My Worst Semester Ever

It had to happen sometime. The perfect storm of early morning class, high levels of student apathy, family issues, health issues, writing anxiety, party-hearty ethos of modern university culture, and just plain dull curriculum have all added up to almost 30% of my students flunking. Never, and I repeat, never, have I had such a high rate of failure in a writing class. The students are failing because they have not turned in their work. A big, fat zero has filled many of the slots on the online grading spreadsheet. Now, you might find yourself asking Why did this happen? And I would be glad to speculate but have to confess that I have no easy answers. I am very willing to acknowledge that I likely am part of the big equation that will explain the dearth of performance and elan in this class. It might be bad luck. It might be the stress of money that high tuition creates. It might be the toxic political climate that undervalues reasoned communication. It could also be a symptom of digital brain wiring meeting the need to sustain a focus. It might be a combination of variables that I have to identify or consider. And, like I said, the curriculum, as corporate textbook, is dull as door knobs. I add some spice to that, of course, but that text is enough to make my eyes roll back in my head, and I LIKE this stuff. Also the emphasis on teaching rhetoric seems to bog down discussions. I don't think that an over-emphasis on teaching about writing -- purpose, audience, subject, situation -- necessarily improves writing. Writing and getting feedback about things writers care about improves writing. We don't work on writing as much as we talk about what motivates and shapes expression in general and writing in particular. Abstraction has squeezed out practice. But none of this explains why so many of my young, healthy, smart, impressionable men and women, who, in their first college semester, are going to crash and burn.