NYC Educator: On Writing, and Writing Recommendations

NYC Educator: On Writing, and Writing Recommendations

On Writing, and Writing Recommendations

Unlike some of my colleagues, I don't write many recommendations. It's not that I don't want to--it's that I'm not frequently asked. This is largely because I teach beginning English language learners. Most of them are freshmen when they come to me, and three years later they have other teachers and other priorities.

It's too bad, because I'm pretty good at writing recommendations. Sometimes colleagues give me recommendations to edit. A few weeks ago I got one written about a student I know well. I was a little disappointed he didn't ask me directly, but I made his a little better anyway. I absolutely understand that students might not want to place it front and center that they are (or were) ELLs.

I've seen some overly flowery recommendations that were not altogether persuasive. I particularly recall one that commented on a student's perspicacity, and then went on to praise her perspicuity. This, among other things, led me to believe the teacher was sitting with a thesaurus when he wrote the thing. I'm not ashamed to admit that I didn't know what perspicuity was, and I had to look it up. (Of course, everyone's heard of Perspicacity and the Sundance Kid, so that was no issue.)

Last week I was very pleased to write two recommendations. The first one was for a girl who was in my class three years ago. This girl, however, spent a year revisiting my class one period a day. She was a great help. For one thing, she spoke Chinese. which I do not. She was able to make a few new arrivals feel much more comfortable.

I think this girl's school grades are not reflective of who she is. She's very clever and intuitive. She gets along well with everyone, peers and teachers, and is well-liked. A lot of my students tend to flock only to people who speak their native language. I'm always more impressed by students who get along with everyone, regardless of language. Personally, if I had to work with someone, I'd rather be with someone like that than the student who aced all the exams without those qualities.

I also believe that she, and a lot of people like her, will do better in a college environment. I believe that pretty deeply because I was not a good high school student at all. Despite that, I was a voracious reader in high school, always in the middle of a book or two. In my English classes, we sat and read books one page at a time. Only when the girl in front of me was reading page 152 did I have to scramble to read aloud page 153. In stark contrast to college, there was no discussion, no analysis, and the only benefit was to the English teacher, who got to sit on her ass and reflect on whatever actually interested her. Certainly it wasn't the book in question, which interested no one. My time would have been better spent alone with a book I'd chosen myself.

Nowadays there's not so much of that, but English classes have been seriously degraded by Common Core. I've written extensively about how crappy the tests are.  Students CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: On Writing, and Writing Recommendations