While grading this semester's first big pile of student papers, I'm struck by a recurrent problem: students have trouble extrapolating patterns from models. I give my writing students a variety of models: sample papers to show proper MLA format, sample Works Cited listings, sample thesis statements appropriate for specific assignments, a list of the most common ways to introduce quotations with the appropriate punctuation for each. "Make it look like the model," I tell them, and some of them do it quite well, but others don't and I can't figure out why.
Suppose you want to introduce a quote and you're using a word like "said" immediately followed by the quote; you look at the model and you see a comma after "said," and you see that the quote starts with a capital letter, while a quote introduced by "said that" has no comma and no capital letter. I point out that what works for "said" works for similar verbs, and I even list some of those verbs on the handout. I give them examples in class and get them to compare the examples to the models in order to make a decision about punctuation. During the first half of the semester, I even make my composition students chant the Quotation Mantra at least once a week: "Integrate, punctuate, cite; integrate, punctuate, cite." (It probably doesn't accomplish much, but it makes me feel good.)
And then I get a pile of papers with the punctuation absent or wrong, and when I ask the student to compare her sentence with the models, I get something like, "But my sentence is different." And I hear the same thing about citations, thesis sentences, and even page numbers: some students look at the models and when they don't see an example exactly like their own, they give up.
I suppose there's some research out there showing that models are outdated and I ought to be doing something entirely different, but really: what could be easier than looking at a sample paper and saying, "Ah, that's where the page number goes!" Maybe they're not really looking. Or maybe they're looking and seeing something they don't quite understand and throwing their hands in the air. I just know that I'm seeing more and more evidence that my models aren't working, and I wish someone could tell me why.
3 comments:
SUCH an important topic, Bev. I use models, too, and MOST students thank me for them, and they do seem to work with the stronger and most motivated students (who, perhaps, may not really need them after all?). BUT, yes, those who claim that they looked at the models and tried to follow them, really did NOT look at them that carefully once I start asking them questions. They may have tried to look at it, as you say, but then something didn't click and they stopped.
I also use Graff and Birkenstein's They Say, I Say which is all about models and templates: it's the one book the bookstores says student do not sell back in great numbers. So models must be working for most students, no?
I would love to hear if there are other ways of showing the technical stuff than models for students who truly do not SEE where the period goes in a cited quotation.
Ok, back to grading....
Like Annie Em, I use Graff and Birkenstein, too. I don't have an answer about the models thing. How can people who can't learn by looking at models learn from board explanations? Do they need a more "hands on" approach? How do we do that in a room with 30 students?
Of course, the students who learned most easily from models already got the idea in high school, I suppose.
I do the same thing for my eighth graders and get the the same results. The only explanation I can come up with is that ignorance and laziness are highly valued by this generation.
Post a Comment