Woke Up This Morning and Got Urself a Gun

First let me say that the title has nothing to do with what is going to be read here. Sometimes I can be very random, but anyway.

Today marks the official day of "I'm done with school so now I have to get a life." Even though I don't have a job, am not madly in love with anyone, and still don't like mussels--I have to move on and become somebody or something.

As I think about the Antoinette from three years ago, I smile because she thought there was going to be some magical thing to take place that would jumpstart everything. The Antoinette from three years ago was a dreamer for the sake of dreaming. Although being a dreamer is not a bad thing, there's something different with the Antoinette of today. She knows that dreaming helps those realize what they want out of life, but it takes more than just looking up into the sky and hoping for the best. The Antoinette from three years later knows that it's going to take some diligence and time to get to where she wants and needs to be.

So with that in mind, the Antoinette from three years later will continue to write and wait, wait and pray, pray and trust that God will lead her to where He wants her to be.

Listening to LIGHTS--February Air

P.S. I'm Leaving You

Mankato, Mankato how much do I love thee. O let me count the ways... Well, it's time to say goodbye to my life as a student, to the place where I've met so many interesting and inspiring people (inspiring might be a bit much), but I will indeed cherish the friendships I've built here.

I'm leaving grad school and it's time to get a life basically. I'm ready to live as an adult who contributes something that the world needs. This time in Mankato has been a growing experience that I'm so blessed to have endured. With all the good times and not so good times, I will say bye bye to go live life in the real world.

P.S. I'm Failing You

I'm not sure why students back instructors into the attendance corner. Why can't they just come to class like normal people. This semester I had a student who I gave more than enough chances to remain in the class. Even after I let her back into the class after five absences she missed again. Even after she signed a contract stating that she wouldn't miss any more class she did, and lied about having a doctor's note (a note that I never saw). With the realization that I had to fail this student I felt bad, but what else could I do?

My Favorite Papers

There is a student that for her synthesis paper wrote about how oxytoxin affects the fetus' brain during delivery. I think this topic is very interesting because it's explaining something to me that I didn't know anything about. Another paper from the synthesis batch is one about how video game violence affects adolescent children and their ability to control aggression in school. With this paper I was more interested in seeing what studies were out there explaining how continual video game interaction affects children socially. The student writing this paper plays video games on a regular basis, and agrees that this is a problem.

The Surprise in the Not-Revise

As others who were expressing their concern about students not revising, I too, have the same issue. Its very depressing to get final drafts back after I've thoroughly commented on them to see nothing has changed. I take a lot of joy in showing my students line edits (for clarity), in hopes that they will understand how important it is to make your sentence structures coherent and readable. Countless, times I've reminded them to read their work aloud because it's the easiest way to check for mistakes. Even when I asked about their revsion techniques, most of them explained that they make changes on the computer than prints out a copy and reads it. I really have difficulty in believing this to be true because there are so many obvious mistakes. I use this phrase a lot in my end comments, "I'm not sure you ..." When I say this, I'm trying to be as sincere as possible without letting my true feelings of "seriously, how could you turn this in?" come through in the comments I give. I believe I am a chronic reviser. Even on final drafts I still give feedback and line edits because I think maybe they will look back at my suggestions and learn something. As it is, the extra work I've given myself has seemed to be futile because we've just completed the third paper and still getting papers with very obvious mechanical and grammatical mistakes.

Woe is me, the grader. Sad face.

What Mrs. Lorenz Said To Me

I know we're suppose to reflect back to a time in college, but I honestlly cannot remember any positive or negative experience. So, I'll talk about something that happened to me in high school as a junior. I'm not sure why I immediately thought of this experience when Anne said "a bad classroom experience." Okay, it was eight years ago and I was a junior in high school, double-honors English. I had this teacher Mrs. Lorenz who was a very sarcastic, but funny lady. She had some personal problems that I knew about like her baby dying from crib death, which ended her marriage, the custody battle for her kids, and the growing tumor in her abodomen that she refused to get removed (I think she was afraid). So when she would have these random mood shifts, and be very bitchy I would like it slide and say, "Hey, this lady has some serious issues." This all changed one day I came into the class and told her about my recent submission to a playwriting contest, and she blantly told me "What for you're not going to win?" I was completely taken aback. I don't think I could close my mouth yet alone respond. I hadn't had any bad experiences with Mrs. Lorenz so I didn't know what to do. Should I talk to my advisor or division teacher? One thing I can say is that it really pissed me off because she wasn't being her sarcastic-joking self, she was dead-serious. It made me feel like rubbing in her face the fact that I won second place, and two hundred dollars, but I didn't.

Thoughts on the Re-structuring of class.

I feel very strongly about wanting to incorporate the personal narrative into my section for next semester. To give students the opportunity to reflect on something in their lives (or about someone), will more than likely make the transition from high school to college writing a bit easier.

A couple of weeks ago, I heard something in a group teachers' meeting about one of the reasons students aren't as eager to participate in class that I thought was very interesting. One of the gentlemen in the group pointed out the benefit of beginning the semester with peer interviews as a way of getting the students comfortable with one another. With this exercise students will be more forthcoming in class discussions, and on assignment introductions days.

This idea of beginning the semester with this sort of personal look into the students' lives seems to be very interesting. As an undergraduate, I participated in numerous of group projects. One of the reasons these assignments worked is because I knew the people in my group, and trusted them. So as for next semester, I want to begin with the personal narrative as a way of easing the students into this new experience.