Yesterday a new teacher brought three classes worth of essays over. She is new to the school and new to my services although she does not seem too much younger than I. These students are sophomores, reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and theoretically learning how to write an essay of literary criticism. That's the theory but not the reality. What's most frustrating to me is there doesn't seem to be a purpose, or if there is a purpose it must be to provoke failure in the students.
I have read one full class worth of essays so far and so far not one student has a thesis statement. Not only are there no thesis statements but they don't even seem to understand the prompt (what one student called a "promped"). Simply giving students the prompt and then letting them go is akin to throwing a kid in the deep water to teach that kid how to swim. What purpose is served if all of these students fail?
Wouldn't it be more worthwhile to begin by discussing what an essay is? Wouldn't students learn more by talking in class about how to read the prompt so that they can then understand what is expected? This isn't even "AP" English yet, simply 10th grade English, so the basics are what they need. And even if many of the students don't speak English at home or have limited proficiency in English no matter what language they speak at home, that does not mean they cannot learn the structure and form. Fifty years ago I didn't speak Spanish but I learned to read Spanish well enough to read "El Cid" and Don Quixote in Spanish and write essays about them in Spanish. But I wasn't thrown off the high dive into the deep water.
This exercise is a waste of everyone's time so far.
Thank you! I teach writing at the University level, and I see the same thing. Back to basics, folks. What is an essay?; What am I trying to accomplish?; Who will be reading this?; etc.
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