Resentment #2

Here’s another take on resentment (clearly I loooove thinking about resentment!):

Resentment often arises out of

incorrect assumptions.

For example.

You are a teacher who values good writing. You take your task of teaching students to write well very seriously. As a result, when students hand in their papers, you write voluminous comments and give the students a chance to revise their papers based on those comments for a higher grade.

You are gratified that many students take the opportunity to earn a higher grade. But you find that the changes they make in their second drafts are superficial. It appears, in fact, that they don’t actually read your comments. They just incorporate the easy, obvious changes you yourself made.

At first, you are frustrated. After a while, when this continues to happen, you start feeling resentful. Why don’t they value your helpful feedback? Why don’t they appreciate the HOURS of work you put into reading their papers?

Two assumptions here:

• Your students don’t value your feedback.

• They don’t appreciate the work you put in.

I’ll start with the second assumption first. Aside from the fact that students are not obligated to appreciate you or the work you put in — sad but true — you nonetheless suffer from their apparent disinterest and passivity. I mean, you are a good teacher! Good teachers write long comments on student papers! Students who integrate those comments improve their writing! (Yet more assumptions here.)

But the truth that your resentment forces you to face is that, when you spend hours writing comments that your students don’t seem to read, you are voluntarily wasting your time. You are working harder than your students are. There is, in short, a serious imbalance in your classroom.

You should feel resentful.

And you should probably alter your practice.

But how? If students don’t value your feedback, how can you help them improve?

Here’s where your first assumption comes in handy. Because

you can question it.

Is it true, you could wonder, that my students don’t value my feedback? If yes, your assumption is verified. If no (which is likely), you now have the opportunity to ask your students questions that can help you figure out how to approach their papers in the future.

Some assumption-busting questions you could ask:

• What makes a piece of writing “good”?

• How does anyone improve their writing?

• Who in this classroom wants to improve their writing? (Might be good to know.)

• What kind of feedback do students find useful? (keeping in mind that there are probably differing opinions)

• What is it like for students to receive papers back with long comments written on them?

A positive result from this type of questioning could be an approach to giving feedback that is based on data, not assumptions. Another positive result would be the chance to hold students accountable for their use (or not) of this collectively agreed-upon approach. All along the way, you and your students could continue the enlightening conversation about how their writing is or is not improving.

All this from a little resentment!

Truly a valuable emotion. Corrosive and terrible, but valuable. Because it points directly to something you have complete control over: yourself. The work you do. The work you don’t do. The questions you ask. The ways you implement the answers.