's a considerable lag, nearly the length of the 28-week course for some students, between the teaching of this skills/content hybrid and their ability to make sense of it.
It makes for a tiring fifty minutes in the classroom sometimes.
Category: Evaluation ... Permalink
Seen
18 June 2004, 1:37 pm
...on one student's hoodie during this morning's prep history exam:
"Gifted"
On the t-shirt of the student next to him:
"Stoned"
Fame
17 June 2004, 1:45 pm
Mike Arnzen, of the original Pedablogue fame, has kind words to say about this small project.
Please note that I have linked to his site as a whole, and not to the praise-rich post alone!
Farewell
17 June 2004, 1:11 pm
This week is exam week for my prep lit students, and this morning they were sitting their literature exam--"my" exam. I hadn't seen most of them for two weeks, since lectures finished, and now of course I can have no contact until results are released.
It is curious for me--and amusing for my colleagues--to observe the effect that having full responsibility for writing, teaching and examing in a paper entirely derived from my field (as opposed to the adjunct and related areas in which most of my teaching occurs) has had on me. I experienced today the same unexpected wave of emotion I experienced on the first day of the course, whose development has been the main motivation behind my decision to stay in this job over the last few years.
On the first day it was a mix of optimism and excited hope concerning what was coming for the students, specifically the hope that my course, and the programme it's part of, might form a genuine, legitimate and workable bridge into tertiary study for those who would otherwise be without a pathway in the immediate future. Today, making eye contact with students as they sat down in the lecture theatre to sit the exam, I felt really good about the fact that I'd been able to give lectures and tutorials and carry out assessment in a way that's hooked students in--not necessarily into literary study itself, but into the experience of learning in a tertiary institution.
The difference that I've emphasised for them all the way through is that at university one can--and should, in my opinion--be skeptical at all times, as a path to being able to reason and argue persuasively and (if this leap is logically valid) effectively. Students who were disillusioned with secondary school, whose experience of doing literature had been to memorise main ideas identified for them by the teacher, were able to flourish in a course where they might not be overjoyed about the content, but could still engage with its context and not feel stifled by the occasions on which their opinion differed from mine.
In many ways, my course has been about learning how to engage with texts and ideas, and how to write in a way that draws upon this engagement. The thing that has made it so rewarding for me is being able to do this in my own area of content interest, working with people whom I've come to like very much. I felt rather battered as I watched them sit the exam, unable to call on my usual repertoire of informal reassurances and remarks that deflect anxiety--indeed, not really able to make eye contact at all!--and knowing also that this is the end of the road for my colloboration with these students.
Now of course comes the marking of the papers, which I sometimes think is equivalent in focus and time spent to preparing for and sitting the exam itself, which, incidentally, they said was "hard".
Throughout the course I've told students that the point of a literature exam is for them to show the marker (ie me) what they know and what they can do. On reflection, perhaps I should have said what they know and what can do within the constraints of the question.
In a sense, the engaging content and ideas of this course may have worked against students' ability to feel like they could answer the questions. By this I mean that the exam not only tested what they knew but also how they could adapt it to the structure demanded by an essay answer.
This second part of doing literary study is built into the first to a large extent, but I may not have emphasised this sufficiently for students going into the exam.
Having said that, I also think that most of them will have done a better job than they think they have at this stage. My feeling has always been that a "good" literature exam is one where you are stretched to the point that you focus entirely on constructing and writing an answer, not one where you write with ease and finish with half an hour to spare.
We shall see.
NZS3
18 June 2004, 1:46 pm
I've now spent two weeks with my latest New Zealand Studies class, almost all of whom are from China. I feel much more on top of things these days than when I started teaching this subject three years ago, and it's a good thing, because the same potential limitations show themselves for students each year.It's been my experience both on and off campus that most people are highly ambivalent about the concept of studying and reflecting on culture in general, unless you count what I would call the stuffed sheep and paua ashtrays level of culture (which is really more of a level of consumption).
Many new students who come to New Zealand Studies are almost embarrassed by certain aspects of the surroundings that we take for granted: low-rise houses, little weeknight nightlife (especially for young people), and people's informality and preference for an outdoor life. These things often appear primitive to students from highly industrialised and urban cities on the Chinese eastern seaboard. At the same time as they profess dislike of the vertical hierarchies of Confucian heritage culture, they perceive the the laid-back locals as rustic or quaint. This applies especially to Maori culture and Maori contexts.
Since New Zealand Studies proceeds from a Maori as well as Pakeha base, Maori content in early lessons is often greeted with embarrassed laughter. (This is also typical of much younger students in New Zealand schools. I remember repeating words like "whakapapa" and "whakarongo" in all sorts of contexts at the age of around eleven, since they sounded so inappropriate even thought I knew they weren't.)
At this stage of the programme, students aren't used to interacting with content or thinking for themselves. Ask them to answer a question verbally and they scramble for handouts, looking for the written answer that they can repeat. Even though they listen patiently while what we are doing is explained, it makes no sense to them at this stage, any more than the requirement that a student under a Zen master sit motionless for hours makes sense to someone with no knowledge of Zen (and of course even when you understand the reasoning, you may still not agree with or approve of it).
The "how" of these skills is built into the course as much as the "what" of content; indeed, the two proceed together. The reasoning that underpins the course's very existence is that these are things that need to be foregrounded, that culture needs to be taken seriously as a force and phenomenon that affects students' ability to participate effectively in learning in a tertiary context. (You would be correct to infer from this post that this view is itself contested among the programme's staff.) But there's a considerable lag, nearly the length of the 28-week course for some students, between the teaching of this skills/content hybrid and their ability to make sense of it.
It makes for a tiring fifty minutes in the classroom sometimes.
Category: Evaluation ... Permalink