Basking in the lounge chair of a lighter load.

And that was an awful metaphor, but I press on.

Today marked the last day of my 7-week prep class for this stupid statewide essay, nothing more than a graduation requirement that lets the bureaucrats crunch numbers and proclaim how well our students are doing. Instead of class, though, I held my second round of 15-minute conferences with each of them. (The class only had 11, so that was easily done.) And conferences better served the purpose anyway: they had to know their score on their last in-class essay, they had to get admission tickets to the test location for their designated days, they could ask questions of me if they chose.

This marks only the second time I've taught this course--the first was 4 1/2 years ago, and I feel the same now as I did then in the sense that I can only do so much for them after a certain point. (Sound familiar?) The m.o. of this course is drill and practice, on the theory that one becomes better at writing by writing. So they wrote eight essays, all in class and all without knowing the topics in advance, in seven weeks. And all but one of the original 12 survived. I'm not sure how well I would do with that kind of intensity, so kudos to them all for making it this far.

The common course outline stipulates, among other things, that students are to write at least three passing essays (2 and 3 are both passing ratings) to get a passing grade. Well...easier said than done, sadly, at least with our students. In a mere 7 weeks, it's really difficult to make big headway, but I did see signs of it. Only 2 of the 11 wrote all unequivocally failing essays, 5 or 6 of them wrote at least one passing essay, and the rest had 2 or 3 passing essays. When I didn't see consistent progress, I did see little hesitant stop-start signs of it: perhaps fewer verb tense shifts, perhaps more compelling development now and then. Little signs are all it takes to keep me going.

But I have to say I wouldn't be sorry to see this stupid state requirement go the way of the hula hoop. One has to take it as many times as is needed to pass; after two failing attempts, one has to sign up for the prep class. If one fails the essay again, they once again have to sign up for the prep class. Repeat as necessary. It penalizes many otherwise good students and delays them getting on with their academic lives. For at least two of my students, this essay is one of very few obstacles still in their path before they transfer. It broke my heart recently to see one of my students in this remedial class poring over a calculus text for another class.

And I'm not sure what is proved by passing the essay. That you can produce safe, bland, formulaic writing?