Spring Break Blues

First, I want to say that I was thankful the Monday holiday after a much needed Spring Break week. I feel more rested, revived, and caught up on my personal reading after that wonderful week. However, I do not think many of my students have returned from Spring Break. Sure, they are here physically, but sadly, they are not here mentally. For example, my English 101 students are now involved in the "make or break" section of the course and are working on their argumentative research papers. Tuesday I was excited because most of them came back from Spring Break with the required number of articles for their papers; to my disappointment today, however, most of them have not taken the time to actually read and interact with the texts.

Since we began the process of collecting sources, I have been teaching my students critical reading strategies like checking for understanding and clarifying and summarizing in conjunction with articles which explain the importance and components of argument and how to write successful introductory paragraphs. After using these articles to teach the critical reading strategies, I've given students class time to begin applying the strategy to their own collection of articles. So this morning, you can imagine my surprise when my students could not construct their thesis statements because they had not read the articles they had been collecting. I was so frustrated.

To monitor and adjust, I allowed students to spend another class period interacting with the research articles they have collected, and most are on task, either marking the texts or refining their searches. When we meet again, students will be held accountable for producing evidence that they have read and understand the articles they have collected. Then, we will try again to write thesis statements and introductory paragraphs.

I know that I love Spring Break, or any holiday for that matter, but I have to be prepared to come back to work and am held accountable for my responsibility. It would be nice if the kids did the same. Here's hoping that next week the Spring Break mentality will have worn off...