Terrible grades

[Cecilia Ramsey]

English class had just ended. The other students grabbed their things and filed out the door, chattering away as they desperately escaped the clutches of another classroom.

Cecilia Ramsey stayed at her desk. She was frowning slightly at an essay that had been passed back to her. The paper was covered in little marks. She knew what they meant, since she had seen them plenty of times before, but this grade was really bad. There corrections about commas and capitals and stuff about sentences. And some stuff about verbs. There was also content stuff... like a comment on how she hadn't done enough research.

She knew it wasn't wrong, but honestly, research was really, really hard. Finding a website that had information that was useful was hard, and then making sure it was a good website was basically impossible, and then the books! She had a vague idea of a time when computers didn't exist, which sounded terrible, but she had no idea how kids wrote essays with only books. Finding a book on each subject was hard enough while using a computer. Then it was just looking at books for information. Just pulling them out and opening them and looking at them. How could anyone go through enough stuff to find what they were supposed to write about? Half the time, she just opened a book and stared at it and then put it back. Not by choice, really. That's just what happened.

Once the room was cleared, Cece got up and approached her teacher.

In a small voice, she said, "Ms. Montgomery? Can you help me with this essay thing?"

[Layla Montgomery]

Layla was very pleased with how her students did on their last essay. Lord of the Flies wasn’t always the most interesting books to read. It definitely wasn’t Layla’s favorite, and she probably wouldn’t have even had it in the curriculum if it wasn’t a requirement for the freshmen class. There were so many other novels that the kids would probably like better, but she supposed it wasn’t the worst option to give them.

Regardless of her own personal preference she was happy with most of the essays that had been turned in. However, there were always a few in every class who just didn’t have a good grasp on the story, whether they just didn’t understand it, they didn’t read the book, or they just didn’t put enough effort into their writing. Layla could usually tell which it was from their essays.

Layla was going over her next lesson plan when she heard a student approach her. Most of them had left the classroom the minute the bell rang, as usual, but sometimes one or two stayed after to ask a question. This time it was Cecelia Ramsey, and unfortunately, Layla wasn’t surprised to see her in front of her desk.

“Of course, have a seat.” Layla said, motioning to the seat she always kept near her desk for this specific purpose. She gave the girl a small, reassuring smile. Sometimes it could be intimidating to ask a teacher for help, but Layla didn’t want it to be like that. She waited for Cece to elaborate on what she needed. Obviously she wanted to get a higher grade, but Layla did need a little bit more specific on what it was exactly that she didn’t understand, and then they could go from there on reconstructing her essay.

[Cecilia Ramsey]

Cece looked at the chair as if it were an old, familiar enemy. She shifted her weight from one foot to another, looked back at her teacher, and then finally sat down.

Alright, so, next up! Ask the teacher about the problems. Cece looked down at her paper, which she had been apparently been rolling into a tube. Her eyes moved from red mark to red mark, not really taking anything in.

"Umm."

What was she going to ask?

Cecilia had read Lord of the Flies. Well, most of it, and then looked up the plot summary online. She wasn't sure what she was supposed to be writing about, exactly, and never really bothered to reread the prompt or ask. So instead of discussing what the dead parachutist and the beast, she sort of rambled about the scenes that included them.

"I guess um. You have these notes here about um. I didn't write about what stuff symbolized?" Cece looked up at her teacher, her face scrunched up in confusion. "I don't know, like. I know what symbolize means but I don't know what I was supposed to say?"

[Layla Montgomery]

“You look nervous.” Layla noted with mild amusement, glancing down at the essay the fourteen year old was rolling between her hands. “Don’t be. I’m here so you can ask me questions.” Some students found it difficult to ask teachers for help. Layla never did; she never had a problem speaking in class or talking to teachers about grades. But not everyone was as comfortable with either of those things.

And some teachers were intimidating to talk to, but Layla didn’t think she was one of those types of teachers. She liked to think she was a pretty approachable person. And she’d had her students all year, so they should be comfortable with her by now.

Layla nodded, reaching out and moving Cece’s paper so that it rested on her desk in between the two of them. “Right, so when you’re paper is focusing on the symbolism throughout the book, so you’ve really got to focus your essay on that. You do a great job of summarizing some of the scenes, but that’s not the point of your paper. When it comes to symbolism, it’s not about what the author is telling you literally, it’s more of what he’s saying figuratively that you need to talk about.”

Layla flipped to the third page of her essay, pointing to one of the paragraphs. “For instance, in this paragraph, your talking about the sacrifice that the boys make to the beast, but it’s just a summary. Your reader - me in this case - knows this happened, since I’ve read the book. So in this paragraph, instead of telling me what happened, I want to know what this scene means. Why did Golding write this in?” The beast was a symbol of primal instincts and savagery, so Cece’s objective was to explain that and how it related back to society as part of her essay. Of course, Layla wasn’t going to just give her the answers. She wouldn’t be a very good teacher if she just caved in and told them what was right just because they were struggling.

[Cecilia Ramsey]

Cece frowned at her teacher; darn supportive teachers! Okay, that wasn't really how Cecilia felt, but in the moment... well. She was just in one of those moods that nothing could help. She was going to hate every moment of asking for help, no matter what!

She released her essay and let Ms. Montgomery put it on the desk. Cece had to resort to playing with the hem of her shirt now that her essay wasn't there anymore. Her eyes darted back and forth between the essay and Ms. Montgomery as she explained the problem and asked her a question.

"Oh." Cece said, leaning forward to look at her paper. "I mean, um. I'm not sure I understand? Like, what it means, I mean. Why can't a book just be a story? And like, how do I even know what it's supposed to mean?"

[Layla Montgomery]

A lot of students had this problem. They didn’t understand how to find the theme of the story, so Layla usually had to gently nudge them in the right direction. After a while they’d get the hang of it, and this was usually where outside research came into play. Obviously she couldn’t expect her fourteen year old students to come up with a complex analysis of an already complex book, so she usually let them use outside sources, so long as they cited them.

“Well this is where your outside research comes in.” Layla said, flipping to the back page where Cece’s works cited was. “You can use almost any website you want as long as it’s credible. So no Wikipedia.” Layla said, with a smile. “You just have to make sure you write them in your own words, or you quote them if you don’t.” Layla flipped over to the back page, which was blank and wrote down a few websites. “These cites will help you form your MLA citations. They can be tricky if you don’t have a lot of practice.” She didn’t mind if her students used websites to help them put the citations together. It was tedious to do them on your own.

“But you do have to do a little research, Cece. There are tons of sources that you can use to gather information. I wouldn’t recommend Sparknotes other than to get an idea of what you’re going for though.” So many students tried to pass off the information on Sparknotes as their own work; many would only read the summaries they provided. Even though Layla thought it was a good website to clear up any questions the reader might have or confusions, she definitely didn’t think it worked as a replacement for the book.

“Every book is essentially just a story, but every story has a theme; most of them have several. Here.” Layla pulled out a blank piece of a paper and a purple pen from her desk. “Let’s write your outline together. That should make it easier.” She wrote out Lord of the Flies at the top of the paper; Cece could think of her own theme later on.

“What did you want to focus on throughout your paper. We talked about a few themes in class while we were reading. You can choose one of those if you’d like.” Layla said, giving her a reassuring smile.