When a student loses steam

"Dr. Toffee" sums up Rhonda's fall 2014 semester:

Those of us who teach first year composition are (sadly) very familiar with students who find themselves in over their heads.  The nature of a writing class is grounded in near constant writing, and it takes a while for some students to get up to speed.  This last term that happened to Rhonda.  Between her family situation, her job, and her courseload, she had a lot to handle.  The biggest problem she faced as a student was time management.  She tried to complete the major projects, but often forgot about Project 1:  her blog.  By the end of the term, she found that there was no way that she could catch up and complete the last two projects plus the required number of blog entries.  She came to my office hours two weeks before the final, looking for some kind of a solution, but (as you can imagine) it was too late for that.  If she had come to see me even a couple of weeks earlier, I'm fairly certain that we could have worked it out, but she just waited too long.  She had to drop the course.

Rhonda's problems have had an impact on me-- from now on, I'll be checking in on my students' blogs more often over the semester, and I'm thinking about requiring them to come to my office hours at least once during the first 8 weeks of the term.  We'll see how this works out.

As a final note for those who follow this blog, you should know that Rhonda will be taking 101 this spring (doing the whole 2014-2015 school year in reverse).

Related articles:

"10 Common Problems Students Face During College" - the comments here are also useful.

"What are the Biggest Issues Facing Community Colleges Today? New Study has Answers."  This article from the Community College Review discusses the issue of college readiness.

To my First Year Comp Colleagues: The Ongoing Pedagogy Project

(note:  Rhonda will be back later today)

Those of you who have been following this blog are already aware that my goal here is both to provide a sample for my 101 and 102 students and to present a method for creating a realistic research paper assignment, i.e. one that is representative of actual assignments in college courses.  If you haven't read the initial material, there are links above.
Since my department is shifting to new textbooks this term (Ruszkiewicz, John J. and Jay T. Dolmage.  How to Write Anything:  A Guide and a Reference with Readings.  2^nd ed.  Boston:  Bedford/St. Martins, 2012, and  Ruszkiewicz, John J.  A Reader’s Guide to College Writing.  Boston:  Bedford/St. Martins, 2014), this seems like a good time for a brief progress report.  Over the past few years, the most obvious result has been a decrease in students dropping the course, which has been my greatest encouragement.  In addition, the problems I've seen students having are the same ones we all see every semester:  writing issues, difficulty with time management, critical thinking skills that aren't yet up to the material, etc (here in Illinois, high schools apparently focus primarily on 5-paragraph essays, with the result that many students can't immediately grasp the reality that those won't work at the college level:  for some, it's a kind of security blanket, and they resist the change).  All of these are college-readiness issues that should have been addressed before they enter our classrooms, but that doesn't seem likely to happen anytime soon.  So, as far as the things I can control go, this project is producing a quantifiable benefit.
New versions of the assignments and critical model packet will be available shortly (links will be on the left).

Finally, my thanks to those who sent condolences after my mother's death.  I am very hopeful that the gaps in posts that have marked this year to date will not be necessary again.

And now, Rhonda is up next.  She is taking 102 this term, so if you need a 101 example,  use the Fall 2011 or 2012 entries.