What is something people cannot tell about you by looking at you? College Edition. That was the connector at our staff meeting this week. The prior week, we had tackled the same question, but childhood edition. We made our small group quickly, 4 of us and then looked sheepishly at one another, none of us ready to share. So we looked up to the left, to our mind’s memory, down to our feet for inspiration, thinking and thinking for a good minute or two. I then quietly cleared my throat and told the group I could start. “I am not proud of it, but I was on academic probation after my first semester of college. I thought I was ready, but it turns out. I wasn’t.” My colleagues looked at me. One said, “You are right, I would not have been able to tell that about you. “I got some help and eventually figured it out. But it was a rough transition,” I elaborated.
Looking back, I still feel the shame of those first grades on my record. My university had us do a writing test upon entry, as a screener, to figure out who needed remedial writing before they were ready for regular college writing. They called it Subject A. I failed the screener. So I was placed in remedial writing class where we learned how to write a 5 paragraph essay. Yes, a 5 paragraph essay. I still marvel at the fact that I got through highschool without any teacher teaching us this basic structure of writing. I loved writing in highschool. I got A’s in writing. But it turns out I knew nothing of structure. So there I was each week in my remedial writing class, learning the basics. Argument, supporting paragraphs of reasons, evidence, examples. I passed Subject A and then is was off the the humanities sequence where they expected us to read books, lots and lots of books and write long papers on themes, arguments with lots and lots of evidence. My subject A class got me to 5 paragraphs, but the demands of a 5 page paper was still difficult. Over time, I figured it out. Slowly. Painfully. One paper at a time.
Eventually I excitiedly took some creative writing classes, my much preferred genre. Turns out there is structure there too that I also had no clue about. Each week the critiques from my fellow classmates and TA was that my writing pieces had lots of descriptions, great imagery, but no dialogue and no plot. I was so embarrassed that I did not know this. How could I not know this? I still loved writing, but realized there was much to learn about what made it effective.
(On a side note, thank goodness for the Common Core, making explicit and universal, what kids should know and be able to do. I am guessing my students today could write a piece that passes the screener for Subject A
I was not daunted though by those early humble writing failures. I joined the university newspaper and wrote piece after piece learning about feature articles, opinion articles, and review writing. I eventually graduated with a minor in creative writing and one of my first jobs was for a small town newspaper writing feature on local residents. So yea, something you can’t tell about me is I struggled in college, ending up on academic probation. What is something we can’t tell about you by looking at you?
