Twelve Days in Purgatory

I’ve neglected this blog for the last couple of weeks because I took over a summer mini-term course in first year composition for a colleague. I had always been skeptical about mini-term classes, especially for first year composition. How do you squeeze fifteen weeks of work in to twelve days? I was convinced that first year composition required fifteen weeks for the instruction and practice to m make a different in student writing. I used all sorts of analogies to try to describe what takes place in those fifteen week: things needed time to percolate, to ferment, to flower, to rise (as in yeast bread). None of these metaphors got to the vague idea of growth-over-time I was convinced was required. 

After teaching that twelve day class I was surprised at how much the intensity of meeting for three hours and fifteen minutes every day made up for length-of-time. Students wrote some of the best papers I’ve read; and, I got to know those students, as writers and as individuals, in those twelve days. It was a rewarding time, for me as well as for them. 

I’m intrigued with how closely this experience mirrors my experience, and the experience of many of my colleagues, with online learning. We are skeptical, even resistant, until we try it. Then, though we accept the possibilities, we are still not convinced online instruction can match face-to-face instruction. Some of us, myself included, have come to the conclusion that online has the possibilities to be as good as, and in some cases, exceed, face-to-face. In particular, I am intrigued with how much better I get to know my students when I read informal posting from them online than when they sit in my class silently staring at me day after day.