A Knot of Cruelty

First week of teaching has been crazy. Amazing. Crazy.

I thought teaching three blocks of writing would completely tire me out, but no, I still barely have energy. Just enough energy for me to use all of during my dance class. And THEN I just fucking die. I’m out of it at after school staff meetings, I’m out of it when I talk to people, and when I get home, if I sit my ass on my couch for even a second, I will fall asleep.

Writing class itself is not that bad, at least for management and discipline. My kids, especially my block A, are still crazy, but I hear through their friends who aren’t in my class that they’re saying that I’m stricter than I was last year. So that’s good.

HOWEVER, I am noticing a new problem. Last year, I admit that I was terrible when it came to grading my students’ work. Basically, I never did it. I collected their homework, and their homework sat in a corner of my desk. So far this summer, I’ve been good about grading their homework, and I’m making shocking discoveries that they just don’t get it.

You all know what hooks are right? The very first sentence of the entire essay—the attention grabbing sentence in an introduction paragraph? You don’t even need to know the essay prompt to tell that these hooks are pretty bad:

“The hook of the story is that the brother of Doodle is teaching him how to walk.”
“The hook of the story is about his brother Doodle.”
“The way it uses the of cruelty borne by the stream of love.”
“Outrageous statement/Exaggeration. Question or quotation.” (This one must’ve though that the homework sheet was for taking notes.”

A lot of students also answered the wrong question. It’s like they didn’t even know there was a certain question to answer even though last Friday I spent like five minutes explaining and re-explaining the question. I had to refrain from writing “YOU ANSWERED THE WRONG QUESTION” across their paper. I feel that writing it in a small space at the bottom of the page doesn’t get across my desire to slam my head through a wall.

And I really hate grading in non-red ink. It’s recommended that we not use red because red just conveys too many negative emotions, but not only do I want to use red, but I want to use MY OWN FUCKING BLOOD.

I just don’t know. Right now, I’m just going to mainly blame myself. I must not be giving them clear enough instructions. I must be talking in circles when I give my ten-minute long explanations about hooks. I probably shouldn’t depend on them to copy down the homework from the board. (I probably shouldn’t even depend on them to copy down half of all the answers when I preview the homework. Because they don’t. They just leave that shit blank anyway. I see them writing, but what the hell are they writing?) I need to give them more time to process all the information about introduction paragraphs. This week is my redemption.

And so next week, if they’re still getting shit wrong when it comes to introductions, I can feel better about blaming them.

I have to admit, sometimes going to class can be dreadful. But one reason that I’m still loving Breakthrough and that I haven’t been discouraged from reapplying next summer is my relationship to the students when I am not teaching them. When I don’t have to be their teacher, I feel some really close connections with them. This year, my bonding with all of the students (the 25 students I teach and the rest of the 90 or so that I don’t teach) has been so damn amazing, especially compared to last year. Last year, I looked forward to teaching class and slightly dreaded hanging out with the students between classes because I sometimes felt awkward when I wasn’t in control. This year is totally the other way around. I’ve got running gags going with the students, inside jokes, secret handshakes interesting conversations, and I’ve even found some middle school students with interest in dance. I get so happy when I think of some of the friendships I’ve already made.

Tomorrow, in class I’m going to be a harsh ass bitch. I wrote a four-page packet dedicated to pointing out mistakes in terribly written introduction paragraphs (I pretty much lifted them straight out of the homework). I’m going to shout, I’m going to go berserk, I’m going to scare the shit out of my students and make them drip sweat with every stroke of their pencil. And once class gets out, I’ll ask them about how their night was, tell them about my night, and tease them, and we’ll all share stories from our pasts and laugh as we are gathered around together at our lunch table.