Delayed: Recchio

Is the fourth mode of discourse not the most important though? Narrative or Confessional Discourse is what we ask our students to do in all of their work. "Try and relate to the subject matter," "Imagine if you were in the character's shoes," "Use personal experience as evidence for the arguments you are making in your paper," "Even if you don't relate make it up."

Yet Recchio says, "Since the fourth mode of discourse presents special problems, I will confine my analysis to the first three."

WHAT?!

Aren't we supposed to face the issues? To tackle them head on? Yes, please make notes on the structure, the grammar, the theme, the process but ignore that personal narrative, the ever glaring truth and you become a person that watches an elderly person struggle to walk across the street and does nothing about it.

When it comes to my teaching philosophy, I cannot and I will not avoid the "special problems" that are presented to me from my students. If I ask my students to submit work that is inevitably personal, then I will not grade their work as if it's an objective story or a fictional piece of work written by someone in the distant past. This all goes back to practicing what you preach. And so many...I repeat SO MANY teachers fail at this. They ask students to write subjectively but won't grade subjectively, they ask students to show up for class on time but they don't show up to class on time, they ask students to try their hardest but they don't try their hardest. I will grade subjectively, I will show up for class on time, I will try my hardest, I WILL NOT IGNORE A STUDENTS WRITING WHEN IT'S CLEAR THEY HAVE BEEN SEXUALLY ABUSED.

I know there is a fine line. I'm good at fine lines. It's about presenting the subject matter without interrogation. Shall I get specific? Students will be required to meet with me at least 2 times a semester they do not need to make an appointment or have something specific to say they can just come shoot the shit but they must come to my office hours at least twice during the semester to meet with me one on one if they want 5% of their grade and in this case I would ask the student if they could expand on the experience they had written about where did they get the motivation to write about this subject and I believe no I know that the conversation would only snowball from there and it would not need to turn into a crying ranting sesh but if thats what the student needs then fine but also I would turn it into lets brainstorm what you can do with this experience in this class how can you take what you learned from this experience and write more thoughtful pieces throughout the class and throughout your academic career.

And I believe, no again... I KNOW... that this will help the student to grow mentally, professionally, academically. Isn't that the goal of teaching? To help our students grow in more ways than one?