In my previous post, I discussed some of my frustrations about my students’ writing. Well, we talked today, and we had great discussions, and I left class beaming. It went wonderfully. We talked about some of the minor grammar problems, and then I asked them to bring their first portfolios to conferences this Thursday through next Tuesday, and we’d discuss individually ways to improve the papers. We went over works cited stuff in class, which I think was helpful for some.
Also, two friends of mine, as Lucilla and Brock, came to class for about 15 minutes while we talked about visual rhetoric (I had to explain to Lucilla later tonight what rhetoric meant). It was great, and part of it was kind of drag panel, as students asked about drag. We had a great conversation, and then the students also analyzed my dress and appearance as visual rhetoric.
A student brought up nonconformist v. rebellion, which I thought was an interesting dichotomy. I hadn’t thought about that much, I guess. He defined noncomformist as doing it for yourself because it feels right, and rebellion as proving something. At the time, I answered that the way I dressed might be noncomformist, but I did a lot of things (which I didn’t go into because they’re political) that are rebellious. Now, thinking about it, I don’t know if I see a difference. I’m not sure. I had to ask him what he thought the difference was before addressing the issue, because I had never thought about it that way.
Isn’t any attempt to not conform some form of rebellion, even if it’s futile?
*Oh, and the best part of class was two minutes afterward, when this bright, articulate young man came up to me and told me how encouraging it was to earn a B+ after being such a slacker in high school. He had fathered a son his senior year of high school and had decided to start turning things around, and I think he’s doing great.
