| PEDAGOGY | ||
Lauren Camille Mason Table of Contents:
I have always been skeptical about the notion of a “student-driven classroom” and even more skeptical about the genuineness of English instructors who use that term to describe their approach to teaching literature or composition. Whenever I encounter that phrase, I instantly recall the advice of a professor who led a teaching statement-writing workshop that I attended as a graduate student. “Please,” he pleaded, “Do not go into an interview saying that you embrace the philosophy of a ‘student-centered classroom.’” The truth, he continued, is that “everyone knows that all professors really embrace a ‘me-centered’ classroom.” While I, like so many of my progressive-minded colleagues, do truly believe in the value of a classroom that is driven by the students’ needs and interests, I also believe that my professor’s cynical assessment of the student-driven paradigm is fundamentally true. Try as we might to let our students determine the shape and flow of the classroom discussions and activities, that “me-centered” model often manages to slide its way into the most well-intentioned teaching practices. Perhaps this is because the role of the instructor becomes unclear in a classroom where students are encouraged to take the lead in discussions and debate. For students to thrive in such an environment, the instructor has to be willing to marginalize his or her own voice occasionally in classroom discussions. Rather than leading a discussion or inviting students to comment, we may have to guide the exchange among students in various non-intrusive ways--or simply keep quiet and let the discussion unfold, digressions and all. I find this to be a monumental exercise in self-restraint and patience on my part and, at times, frustrating and unnerving. Working on this project with my first-year honors students has helped me to learn to embrace teaching from the margins. The project was originally conceived as a collaborative story to be written by the students under my instruction. For my purposes, this was an assignment designed to reinforce the postmodern theme of the course. I thought that the act of writing a story from multiple perspectives grounded in a single genre and cast of literary archetypes would give the students a sharper understanding of the structure of postmodern narratives, character development, and rhetorical devices. What I did not anticipate, however, is the degree of ownership that the students would assume over the concept and creation of the story. From the earliest stages of development they gently but firmly rejected my attempts to shape the story. When I challenged them on their original concept, a comedy in the style of a mockumentary populated with the various archetypal honors students, they held their ground. Rather than give up their idea, they continually reworked it to correct those elements I identified as problematic until they had a solid framework for the story. Throughout this process, my role gradually shifted from project leader to project consultant. I was invited into discussions of the project to clarify technical points or pre-established guidelines. They asked me questions like “Is this an archetype or stereotype?” or “How many pages can each group have?” Or, I was asked to settle disagreements over stylistic choices: “Do you think it would be funny to add a moose?” or “Wouldn’t it be more interesting if our character wore glasses?” In these instances, I was consulted primarily because I was the only “outsider” who happened to be around; often, my opinion did not settle the matter. In fact, I got the impression more than once that my opinion served as an index of what not to do. My marginal status in the creation of this story was solidified when the students chose to incorporate my absence from class on the day the story was planned into the story. The entire story revolves around their inability to complete the planning of the story on the day that their professor is out of town. The one hour and fifteen minutes in question refers to the class period they were supposed to use to work out the structure of the story together while I attended (allegedly attended, according to their accounts) a field trip in Atlanta. Thus, one of the themes running through “The Story of an Hour and Fifteen Minutes” is my absence during the critical stages of the story’s development. This theme also characterizes my real role in the development of the project. Because I was not there when the idea was conceived, my knowledge of the project was always anecdotal, second-hand knowledge, filtered through the multiple conflicting accounts the students have shared with me. Both as a character and a real-life instructor, my authorial voice/ authority with regard to this project is diminished by my absence during the planning stages of the project. The writerly position that I take up in the story as the beset professor who has lost control over her class and been made into a marginal figure in their class project is not far from the truth. As the project progressed and we embarked on the “Behind the Story of A Story of an Hour and Fifteen Minutes” movie, the students worked more independently. They met after classes to work on revisions and the movie. Twice, we worked on Saturdays. On these days, my job was to let them into the building, supply donuts in the morning, pizza at noon, and check out audio-visual equipment that the school will lend only to faculty. My suggestions for the film were roundly panned and flat-out ignored. Eventually, I resorted to shooting my own video of them shooting the video for the film, creating a meta-film titled, “Behind the Story of the Story Behind The Story of an Hour,” which still has not been incorporated into any of the “official” film footage. Fittingly, the two film parts I was given only reinforce my marginal status: I am the nosy professor caught peeking in on my class from an outside window, and later, the exhausted professor trying to slip away at the end of Saturday session only to discover that her students are continuing to film her as she drives away in her car. My screen time in the finished film: two minutes. The number of my suggestions that made it into the film: zero. For their final project, the students presented the project and the film (which I was not allowed to see) to a panel of invited guests and faculty members. Their objective was to explain the structure and logic of “The Story of an Hour and Fifteen Minutes” and to show how it uses postmodern narrative devices and strategies. I provided them with only a rough set of guidelines for the presentation. Again, I had to sit on the margins and let them struggle through the painstaking process of articulating the work they had done and connecting it to formal literary elements. Only once did I have to intervene, and that intervention took the form of a sharp dressing down/ pep talk when I realized that only one person had actually written out her presentation. Yet, I had only to remind them that this was their project and that they were responsible for seeing it through to get them moving again. Two days later, they delivered a flawless, well-written, articulate, and organized presentation that culminated in two short films, which made every faculty member laugh and made two faculty members cry (I was one of them). I have not yet had time to process fully every component that went into making this class a successful example of a “student-centered” course. I am, however, certain that one of those components is my (sometimes reluctant) willingness to give up control of my class and renegotiate my role as an instructor when the students seemed to be doing just fine without me. I have also learned that simply guiding students in the right direction can be a form of active instruction. The things that I wanted them to learn registered when I instructed through casual conversation or gentle suggestions. At the end of the course, they were able to fill a whiteboard with literary terms they had learned throughout the semester; they even listed terms that I did not recall teaching them (see fig.1). After they collected the terms, I had them go through the entire story together (projected on a screen in the classroom) and identify those elements that exemplified the literary and rhetorical devices they put on the whiteboard. They also used this time to proofread and revise for clarity and style. This whole process took about two hours; one student made the changes on the computer as they were suggested, while another read the story aloud (in various European accents “to keep things interesting,” I was told). While this is a rather unorthodox way of teaching students the importance of editing and revising, it was extremely effective. Their personal investment in the story made them more attentive to issues surrounding clarity and style. Similarly, revising the story together gave them a chance to discuss and debate why they wanted to make certain changes. Finally, with the knowledge that I was not going to intervene unless absolutely necessary, the students turned to their class notes, dictionaries, and style guides when they were unclear about certain points. (Of course, I helped them work through mistakes in later class discussions.) So, in addition to helping them understand the importance of editing and revision, this student-centered process helped them to become more self-reliant and engaged in productive peer-review activities. Ultimately, the project they produced was more creative and interesting than anything I could have conceived of on my own. Further, their insistence on keeping parts of the project a secret from me forced them to rely on their own knowledge to resolve problems. Resigning myself to the margins of my own classroom has been a challenge at times; I did not always do it willingly. What I know now is that it is a challenge worth taking if I hope to continue to cultivate truly student-centered learning experiences for my students. Fig. 1: Graphic Re-presentation of Classroom Whiteboard
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