A few years ago, I was ready to quit my teaching job. But I didn’t.

I’ve been a teacher in some capacity for twenty-three years. I fell in love with the profession when I was a college student and landed a part-time job as an assistant language teacher in… Read full post »

Dear readers:

I've received some comments and missives recently from discouraged teachers who have stumbled upon my blog and have found it helpful. This makes me very happy. However, there's a place I want to send them, and I can't. So I'm going to try to fix this… Read full post »

This week, I am working on essay structure with my post-intro students. After 22 years of teaching essay structure in various forms, I am, as you can imagine, sick of it. But then I came across this little analogy: how to bake your essay like a cake! It's… Read full post »

On Monday, I brought you the story of Penny, who failed my course last term and is repeating it, and has transformed from a diligent and cheery student into a discouraged and sullen one. There were lots of thoughtful suggestions about how to help Penny, and several people asked to… Read full post »

Penny was in one of my courses last semester. She failed. Her basic skills - reading comprehension, written and oral expression, logical organization - were all very poor. However, she was motivated and hardworking, and didn't seem discouraged throughout most of the term, even when she fail… Read full post »

It is only a week and a half into the semester, and already my office mate and I are talking about plagiarism. There are hangovers from last semester - cases that never quite got resolved - and our college has a new plagiarism policy that requires, among other things, that/…

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On Monday, I posted about M, a student in one of my courses who was blaming her previous teacher for her course failure and asking to be promoted to the next level. As anticipated, I and the placement coordinator met with her on Thursday to get a clearer understanding of/…

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A cri de coeur from a university economics professor, Art Carden, has been circulating lately, in which he begs students to understand that a) professors do not live to torture you, b) teachers are not punishing you because you don't know everything, and c) a bad grade does not mean that/…

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Today is the first day of the new semester. I'm not exactly pumped. I've been working all weekend to find a motivator, or an inspiration, or a visualization to turn to when I feel it's all too much. What's my objective for the next fifteen weeks? What… Read full post »

For English teachers, reading for pleasure can be tough.  After grading papers all day, the last thing I want to do is read more.  Also, my personal reading has become subtly oriented toward finding material for my courses; I seem to be approaching every novel and memoir through the (imagin… Read full post »

It's that time of year again.

(Actually, it's a little past that time of year - it was that time of year, oh, two weeks ago, when it was still last year.)

Nevertheless: a roundup!

Here are the posts from Classroom as Microcosm that received the most hits this year.  The reasons… Read full post »

I have once again received a very interesting query from a reader.  The blog will be on hiatus until January 9, so you'll have lots of time to think about it and respond!  Jan Simpson would like to know: if you had to design an education system from scratch, how would you/… Read full post »

As is usual this time of year, I'm dealing with a trying student.  Yesterday, as a cathartic measure, I prepared a post in which I collated our email exchange since the beginning of the semester.  If you are not me, this exchange is no doubt extremely entertaining.  (If you are/… Read full post »

The following conversation took place earlier this week on my personal Facebook page.

Siobhan: Open memo to a student who shall remain nameless: Going into your final paper, you had an overall average of 59.7%. Did you not feel the stakes were high enough to invest half an hour in formatting/… Read full post »

This week, The Tenured Radical has an imaginary conversation with her imaginary college-age progeny in which she explains why he/she should not cheat in order to get through the hellish last weeks of the semester.  In the process, she directs us to some more online cheating reso/… Read full post »

On Monday, I published a letter from S, who feels the urge to delete friends from her social networks when they write updates full of grammatical errors.  You had lots of interesting responses.  Here's mine.

Dear S,

I sympathize.  I really do.  But I can't commiserate

… Read full post »

The other day, I received a letter from a reader who is having an extreme emotional response to others' bad grammar.  What should she do?

Dear Auntie Siobhan,

Would you consider writing a post on the issues of being an English teacher and social media user?

When I read status

… Read full post »

Let's say a hypothetical student submitted a hypothetical essay containing assertions similar to those below.

(The assignment is a real one: a report on a series of oral presentations in which students "sold" books to the class.  The books were assigned from a list that I created.  T… Read full post »

On Monday, I posted a letter I received from a reader, asking advice about whether he should stay in college.  I promised you I would post my reply today, and here it is.  I sent this response before posting his letter here, and before reading your thoughts on his situation/… Read full post »

Last week, I received this query from N, a college sophomore.  I will publish my reply later, but for now, I'd like to know what you think.  What should he do?

Dear Auntie Siobhan:

My senior year of high school I found myself going from a good student in AP

… Read full post »

1. Plagiarism

In my remedial class, we have been talking for two weeks about paraphrasing, integrating quotations, citing sources and so forth.  Nevertheless, three students have received zeroes on the first version of their final paper because of incorrect use of source material.

There a… Read full post »

Two weeks left in the semester.  I am trying not to drown.  I can't write much today, but please read this and tell me what you think: is there such a thing as too nice, especially where female academics are concerned?

Image by Chris Bowers, from the Images from #Occu… Read full post »

 

What do you think higher education is for?

Back in September, Richard Kahlenberg gave a convocation speech in which he outlined five "Purposes of Higher Education."  I don't entirely buy them.  Kahlenberg, in his speech, is critical of the extent to which higher education/… Read full post »

Last week, the Atlantic published an article that takes a new perspective on the problem of bullying.  The upshot: prevention is all very well, but not enough is being done to treat victims of bullying after the fact, and such treatment might be a way to stop the bullying c/… Read full post »