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Great Students

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Many people ask me if I love working at UConn more than working as a high school English teacher, and I tell them truthfully that there are things I like a lot better, like a flexible work schedule not determined by a bell system, but that there are things I really miss about teaching high school students. Namely, I miss the students.

At UConn, I am primarily an direktur with a teaching assignment. I only teach one class a semester and then the summer institute courses, so I typically only have about twenty students a semester. I know many of you are thinking that you’d love to only have twenty papers to grade at any given time. And I agree. I would have felt the same way back when I had 87 to 126 students (my smallest and largest loads, respectively, in twelve years in a high school classroom). But I truly missed students—well, perhaps not all of them but most of them.

But now that I am a few years into the position and have become the official advisor to the dual degree students in English and Education, I enjoy seeing a regular crew of students. At this point, I have around forty advisees, mostly future high school English teachers but also Special Education and Elementary Education students. I meet with them all at least once a semester, and many of them more often than that. And I have several students who have taken more than one course with me, not to mention the many interns, tutors, and graduate assistants that I get to work with in various capacities. I find working with all these students to be one of the most rewarding aspects of my job.

One day last week I had my graduate assistant, my intern, and two other students from my class hanging out in the CWP office talking, not to me, but to one another—talking about books, teaching, graduate school, and other related subjects. I was just in my office area answering emails and feeling proud that my office was a place where all these students felt comfortable hanging out and where students from all different areas of the major could get together to talk about the field of English.

A few days later, my intern and I had lunch together and talked about his work, the novel we are currently reading in my class, and his plans for graduate school next year. The following day having lunch by myself, a former student came by very excited. I had written her a letter of recommendation for an internship, and she wanted to thank me and share with me that she would be working for CPTV this spring, and the internship director had loved her writing sample, which she had written for my class.

The following day I met with another former student to talk about graduate school. This young woman had made a tremendous impression upon me in my Advanced Composition class, and I had written her a letter of recommendation for a tutoring position with the University Writing Center, which she got. She later was assigned to work with a graduate student to run the Writing Project-Writing Center collaboration and to organize a fall conference. She also parlayed this position into some grant work with EASTCONN. Now she was hoping for a letter of recommendation for graduate school. I emailed her about a week later to let her know I had a draft if she wanted to come by and let me know which schools she had decided upon.

So, one afternoon earlier this week I was talking with my graduate assistant about her career goals after she completes her MA. We talked about the Teacher Certification Program for College Graduates and the Alternate Route to Certification, as well as teaching in the community colleges or as an adjunct. We took a break to go get coffee and bumped into the young woman who was inquiring about a letter for graduate school. Coincidentally, she had been headed to my office, so we all walked back together, and it was nice for the two young women to meet and talk because they have such similar interests.

Then, in my office, I let the young woman read a copy of the draft of the recommendation I had written, which she initially thought wasn’t permissible, but I assured her that it was my prerogative to share the letter with her. While she read, I talked with my graduate assistant about something, and when I turned around to see if the young woman was finished, she had tears in her eyes, and she said, “That’s the nicest letter anybody ever wrote about me.”

These are the things I love about my job. I love being around so many smart, interested, and interesting English majors and future teachers. I love being able to help students. I love to hear of their successes and to play even a small role in their accomplishments. They are always so thankful for the advice or the letters of recommendation, but of course they are the ones who write the papers and do the work that earns them my and everyone else’s good opinions, that earns them positions as interns, tutors, graduate assistants, and, ultimately, teachers. The day the young woman who got the position with CPTV came by, I was actually having a sort of crappy day, and her good news, enthusiasm, and sincere thanks lifted my spirits for the afternoon. I was perhaps as appreciative of her as she was of me that afternoon.

This Thursday morning, Jon Andersen, Monica Giglio, and I are leaving for the NWP Annual Meeting and NCTE Annual Convention in Philadelphia. We’re hoping for a great experience. It usually is. The following week the university is on break for Thanksgiving, so I will be taking a brief hiatus from this column till the first week of December. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone, and thanks for reading.
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