It was just after 7 a.m. on the first day of George Mason University’s fall semester, and as I headed to my office I saw three students peering intently at room numbers.
“What number are you looking for?” I asked.
“107,” they replied, which they were never going to find on a second floor with only 200s.
When I told them to go down to the first floor for the 100s, they gave me a “duh” look, aware they were being boneheaded. Welcome to first-day-of-school panic.
Later, as I crossed campus on my way to and from classes in three different buildings, I passed students I’d seen going the other way a few minutes earlier. They must have been checking out room locations before class, or undergoing a course correction.
Sometimes those nightmares about not being able to find the classroom really do come true. After my first class, a girl came to the front of the room where I was chatting with a student and pulled out her handwritten schedule.
“Your class is 1 hour and 15 minutes, and that means I’ve scheduled all these others wrong because they’re only an hour apart.” The student and I were able to reassure her that the others met three times a week, and were shorter than my twice-a-week class.
I could see the relief as she realized that all those online hours securing the perfect schedule had not gone to waste.
Most poignant are the students who, on the first day, plead with teachers to allow them into full sections. Their requests are based on tales of woe that include paperwork disasters–where a student’s scholarship money has not arrived and their registration has been held up, computer failure–where dorms undergoing renovation have no internet access, and a whole host of problems that have prevented their timely registration. I am sympathetic—to a point.
In workshop writing classes, with a limit of 22, adding students to a closed section can alter the small class dynamic. For most of these desperate students, I’ve learned to make helpful suggestions that send them to other sections.
No nightmares came true during my first day, but I’ve been to this campus every year for a long time. When I walk into a classroom, I recognize that I’ve taught there before—many times.
But students still worry, just as they did when I first taught decades ago. I try to reassure them about my writing class by outlining the semester and letting them know that they won’t understand what good writing is until they see it and hear it within the papers of their classmates. That gives them something to look forward to!
As the final class let out, one clever girl asked if I thought students should write like Orwell or Defoe. “Orwell!” I replied. She smiled and said, “good,” no doubt preferring Orwell’s simple, clear style. Orwell and Defoe are both fine writers, but her own voice will be a better writing guide than either of them, and I should have told her that. One mistake on my first day is not a bad start.
Erica Jacobs teaches at George Mason University. Email her at [email protected].
What Kids are Reading
This weekly column will look at lists of books kids are reading in various categories, including grade level, book genre, data from libraries, and data from booksellers. The titles below are all bestsellers on Amazon.com or Barnesandnoble.com.
Tween Books to Boost Self-Esteem
1. The Care and Keeping of You: The Body Book for Girls by Valerie Schaefer
2. Math Doesn’t Suck: How to Survive Middle School Math Without Losing Your Mind or Breaking a Nail by Danica McKellar
3. Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney
4. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw by Jeff Kinney
5. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules (the latest in this series by Jeff Kinney)
6. A Writer’s Notebook: Unlocking the Writer within You by Ralph Fletcher
7. What to Do When You’re Scared and Worried: A Guide for Kids by James J. Crist
8. The Skin I’m In by Sharon G. Flake Some of these books are fiction and some are non-fiction, but all deal with common insecurities or weaknesses of children 9-12 years old.
