In tale 19, Don Cunningham explains his conversation with students pertaining to lettuce. Somehow they began talking about collective nouns. So what is a collective noun? A collective noun is a noun, as herd, jury, or clergy, that appears singular in formal shape, but denotes a group of persons or objects. But my question isn't whether or not lettuce is a collective noun--it seems to me that it would be when talking about a head of lettuce, as stated by the student--it's what do you do in a situation in which you don't know the question or a student takes control of the conversation?
Yet another thing that a new teacher, such as myself, is worried about is not knowing the answer to a question. I feel this way especially, because I don't have a background of rhet comp. In fact, it was what I loathed the most in high school and early years of undergrad. So naturally, teaching this subject seems a bit daunting, considering I didn't start paying attention until my junior and senior years of college, and even then I didn't get much experience. So, how would one handle a situation in which a student asked this kind of question? Cunningham states that he was trying to regain control of the class. How difficult would this be? From what we have discussed thus far, it seems that being honest and saying you don't know the answer is the best way to handle this. I think that's what I would do if I came to this situation--which seems inevitable, really. Maybe being honest would get everything back on track.
And I think we can all agree that we'd be glad Mary wasn't in that class, as he was glad his advisers weren't in his.
I think it is easier to admit I don't know then to circle around trying to handle the question somehow. As we have discussed in class, it's usually an option to say, "Hey, I don't know off the top of my head; let's look it up." As far as bringing the discussion back on track, I think a lot of people just say something like "Alright. . .let's get back on topic. . ." In the writing center I sometimes have let the conversation go off topic for a few minutes, but I bring it back to the writing repeatedly if necessary. In the classroom the same practice could work. There's a place for chatting about things, but in the 50-75 minutes we have with 103 and 104 students in the classroom, I don't think there is that much room to talk at length about things extraneous to writing, and in general those conversations can go on longer than is comfortable.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I agree with M's comment on your post, Jeremy. And I would also like to add that I imagine it's a rare occasion in which Eng103 students would actually be that interested in collective nouns or any other obscure grammatical issue. I think one of the big goals of teaching composition is getting the students to see that grammar/mechanics/conventions is only one (and a local one, at that) piece of the puzzle that is good writing. So your disinterest in or lack of knowledge of that particular kind of information probably isn't really that big of a problem anyway.
ReplyDeleteI was a little confused by the lettuce story because it seemed like his students were really thinking, even if it was silly. I agree with the above about redirecting it, but I usually use moments like these as running jokes in the class. I might even refer to it later in another class and say something like, "Let us not have a lettuce discussion again." Ok, I wouldn't actually be *that* cheesy. :)
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