In surfing through the Inside Higher Ed website I stumbled upon this article that caught my eye. Written by John Warner, “The Roots of Those Not So Good C’s” (hyperlink below) discusses the potential causes of C students, particularly from his experience in teaching freshmen level writing courses. I find this discussion engaging because I feel that at times that he is describing some of my exact students. Warner starts out his article with a surprising and very interesting fact by stating,”The news out of the University of Arizona that students who received a C in the required first-year writing course have a less than 50 percent likelihood of graduating…” I found this so interesting because there was clearly a direct correlation made between this particular course that we are all currently teaching and how it can be an indicator of student success (or failure). Due to the nature and size of our classes we may be the best poised teachers to see problems arise in our students. We may additionally be best equipped to help guide them to successfully overcoming those problems, when such a feat is possible.
Warner discusses 5 potential causes for students being C students. One of these is “lack of writing experience/substandard pre-college education” which definitely speaks to my students. In discussion today my students brought up the fact that many of them have never been expected to write papers that are more than 2 MAYBE 3 pages in length. Many of my students feel like they are flying blindly into the 4-5 page essays that we are expecting them to write. This was a bit surprising to me and makes me look at my expectations in a new light.
The next potential cause that Warner discusses is “college transition problems.” Under this headline Warner alludes to the “freedom” that college offers for students. He basically talks about how students struggle to balance between school life and personal fun. This point also hit home for me as I had a student tell me today that she made a bad decision to go out on Saturday night which caused her to miss both of her UCEW meetings that she had scheduled. I know I should have had some sympathy for her but it was difficult for me. I basically told her that she has to be responsible about the decisions she is making, and she seemed to already have learned her lesson from this experience so I felt that I did not need to belabor the point.
While Warner goes on to discuss 3 more potential causes for C students, the last one that I felt I related to was what he referred to as the “acute problem.” He discusses this as a range of “minor” to “major” outside factors such as “illness or death of a loved one” or “homesickness.” While I always take stories from students with a grain of salt (especially when they conveniently fall on the due date for a major assignment), I also feel like until they prove me wrong I have to give them the benefit of the doubt. I have already had multiple students report to me that they have lost friends or family members, or are personally going through some kind of major issue. While most of these students are doing okay with their course work, I can see the potential for them to be affected long-term by some of these issues and am currently doing everything I can to maintain a certain level of expectation while also remaining sensitive to their basic emotional needs. This whole teaching thing is more complex than I could have ever imagined. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy, but I didn’t realize how difficult it was going to be for me to maintain a fair balance of expectation in the classroom.
https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/just-visiting/roots-those-not-good-enough-cs