1.30.08
I miss college. I miss living in community with my peers and rolling along down similar paths as they were. I miss the familiar rhythms of the academic year, the way that stress could even be a comfort to me. But at this particular moment in time, what I really miss is being forced to write.
One of my favorite professors, though I admittedly played the field of favorite professors, regularly assigned hundreds of pages of reading a week. In order to prove that we had done the reading, but moreover in order to make the reading relevant and useful in class, we were required to write reaction papers on a weekly basis. These papers were fairly informal, low-stakes writing assignments of about one page. We were given free range as far as which texts we chose to write about, which themes grabbed us most, and which ideas inspired us to write. It was also an opportunity to ask questions that the reading sparked. From a pedagogical standpoint, it also encouraged good reading habits, such as marking up the test, asking questions, rereading, highlighting important passages, focusing reading, skimming other parts, etc. From an overwhelmed college student’s standpoint, it also let us get away with doing as much of the reading as possible and focusing on that in our papers.
We always handed the reaction papers in either the first time class met in the week or, if the class only met once a week, a few days before class via Internet. The day of the second class (or the only class) Professor Ropp would return the reaction papers to us and without fail, no matter how large the class, he had thoroughly read through every paper, marked it up and responded to it at the end. The written feedback helped to establish a relationship between teacher and student, and I felt like an important, valued member of the class. He also took notes on our reactions and used those notes to lead the class discussion. Writing about this from a new teacher’s perspective, I am able to appreciate this technique even more than I did when I was a student (and nerd that I was, I loved it then too).
Professor Ropp was certainly not my only professor to use reaction papers as a way to encourage us to keep up with our reading and without fail I found it to be a frustrating, and yet helpful exercise. Once I understood that it really was low-stakes and only graded in terms of whether or not I had done the assignment, I became more relaxed and consequently more successfully reflective as I wrote. I usually kept an eye out for a few quotes that I liked and would begin my paper by discussing why I was drawn to that particular passage. I learned to interact more with the text than I ever would have thought to do during high school and to this day will often approach a text, be it fiction, nonfiction, article, etc., with a pen in hand, ready to engage in conversation with the author rather than simply absorbing information.
And so I miss reaction papers because there seems to be an element missing these days. With novels and pleasure reading I do not find the urge to write a reaction paper tugging at my fingertips. Recently, however, I picked up a book called "Write To Learn" by Donald M. Murray that I was assigned in one of my education classes and could really use a forum for discussing it, hence my missing reaction papers. It also reminds me that I miss being in the classroom setting as a student who is able to participate in interesting, academic discussions. As much as I have spent hours complaining about reading assignments and as much as I have taken liberties in what I actually felt that I needed to read, I also miss having scholarly books assigned to me. It sure sounds like I want to go back to school, huh? I suppose I’m just feeling very academically, and also creatively stimulated by this book and while there are many an outlet for those energies, the university setting is what comes fondly to mind. If it weren’t four minutes until midnight, I actually might just go ahead and write about my reactions to the book here. But it is four minutes to midnight and I am starting to get eye twitches, which is my body’s call for earlier bedtime.
P.S. - I just quickly did a google search for Murray to see what I could find and with the vague thought that maybe I'd send him an e-mail. What I found is that he died in 2006.
we all miss our student life.. the life of student is really awesome and all the times the fun and papers were in the brain.. love your article you make me smile thanks a lot..
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