Sunday, September 30, 2007
On Carl Gerriets
After reading Carl Gerriet's "Building Relationships through Written Dialogue," I thought to myself, that really made sense. In getting ready to teach next semester, the thing that I've been thinking about most is how to reach a diverse group of students, and especially how to reach students outside of our discipline who may not be as engaged as we would like all of our students to be. Gerriets said, "I need to establish a conversation with each student and build on it throughout our time together," which of course is something I have given much thought to before, but the fact that he does this primarily through responses to student cover letters on papers is brilliant. Not only is he not handing out a grade until the end of the semester with the final portfolio, but he is providing detailed comments for each paper. What I found to be most interesting about this is that Gerriets isn't just commenting on the students' work--he is responding to the needs the students express in their cover letter, and he saves all of this to his computer so that he can look at it the next time he responds to them, and see their progress throughout the semester. All of this shows that he is truly dedicated to the progress of each individual student, not simply ensuring that they know how to write an A paper, but that they understand more about the writing process itself. This idea has been coming up in nearly all of our readings and discussions, and, though I think we can all agree that it's important, what we really need to be asking ourselves, like Gerriets, is how can I do this in my teaching? How can we improve our ways of building relationships with students so that what we are teaching them becomes more valuable to them? I think this has a lot to do with some of the things we talked about from Mem Fox's "Notes from the Battlefield" article. She writes about helping her students to develop as a writer by writing what matters to them, and Gerriets is teaching by showing he really cares about their writing, and encourages his students to become invested in their writing progress through these cover letters and responses, and so I think the values of both Fox and Gerriets go hand-in-hand. With each article we read for this class, I have noticed that they are all generally going in the same pedagogical direction, but I think that we can really use these ideas in our own pedagogies, if we take what we like from each person we learn from. Personally, I really like Gerriet's way of responding to papers, and I think I would like to try something like that for my own classes. I also definitely want my students to "ache with caring" when they write their papers, and so there are aspects of Fox's pedagogy that I could see myself adapting. What I really think is important here is that we see that there is no one way to teach, and that we can learn from everybody, even (or especially) the students.
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3 comments:
This was an idea I’ve never heard of before. In theory, this seems like it can work well; though I can see a major problem with cover letters. Gerriets and Lowe address it briefly, but I think it’s a bigger hurdle than they do: getting the students to actually care about this extra writing, and if they do care, getting them to write honestly is also going to be a problem. Many students are going to see cover letters as just more work to do, and may be resentful about this extra work (my opinion: “tough shit”). And the students who do care may only write what they think you want to hear. So I think that the results you get on these cover letters will eventually add up to something valuable as the students learn to trust you and themselves. I wouldn’t expect to strike teaching gold with these in the very beginning of the semester.
Cover letters are shown to build a relationship between you and your students. This is good, but I think it’s equally important for students to build relationships with each other as a community of writers. In this respect, blogging can be used as a tool to open up discussion amongst students about their writing and their associated anxieties, thoughts, etc. But it all boils down to students finding value in writing by knowing that there is an audience who cares; it’s a good idea to at least start with the teacher.
I'm a big fan of the cover letter. Two weeks ago I had my class write one before they turned in their final drafts, and some important things were revealed. I learned about specific writing processes, last-minute edits they wished they had made, opinions of the writing center and the class in general, and so on. I was surprised how thoughtful and detailed so many of them were, especially considering I only gave them 5 or 6 minutes to crank them out. (Of course, there were a few hokey moments; "I really loved researching this topic and writing this paper and can't wait for the next assignment" etc.)
I feel that cover letters are important for a number of reasons. Not only do they communicate to the students that I actually care about them, but it also helps the instructor evaluate students' writing. Like Gerriets, the letters were the first and last things I read. With the students' candid words in my head, I was able to write back appropriately--answering questions, agreeing with some statements, posing questions of my own, adding encouragement. Essentially, their letter jump started my own.
That all said, I do have some questions for Gerriets: 1) He says that he "seldom give[s] length requirements on papers" (256). For real? Doesn't he get wildly divergent paper lengths then? Maybe that doesn't matter? Does it? I think it does! 2) He says on 258: "I always sympathize with my students, and I wince for them when I know the grade won't be to their liking. If there is no grade, however, I can assess freely without wincing." I totally agree that it's much more important to give written comments than numeric/letter-based evaluations, but the education system is, unfortunately, still set up on numbers and letters. So at the end of the semester, it still comes down to that. Isn't it somewhat unfair to use one mode of evaluation for assignments and then switch to a different one at the semester's end? I can just see an incensed student now, thinking, "What? Where did that C- come from?"
Even at Sarah Lawrence, my alma mater (where they "don't give grades"), they really do. In addition to the written eval each prof must complete at the semester's end for each student, they also have to tag the students with a grade. (Not many SLC-ers know this, or at least not until they request an offical transcript for law school or something.) This practice contradicts SLC's philosophy but they do it because it's how the world operates.
So is there a compromise? In the class I'm teaching now, there are four major paper assignments. In addition to writing a letter of evaluation to each student, I plan on giving them a letter grade. This is a sort of halfway point between Gerriets and the traditional grading system. Not as a good as it could be, but perhaps more practical with the current set up.
I'm reminded of Brooke, and his assertion that writing class is a form of disruptive underlife. My guess is he (and Gerriets) are right. So maybe I need to be more disruptive. Beh. I'm eager to see what you all say in class about this one.
Yeah, I like the cover letter idea as well. I’ve done this for classes in the past, and it gave me an opportunity to discuss my writing and pose questions directly to the professor. I think it’s a great means for students to separate themselves somewhat, and discuss their writing—in writing, nonetheless! Plus, it obviously helps establish a more personal teacher-student connection. I think it might be helpful to occasionally pose some specific questions for the students to answer in their letters, along with allowing the students to reflect more generally and pose questions of their own. I realize cover letters will not work for everyone or every assignment, and that not every student will take advantage of the opportunity to pose questions and reflect, but I think it might give teachers—or me, at some point—insight into the students’ concerns, writing process, and interests. As the teacher and students “correspond” in this way, I think it might help students to recognize the teacher as an audience, and not only an evaluator.
Also, I always appreciate the practical details from Practice in Context. I do not have any academic teaching experience, so it has been really helpful to read about successful activities and practices from professors. It feels like I’m getting tips! I thought it was interesting that Gerriets formed his responses like correspondence letters. He typed them in a “friendly” font, signed them, and stuck them behind his students’ cover letters. Nice idea. First of all, my handwriting is also pretty horrid, so I can see how typing might be more efficient for both student and teacher. And, as Gerriets points out, since the letters are saved on your computer, it is also a great way to keep records or reminders for later. I wondered if foregoing handwriting might compromise the seemingly “personal” connection the teacher was trying to establish, but a thorough, insightful, and legible letter might be even better than a paragraph of handwritten comments at the end of a paper.
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