Paper #1: Untitled

Imagine my total surprise when, while casually perusing the sample autobiographical narratives assigned to us in Dr. Cauthen’s English 575 The Teaching of Composition course, I read an anonymous student essay that was actually about me! My initial surprise turned to shock and then horror when the essay seemed to portray the student as emotionally scarred because the teacher returned a paper that was replete with so many corrections scrawled on it that the student “thought it fell in a pool of red paint.” Had I unknowingly inflicted irreparable damage? I envisioned a bird with a broken wing flapping about, unable to fly. To have deeply wounded a student’s soul goes against everything I stand for; after all, like doctors who invoke the Hippocratic Oath, the first rule for teachers is “Do no harm.” A dark cloud of guilt hovered over me; I was shrouded in shame.

In class a few days after my initial reading of the essay, I slumped lower and lower in my seat, squirming with embarrassment as the professor facilitated a discussion of Paper #1: Untitled. Thankfully, no one in the class poured salt in my wound by fixating on the teacher referenced in the essay and castigating him for what he’d done. I breathed a sigh of relief and once again sat upright when our attention shifted to other papers in the packet. As the discussion ensued, however, I resumed my detective work, revisiting several clues to the identity of the student who wrote Paper #1, clues dropped by the professor and clues in the essay itself. I had been torturing myself since I read the essay, wracking my brain in an effort to identify the student so that I could locate this person to make amends, and when I heard Dr. Cauthen’s last subtle clue, I was struck with an epiphany: I had found the proverbial needle in the haystack. Out of the thousands of students I have taught over the years, I suddenly knew who wrote the essay: Jason Bernard!

For several years, in between positions as a head high school varsity football coach (and English teacher), I worked for the USC Neighborhood Academic Initiative, a pre-college enrichment academy housed on the USC campus (but technically I was assigned to the faculty of Manual Arts High School, according to the Los Angeles Unified School District). Jason Bernard was a junior when I first arrived, and he was enrolled in my 11^th grade honors American Literature class. Now that I know exactly who wrote Paper #1: Untitled, I can better understand the writer’s intent , to which he alludes in this line from the opening paragraph: “I’ll be describing points in my life when from discovering that my writings weren’t great to my transition on improving my writing skills.” Unfortunately, Jason’s paper, as we received it in English 575, is truncated. The excerpt ends with the hurtful shock of his discovery that his writing was severely deficient, but that is not where his story ends.

Jason was, at the time, typical of the students that I regularly encounter as an inner-city high school English teacher. Immediately I found him likable, charismatic and engaging. And immediately I noticed a huge disparity between his stated goal (“I wanna go to SC!”), his academic proficiency – and his work ethic. His deficit was attributable to numerous factors. The following is not a comprehensive list, but it is representative of what high school teachers must contend with as we work to improve student literacy: He was playful and immature; he had not previously developed an ability to discipline and regulate himself, to focus and commit to sustained rigor. He was surrounded by other silly teenagers that distracted him and derailed any effort he made to concentrate. He had a simple, youthful world view and existed only in the narrow universe of South-Central L.A., and only in the here-and-now; he had few models of accomplished academic and professional adults in his life, and fun came first and foremost. Hard work and the concept of delayed gratification while preparing for the future were, to him, out of the question. He was the typically disaffected young man who wears a hoodie to hide the headphones blaring rap music in his ears as he sits in the back of the classroom pretending to participate, and who is secretly texting on the cell phone he hides under his desk. The attention span of this type of student, even when well-intentioned, easily shifts from class activities to outrageous YouTube videos, hip-hop reality TV shows, sports, and of course, girls (“shorties”). Their focus swings sharply from school to problems at home, rumors of imminent gang retaliations and assorted tales chronicling lurid acts of violence witnessed in the streets… There are times when, positioned alongside these distracting subjects, academics just can’t compete.

The list of factors working against students like Jason is not complete unless we also consider Jason’s experiences with various teachers in elementary school and middle school. Note that Paper #1: Untitled makes mention of several teachers who sent mixed messages, alternately telling him that “my writing were very good” and failing him. While in middle school, Jason points out: “I felt that my writing skills weren’t being challenged, since I never had a stable English teacher.” With this in mind, here is another list that describes typical inner-city students’ experiences with teachers (Once again, it is not an all-inclusive list, but it is representative): They are more likely to have a teacher who has been given an unsatisfactory evaluation and transferred to a hard-to-staff school (in the L.A. school district this is known as the “Dance of the Lemons”). They are more likely to have a teacher with a record of chronic absenteeism, and they are more likely to have a long-term substitute teach the class. In such instances, the long-term substitute is not likely to be a person credentialed in English. Students in inner-city schools are more likely to have a teacher who lives in a different community and views these students condescendingly. Some arrive carrying their biases, baggage filled with low expectations of students. Some are mercenaries; their entire day is spent with an eye on the clock and their feet pointed toward the door. Some view teaching as a temporary day job, something to keep them financially afloat while they study for the bar exam or write screenplays at night. Some are bleeding-hearts who make excuses, demand little, and view these students as victims. Some are more interested in being the students’ friend than in serving them best as a teacher. Some are not invested enough to dutifully correct student work, which must be done at home after school hours. Some are just basically lazy, coasting merrily along because they have not been held accountable by school administrators. Some have become jaded with cynicism after years of trying to stem the tide of underachievement and have simply given up, retiring on the job…

The result of the listed factors in the two previous paragraphs above is the typical student I see in 11^th grade English, and it is representative of what I encountered with Jason Bernard. He wasn’t used to the practices of proofreading and revising. He wasn’t accustomed to trying his best, and few teachers demanded it from him along the way. He was used to haphazardly scribbling an assignment and just getting by. In the past, getting by was good enough. But not for me!

In Paper #1: Untitled, he writes: “He made us write an essay on a prompt he wrote on the blackboard…” This suggests that the assignment probably was a practice SAT essay, or perhaps it was a writing task replicating the AP Open Question on Literature essay based on a novel or play we were studying. In either case, I can assure readers that, while I marked Jason’s paper extensively, his description of it as looking like “it fell in a pool of red paint” is hyperbole.  I can also be certain that I reviewed the essay requirements beforehand and conducted a whole-group discussion about possible approaches, organization, and content necessary to satisfy the demands of the prompt. Jason doesn’t indicate – and I can’t remember -whether this was a timed-writing on-demand response, or a take-home assignment (we did both on a regular basis).

After I returned papers, I most certainly would have bestowed general praise on the class as a whole for aspects of the essay written well, and I would have briefly consulted with Jason individually both to praise him and to redirect his focus when revising. In an SAT essay, for example, I would have had Jason focus on one element of the essay at a time, making corrections on his paper. First, I would have had him revisit how well he identified the nuances of the topic and issue, and how clearly he took a definitive stance on that issue. Usually this involves the introductory paragraph and the thesis statement. In our next consultation, we would have reviewed the organization and development in his essay. We would have discussed his use of appropriate evidence and the analysis he presented in connection with that evidence. In our last consultation, we would have reviewed the most glaring errors in usage and mechanics. After that, Jason would have been assigned to revise his work, incorporating corrections in all three general areas when rewriting. (By the way, the SAT essay has been completely revised as of March, 2016. It is now much different than what it used to be, and requires different teaching strategies in preparing students.)

While Jason may have been initially hurt when he received his paper, I can assure readers that I was sensitive to his feelings and did not disparage or belittle him. More importantly, however, I must also emphasize that Jason’s feelings were not of top priority to me, nor should they be. I accurately showed him where he was, and carefully guided him to where he needed to be in terms of writing proficiency. If Jason had been more serious about school and more personally accountable during his formative years, and if his teachers had been more academically helpful to him in elementary and middle school, he might have avoided the shock he received in his junior year of high school. I told him that I would not be his last English teacher; I would help him the best I could during our time together, and he should consider himself a work-in-progress as he continued on in college. I emphasized that I believed in him and knew he could improve with sustained effort over time.

One gratifying thing about my job is that I hear from former students regularly and can see the progress they are making in their literacy and in life. As examples, recently I received phone calls or emails from an ex-student who now is an FBI agent, another who is a doctor at Kaiser, one who has a Ph.D and teaches English at Northwestern University, one who is an assistant to rapper Kendrick Lamar, and another who two weeks ago was named head coach of the Cleveland Browns. All of them tell me how they’re doing, and discuss what they’re currently reading. And, a few months ago, while making photocopies (at the Kinko’s near USC) for a presentation in my Victorian Literature seminar, I felt a light tap on my shoulder. I turned around in the crowded shop and spotted a guy standing behind me smiling. Something about him was vaguely familiar, and yet I couldn’t exactly be sure who it was. He toyed with me, begging me to guess. It was Jason Bernard, who now had dreadlocks and a goatee – radical changes since I knew him in high school. He told me he graduated from CSUDH and had worked as a history teacher at Hamilton High School, but now was involved in a business venture with a friend. Overall, he was happy. He thanked me for guiding him, not only in his writing, but toward maturity.

This is quite a different story from what Paper #1 may lead readers to presume, isn't it? The essay stops abruptly, but that is not where Jason's story ends...

And so it is. The bird I envisioned earlier does not have a broken wing after all. True, it may not have reached ultimate heights, but it is testing itself, adjusting its flight pattern, alighting here and there while deciding where it will venture next. In my mind, it is just a matter of time before it takes flight again and truly begins to soar.

               

                David Williams

                (I apologize for the length of this blog, and I won’t be so long-winded in the future. Perhaps you can understand my particular need to elaborate in this instance. Once I started to write, I simply couldn’t stop. Thanks for reading, and I welcome your comments.)