This was originally posted on the Writing Program’s “It’s a Process” blog on 9/26/2010.
I’ll admit it. All weekend I was dreading it. When I was walking my dogs by the lake, running the usual weekend errands, waking up in the middle of the night, I would remember that on Tuesday I would be picking up the final drafts of my students first papers. In my mind I kept seeing this stack of paper. I kept dividing “the stack” into piles, sorting “the stack” into seemingly manageable piles, cutting the piles into smaller and smaller piles. I began making the usual deals with myself. (Okay, after every fifth paper, you can get a cup of tea or a cookie or check email or take the dogs out for a walk.) In my mind I kept going over my calendar, blocking out chunks of time in order to get through the stack. As the weekend progressed, the stack in my mind grew, became larger and larger. By Sunday night all I could think of was this giant, towering stack of papers covering on my entire desk. “I can’t do it!” I thought to myself. “I’ll never be able to read them all! Never!!”
At the end of class on Tuesday, I collected my students’ papers and carried them up to my office. I arranged them in a neat pile on my desk. Although the stack wasn’t as large or as towering as I had built up in my mind, I could feel a new sense of panic creeping up in me. “How am I going to respond to all these paper?” I thought to myself. “What am I going to say?” Panic gave way to despair. Why did I assign Myself in Words, again? I already saw the quotations they brought in. I already read their first drafts. I really don’t have anything more to say about living life to the fullest, to always be sure to appreciate your family and friends. I really have nothing to say about the importance of working hard. “I can’t do this,” I thought to myself. Glancing through the stack I could already see that many of these essays were the traditional five paragraph essay, many were filled with generalizations, partially developed thoughts and ideas. What was I going to do?
So I did what most teachers faced with a stack of papers do—I checked my email, I sharpened my pencil, I went to get an iced coffee, I checked my email, I sharpened another pencil, I googled something, checked my email again—until the fear of not getting through the stack became so great, I finally sat down at my desk, picked up the first paper, and began to read.
And then I realized what I was forgetting. These papers were written by my students. The students I have been getting to know over the last three weeks, the students I’ve been doing writing exercises with, listening to, talking to. As I began to read, the students’ faces appeared before me. I could hear their voices through their words. Things they had said in class came back to me. I wanted to keep reading. I realized that I wanted to know what they had to say. I wanted to know what they were thinking. I wanted to say something back to them.
As I made my way through the stack of papers I realized I was no longer reading clichéd papers about the importance of friendships, of being nice to your family, and the virtues of working hard. I was reading about Lisa’s* homesickness, Jack’s fears of dealing with the academic challenges of college, Mary’s feelings about being away from her family. The stack was no longer a stack of paper, but the students in my class.
Okay. I’ll admit it. I still sorted the papers in smaller piles. After every paper that I read I counted how many I had left to do. I still took breaks and bribed myself in order to make it through the stack. The panic that I wouldn’t get through them all, never really went away. And I’ll admit it, when I finished the last paper I did get up and dance around my office.
But I realized I was forgetting something else. I was forgetting that these first papers are more than just the first papers that our students write. These papers are just the beginning, the start of what we are going to be working through all semester. These papers are the beginning of us learning more about our students. Our responses are the beginning of the dialogue we want to open up with our students about their writing.
* All student names have been changed.