Installment+27

South of Denver - Chapter 27

October 29, 2005

The results were mixed from Friday's current events quiz (many thanks to Candace Bowen and the JEA Listserv). Good: all but a handful of kids in the Journalism class knew that Rosa Parks had died. Bad: only 40 percent knew about Harriet Miers and her withdrawn nomination. Silly: three kids answered the question: "Supreme Court lady." Really bad: one kid wrote "Sandra Day O'Connor."

Good: All but 3 of 27 knew the White Sox had broken their 88-year curse (though only one kid had ever heard of the "Black Sox" scandal). Bad: Only six kids knew that Iraq had approved a new constitution. Good: All but two kids knew that daylight savings time ends this weekend.

Hardly anyone knew that the newest hurricane was named "Alpha," but I chalked that up to hurricane news overload.

In some ways, their ignorance was "cute," with a faint reminder of the blissful lack of caring that makes childhood, well. blissful.

On a related note: I gave back "This I Believe" essays to my AP Language students on Friday. Perhaps you've heard of this project, which NPR has revived after 50 years. There is a wealth of great curriculum on this, by the way, on www.npr.org , and even an opportunity for students to submit their three-minute essays for possible national airplay on the radio.

It's a tough assignment, trying to write something in 350-500 words that you can stand behind in terms of your beliefs. One thing the assignment requires is courage. You have to tell some sort of truth, or you get stuff like "You should live each day as if it were your last," or "I believe I can achieve anything if I persevere." There were plenty of those. Fine sentiments, of course, but the world is full of fine sentiments. We need some concrete examples. We need writers who show us, not just tell us.

"At the risk of offending you," I said during first period, "some of these essays are the equivalent of empty calories." Ouch! "It's time to move away from safe generalities and show some passion, some fire. What are we afraid of?"

Okay, I got a bit dramatic, but these are, in my two sections, 50 great kids, who by all accepted "standards" are our best and brightest. But not only were many of their latest essays marred by generality after generality - ignoring all our discussions and all my examples of starting from the specific and moving to the general - but many of the papers were marred by the misuse of "their" and "they're," by number disagreement, by unintended sentence fragments. Perhaps the litany of errors is familiar.

After going over some of these foul ups, I finally said, "Remember when you were in first grade, and everything you wrote got posted on the classroom wall, misspellings and backwards letters and all?"

All nodded, suddenly looking happy for the first time that morning.

"It was cute then, wasn't it? Now those errors aren't cute anymore." I paused. "Remember what Friar Lawrence said about honey eventually becoming loathsome in its own deliciousness?" Many didn't, of course, but I was on a roll.

"Cute can soon become cloying and then can become something that makes you vomit!"

The class laughed on cue. Nothing is funnier than a teacher right on the edge of losing it, over something so silly as correctness of expression or writing an essay that does more than meet the minimum standards.

But the best of those "This I Believe" essays will be featured on a page of the Nov. 9 issue of The Rock. Chelsea, the page manager, has been poring over the essays for several days, and she told me yesterday that she's having a hard time choosing the three or four for which we have space.

It's the shotgun approach to journalism, I guess. If we have enough kids write enough stories, essays, and briefs, we will find some quality somewhere. If we have kids shoot enough digital photos at the game, we will find one eventually that is in focus and even tells a story. All 27 Journalism students wrote student profiles for this next issue. Only six or seven will run.

Some kids will get their feelings hurt, I am sure, because their stories didn't get chosen. These are kids who have been told they were "cute" so many times that they have started believing that cuteness is enough. These are kids who have been convinced that simply meeting the "standards" is enough.

Ignorance of the world around us is not cute in beginning journalism students. Inattention to detail in their writing is not cute in AP Language students. We need to set the bar higher than that.

Jack Kennedy

Rock Canyon High School

Highlands Ranch CO 80124

 jkkennedy@comcast.net

 jack.kennedy@dcsdk12.org

Note: This is the latest chapter in a series of columns on working with a young staff in a young school (8 of the 11 staff are sophomores and no senior class yet). It is cryptotherapy for me. It may occasionally provide something positive for you. Please go to the JEAHELP archives to read the previous chapters if you missed them and have absolutely nothing else to do.