Soua - Gere Blog

Soua - Blog prompt 2

Gere’s article talks a lot about how literature classes in the school system are ineffective in broadening students’ literacy. “Few of the participants in the Tenderloin Women’s Writing Workshop or the Lansing, Iowa Writers’ Workshop had much formal education, and many had negative experiences with schooling. They did not think of themselves as writers because teachers had taught them they could not write.” (pg 78) In my high school years, I have never experienced this. My teachers taught me the best they could. When we felt like we did not understand something, they made sure we knew what they wanted us to know. But, there was a situation similar to this. Last semester, I took a math course and we did all our work online. It was a “learn at your own paste” course and I was having difficulty. They did not explain to you how to do the problems, you were expected to know how to do it already. As we got more into the course, it was getting harder for me. I would frequently ask the instructor for help with problems in the same category and the instructor would get frustrated with me. Also, it was two courses in one semester, math 95 and 105. When I got done with math 95, there were only three weeks left before the end of the semester. I asked my instructor if I could take math 105 during the spring semester because he told us earlier that we can do that but then told me no. He told me that I will be able to finish it within three weeks because it was only going to get easier. But instead, it got harder and harder for me. I tried to get help by going to math tutor but the instructor was no help. The tutor I had was the same as my instructor, so I stopped going to my tutor session and turned to the internet for help. Because we were expected to know everything already, they did not teach us anything. They would only help explain how to do a problem. I know that math doesn’t really have anything to do with literature but the situation I had with my math instructor and the quote above from Gere’s reading has one thing in common, our teacher’s job is to teach us what they know that we don’t but they fail to do so.

There have been times when I would say that I am not a good writer. Because English is not my native language, it is a bit challenging for me. When I read other students’ work and compare it to mines, I do think that I am not a good writer because theirs just seem better than mines. Their word choices are better than mines and theirs just seem more sophisticated. Sometimes I feel like I am not a good writer because of the fact that English is not my native language and I don’t fully understand the English language system.

I think one way that teachers can include the extracurriculum in their classes and still get accomplished what they need to get done is to make some time and have reading groups where the students pick what they want to read and write about. Sometimes I feel like students don’t do well because the stuff they do does not interest them. In the reading groups that Gere talked about, they were good writer because they wrote about what they wanted to write about, stuff that matters to them. If teachers can do this, then they can help strengthen a students’ writing.