Five Things That Will Save You in English Courses

Everything I'm about to tell you is something you can trust. Why? Because I'm an English instructor. Also, I am friends with and converse often with other English instructors who teach a plethora (<
Why am I telling you this? Well, I'm not risking my life or anything. It's not a secret. Chances are your English prof has hinted at these five things in class. I'm here to tell you again and to emphasize how true these simple acts of English kindness really are.

So...if you want to make English courses easy on yourself, take these five things to heart.

5. Tricks are For Kids

I put my hands up, tricking out my paper, the butterflies fly away

If you are taking a beginning English course at a university, chances are your instructor is younger and KNOWS YOUR STUPID TRICKS! Making a period 32 pt size to get more spacing? Really? Adjusting the margins? Tweaking the font size, line spacing, indentation, or header? Dude, we have been there. We know these things. Also, 3 inch margins are super noticeable. This leads me to my next piece of advice...

4. Just do the Work

If eventually he'll write Shakespeare, you can write your %$^@# essay

Seriously. Just do it. It's really not that hard once you actually sit (or set, crap) your butt down to do it. Your instructor wants a 3-page paper on ethos, pathos, and logos. Do it! Tell your buddies to just back off for like one day and do the work. Also, if you know you are a slow writer, then waiting until 2:00 am the night before sounds like a disaster to me (and also like college). Most of your instructors are realistic. They know that 9.9/none of you have worked on this assignment for more than last night (there are outlying overachievers, but we'll leave them there). We don't expect you to etch your essay in gold. Just do it!

3. Do We have to Be LeVar Burton to Get you to Read?

This is LeVar Burton for the age impaired

Speaking of Nike, just do the readings too. Do you know why your teacher has you read articles or stuff from your book? Because he or she doesn't want to lecture you on thesis statements for an hour. Do you want that? Didn't think so. English instructors, for the most part, like to have class discussions where students can talk about issues happening in the now. Doesn't that sound better than a lecture on the semi-colon and its uses? Just read the assignment. It won't hurt you anymore than looking at your facebook feed (except during election season). Try to understand what you are reading,  retain it for class, and you just might fight yourself participating instead of sleeping with your shades on like a douchebag.

2. Conferences are not for their health

"Billy, your paper is you typing "oh shit" over and over"

Often, English instructors have conferences which means they set aside an allotted portion of time to meet with each student. First, let me tell you that even though many teachers cancel their classes this week, this isn't no joy ride, son. This is a long, tiring week where your teacher sees about 15-20 of you at least 4 of the 5 days from 8:00 to 4:00 and even later if they have grading. This isn't a vacation week like it is for you. Also, they prepare for these meetings. They read your rough drafts, mark on the paper, and are ready to give feedback. With conferences where you bring your draft, they are ready to help you make it better. And what do you do? Not bring it, not come, not nothing. Nada. Being stood up by a date is horrible, but by a student it is no better. Imagine making a mixed CD, giving it to your crush and they just throw it in the trash right in front of you. Feel those feelings? Feel them? Yeah. That's the tip of the iceburg, punk. Come prepared.

1. Those Marks on Your Paper Are not Hieroglyphics

"I Offer my Blue Inked words to the goddess of who ever reads this!"

So, you get your paper back from your teacher. Let's say it's a rough draft. You are suppose to make corrections. Guess what? IF YOU JUST DO WHAT IS MARKED YOU WILL GET A DECENT GRADE! Your prof spent hours marking all those papers, and it wasn't to appease some ink-savoring deity. Those words are for you, like little text messages on your paper. That's why you feel the wrath of God when you turn it in without taking the comments seriously! This is super simple and will save your soul. Also, when you get a paper with a grade, there is more (usually) than just a letter grade at the top. There are other markings written in a language called English that have these words that form sentences which tell you how to not screw up next time. 

I Assume You Can Do Anything

I was nervous when I was putting my syllabus together for my English 095 class the Fall of 2010. English 095 is for students who have low ACT scores and need more help before going into English Composition I and II which are graduation requirements. Before even entering the class, these students have been labeled as developmental writing students which they often translate into "stupid students."

Many students who come into ENG 095 are English as a Second Language (ESL) students, those from rural areas, and those with lower socio-economic status. These were the first students that I taught under my graduate assistantship at my university, and, boy, don't you know I felt that pressure.

The temptation is to lean toward the simplistic and in many ways these students need to learn the basic elements of college writing (organization, thesis statements, academic language). And these elements are daunting to students who write heavily in their first language or regional dialects. They've been told that their way of writing is "wrong" and "full of errors." Going into this class, I felt that I had two jobs: to teach writing and to edify these students..

So, when I made my syllabus I decided to not hold back when it came to difficult topics. Many professors would disagree with me saying that these students can't handle theoretical topics or ideas that aren't so obvious. As I added reading and writing assignments, I kept thinking about something my mom said to me a few years ago. We were talking about how she would point at the words when she read to me even when I was an infant. I laughed and teased her saying that it was impossible for me to learn that early. She replied, "I   didn't know what you could do, so I assumed that you could do anything." Those words have haunted my pedagogy and influenced my ENG 095 syllabus.

About half-way through the semester, I introduced my students to the idea of intersectionality which is a feminist theory about how people can be discriminated against on more than one level. For example, a black lesbian female has race, sexual orientation, and gender discrimination.The reading assignment for the discussion was a very long article which called for a level of critical reading that many instructors would not expect from ENG 095 students.

A few weeks later, the students turned in a paper in which they applied the theory to themselves and what that meant to them, if they were surprised, and how they dealt with it. I found out that one of my students has two dads. Three students came out to me. One student realized she was a feminist. She had come to my office a few days before the paper was due and was very distraught, because she couldn't figure out how she was discriminated against in any way. It took all my will power to not yell, "You're a woman!!" Instead, I found myself saying, "Why don't you go research how much women make versus men at Wal-Mart?" She looked very confused as she left my office. In her paper, she talked about how women are discriminated against in the home, at work, and with societal expectations.

These were students who were told by their teachers that they would never ever be able to handle this type of academia, and through feminism in their education they were able to redefine themselves as capable students and, for some, even as feminists.