There are forty five students right now who are writing a paper about a novel they read and don't understand. Novels are cultural....everything about a novel reaks how a group of people behavior and how other's perceive that behavior. My students don't understand a lot of what they read, due to the fact that they are too busy speaking their mother tongue to actually try and deal with the complexity that is reading in another language. Granted, I know how they feel. I tried to read a fourth grade children's book in a bookstore in Naples, I struggled, but after forty five minutes, and with the help of all those gloriously glossy picture, I got the idea. Success! I wasn't going to give up. The clerk at the bookstore was looking at me, nervously the whole time, trying to figure out what a grown woman was doing in the child's book section.
I do everything within my power to make this an easy process, I scaffold (build the steps to help my student understand the material better) I give them outlines they need to fill in with main and minor ideas, I provide group discussion questions, I give them notes. Still, they read, they gloss over in class, they clam up. I groan.....nothing I do can get them to read.
A student sent me an email at 11:59 p.m. Professor, I am lost. I don't know what to write. This is NOT exactly encouraging people, her paper is due in two days. What can I possibly tell this student? Why don't they ask me questions in class? Why aren't they willing to learn from their curiousity? It all boils down to culture and what they expect from a teacher. Groan...sigh.....what to do?
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