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Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Love the Student, Hate the Word Choice
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Today I observed for the second time a language arts class for gifted middle school students. The teacher is her school’s teacher of the year, and she is beloved in the community.
I was a bit surprised by her brutal honesty with her students’ writing. “This is terrible!” “This is no good!” “This is so boring!” Yes, she also had words of praise for some of her students’ rough drafts. But she didn’t hesitate to tell the ones who weren’t trying or were misguided in their efforts where their problems were. She wanted them to reach for vivid vocabulary words, and when they let her down she told them so.
I asked her afterward about her blunt assessment of her students’ writing. She said her kids know she adores them, so she doesn’t worry that they’ll crumble under her criticism. “I’m trying to get them ready for high school,” she said. “They need to hear this.”
Teachers, can you tell it like it is with your students, especially when it comes to writing and other areas where there is no clear right answer? Do you worry about hurting their feelings? How do you break it to a sensitive student that his or her writing is not up to par?
