This Feels Like Failure: Why Are So Many Students Dropping My Advanced Placement English Class?

I teach an Advanced Placement English class. It’s a challenging class. It’s hard. Really. There are times when it’s not fun. High school me would’ve struggled with it. Undergrad me probably would’ve struggled with it a bit. Shoot! Come to think of it, there are days when I would struggle with it now, if I were juggling what my students are juggling.

The students have to learn difficult vocabulary–words that show up frequently in classic literature–and they have to use said vocabulary in context. They have to learn how to identify AND write in sentence structures that I didn’t learn about until college or after. They have to read challenging, sometimes dense, sometimes archaic, sometimes confusing (but beautiful! controversial! poetic! lovely! wonderful! universally truthful), texts, rife with figurative language, dripping with irony, loaded with difficult-to-decipher symbols (but that have withstood the test of time). They are in charge of leading discussions. They are responsible for analyzing literature through writing.

I view this class as not just a way to prepare for the Advanced Placement test they will (hopefully) take (and DOMINATE) in the Spring, but to prepare them for college, and more importantly, to ready them for the cruel world after college. In it, they are exposed to rich content, but even more importantly–they practice and (usually) master transferable skills that they will use for the rest of their lives: effective writing in multiple modes, critical thinking, creativity, idea generation, collaboration, decision-making, time management …

They blog. They analyze. They interact face-to-face. They interact digitally. They do or do not hit deadlines (and there are consequences for both). They write. They speak. They think. They think. They think. They think and think and think!

They are currently synthesizing their skills in the form of a mimesis–an assignment that requires them to create an original short story that mimics (in more than one way) the work of a famous author, whom they have studied in depth. It is–to use one of their vocabulary words–arduous. It is hard work. It takes time. It takes tenacity. It’s not something most people can write in an hour and half (though I have a student who claims he did … !)

And, at the end of last week and today, nearly half of them brought me paperwork to drop my class at semester.

Herein lies my feeling of failure.

Some of the students have legitimate-sounding excuses for dropping the class. Some of them do not. However, underneath all these reasons–legit or not–is a nagging question: What did I do wrong?

I want this class to be rigorous. In fact, it’s required, by College Board standards to be rigorous. My district requires it to be rigorous. However, I don’t want to be so rigid as to drive away my students. They are, after all, some of my favorite people in the whole world! Don’t get me wrong: I realize that not every students is cut out for Advanced Placement English, and it is a typical event for some of them to drop at semester, but the sheer number of drops this time around has me in a bit of a stupor.

As a result of these drops, I’m not feeling like the greatest teacher. Not that I ever feel like I am THE greatest teacher, but today, I am feeling pretty down. It is my instinct to keep these feelings to myself or maybe to whine a little to one of my mentors, but I have decided to reflect here–”out loud”–because I don’t think we lament enough in public. It’s important to put our best selves forward to the world when we can, but it’s also okay to reveal the moments that are the most trying. This week has started out with a fizzle, but this anticipated mass exodus of students has deepened my resolve to continually improve myself as a teacher. But for today, I’m going to take some time to marinate in this feeling of disappointment and to labor over my aforementioned question, along with these:

  • What can I do differently to retain more of my students?
  • What can I do to impart–to students and their parents–that what you learn in a class is more important than the almighty grade?
  • Is this class’s level of rigor befitting a entry-level college English literature and writing course or have I taken it too far?
  • Are my expectation too high? (I don’t think so–but believe me–I will think about this.)

I’m holding onto the hope that tomorrow and the next day and the next day will be better days–as a result of reflection and time. I’m holding onto the hope that next semester, I’ll be a better teacher–as a result of this semester’s events and as a result of this public reflection on some very raw feelings.

iFixate (a post of gratitude)

When I find something that works, I tend to fixate on it. Right now I am fixating on my students’ blogs. I have a few “greatest hits” as far as things that I’ve tried that have gone over well in my career and I’m officially adding blogging to the top of that list. I’ve tried blogging or some form of it in the past and nothing has worked as well as this year’s blogs. One year I had students “discuss” novels in the comments of a blog I posted. Another year I had students respond to literature in their own personal blogs. In the grad class I teach in the summer, I’ve tried group blogging and I’ve tried individual blogging, and grad students will do pretty much whatever their instructor asks, but that doesn’t mean that they will do it passionately. (It doesn’t mean they WON’T either, but it is the exception and not the rule.) One thing that I did differently this time is I asked the students to generate their own topic based on their personal passions. This seems to have done the trick for most of my students.

PASSION was the missing ingredient.

How silly of me to have overlooked this precious commodity. I mean, I have meant well over the years. I’ve made attempts to INSTILL passion in students, but when you get down to it, passion is innate, it is familial, it is written in the unique code of our DNA. It CAN be contagious, but there must be a seed of interest there in order for it to grow. YES, I am passionate about reading and writing, and so are SOME of my students, but for those who have other interests (which would include nearly every single student I encounter), blogging provides an opportunity to dig into their interests whilst practicing invaluable skills! It’s a win-win and it’s going to help us meet and exceed some standards along the way too.

I don’t want to give off the impression that this has gone off without some hitches … In fact, NOTHING! … *REPEAT* –> NOTHING! I do ever turns out PERFECTLY … I’m convinced there is no such thing as “perfect” in education, and I do think we do not SHARE our failures and imperfections enough! I could blog exclusively on my daily fails, but it’s more fun to promote what goes well!

Some students are still experiencing a bit of writer’s block and some suffer from apathy or Senioritis, but for the most part, this whole blog thing has proven to be an effective way for students to practice their writing and in many cases, their research and to stretch their thinking and creativity. And frankly, this is more interesting for me as a teacher than reading 80+ canned responses on a piece of literature half the students weren’t interested in anyway. It’s pretty painful to read through so many similar pieces of writing only to discover they are nothing more than regurgitations of what I said in class or — worse yet — responses designed to appear as if they are regurgitated forms of MY thought, but it’s clear that the writer is just “faking” it because he or she DIDN’T read the text AND/OR DIDN’T listen in class. That’s REALLY painful.

These blog entries are a delight AND I’m learning things about the topics the students have chosen and more importantly about the students themselves.

So, I’ve been fixating on these blogs and my TEACHER dashboard lately. I’ve been tweeting out my students’ links like crazy! I’m just as excited as the kids when they receive a comment from outside of our classroom and I’m off-the-charts, over-the-moon excited when I see someone has made another post, on their own time, just because they WANT to do it. I stumbled into a Twitter chat last night on “visible learning.” Talk about visible learning! This is why I teach!  This is why I’m still learning!  My students’ PASSION BLOGS have reignited my passion for teaching writing and for someone who’s been in “the biz” for nearly 14 years, that is so valuable. My students have given me this gift and I am so very full of gratitude.

 

Learning is just awkward sometimes … or, if you’re me … ALWAYS.

I’ve fumbled. Twice this week.  And it’s only Tuesday.

Bumbling Fumble 1:  I assumed (I know!  I know! Anyone who was in Mrs. Pickrel’s English class ought to know what evil the act of assuming leads to …) that because I was able to read my Doodle from MY Macbook Air and from my iPad that the students would be ablt to as well. In my Contemporary Literature and Writing class, we are using the Zite and Flipboard apps–both digitally customizable personalized social magazines–on our iPads. I chose this as a way for my students to access FREE high-interest non-fiction writing. The assigned part of it is that they have to share two articles per quarter with the rest of the class. They’ll do this in person (by verbally  summarizing, analyzing, evaluating the chosen article in class) as well as by sharing the link to the article with classmates via email and/or Twitter.

So, I sent them an email with a link to a Doodle I set up.  (Doodle is a site, which also has an app–of course–in which you can create and send out potential meeting times to a group of people and they can all respond with times that work best for them. It helps to alleviate the inevitable flurry of emails or phone calls that often ensue, when a group of busy people try to set up a meeting time that works for all of them. I wanted to use it in this situation to have students select two days in which they would present their articles. Essentially, I wanted to use it as a digital sign-up sheet. I like to think of it as a creative alternative to the “traditional” Doodle.)

They ALL received my email (which is a modern miracle in and of itself — no typos!) with the link to the Doodle; they all clicked on the link and then everyone–and I mean EVERYONE–one by one–then two by two–then as an entire group–began informing me, in a cacophony of outrage: “THE LINK DOESN’T WORK!” “DEAD LINK!” “IT SAYS IT DOES NOT EXIST!”

It was the browser again. The same stinkin’ browser that garbles my pdfs. The same one that makes scrambled eggs of my Pages docs. The same browser that is the ONLY one the students are currently authorized to use on their school-issued iPads.  The same browser that is … going away tomorrow. (HOORAY!)

I told the students that we would wait to use the Doodle tomorrow. Then we listened to a podcast introducing the novel Rule of the Bone by Russell Banks through AppleTV (which is my favorite favorite favorite thing right now for sound and audio). Then, I read the first chapter of the book aloud, which is probably one of the most low-tech things I could’ve done at that point, and, frankly, it felt gooooooooooooood.

Though the assumption I made during Bumbling Fumble 1 was a classic human error, Bumbling Fumble 2 was even more of a Fumbling Bumble on MY part and less related to a lack of app or website compatibility or technology failure in general. It was a rookie error really. After twelve years in this game, I should really have known better. I wanted to use Socrative in Contemporary Lit yesterday, but instead of setting it up ahead of time, I had it in my head that it was so very easy and user-friendly that I could set it up on the fly. This is never a good approach in any arena. Don’t get me wrong, Socrative IS easy. It IS user-friendly. It does NOT take long to set up at all.  That is, unless you haven’t used it since the summer, and you’ve forgotten the basics, which describes me perfectly in this situation.

So, lesson (re-)learned: Flying by the seat of one’s pants is best saved for vacations and date nights. But, then again, failing in front of the students isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It shows my hu–manity, for goodness sakes! OH THE HUMANITYYYYY! It shows that I’m taking risks (a careless risk maybe, but nevertheless a human risk) and I didn’t let it fluster me, as I might have in my earlier years. We just broke out the dry erase markers and scratch paper and kicked it old-school for a minute.

No doubt we (students, teachers, administrators, parents) are all curving along the learning continuum this year, as we matriculate in this new digi-rich environment. I am learning something new every single day thus far, and maybe it’s just me, but true learning always includes fumbling and bumbling. For me, true learning is always delightfully awkward.