First day of school

Oregon students are headed back to school today and, no, I'm not going to write about the silly controversy that's sprung up around Barack Obama -- namely, his desire to speak a few words of encouragement to America's schoolchildren.

Today at this hour, I fully expected to be heading out the door to a suburban high school, where I would be part of a small group listening to a student give an oral presentation on her Senior Seminar Experience. The so-called SSE is a graduation requirement that entails a student working on a project with some guidance from a Community Consultant.

Several weeks ago, I took a phone call from a senior-to-be -- let's call her T.I. -- who said she was going to do her SSE during the summer and wanted to know if I would be her Community Consultant. I'd served in that role a couple years ago and found it a thoroughly enjoyable experience. The student, in that case, was motivated and well-organized and responded well to my constructive criticism. As part of her project on The Smile Train, a nonprofit that raises money for cleft palate operations around the world, we succeeded in publishing an op-ed piece she wrote about the program.

On that basis, I looked forward to working with T.I., who told me she had worked on her school's student newspaper and sought me out because of my journalism background.

Late Thursday, I finally had a look at a draft of her "editorial" on animal rights/animal welfare groups and was flabbergasted. What do you do with a piece of work that is so poorly done in every respect -- grammar, sentence structure, organization, lack of coherent thought, etc. -- that it can't be salvaged? For me, writing comes as naturally as breathing. I know that's not the case for everyone -- or even most people -- but still. With all summer to work on the piece, why would a student wait until the weekend before it's due to turn it in for a critique?

I battled with conflicting emotions, ranging from confusion to annoyance to sympathy. Mostly, though, I felt sadness for T.I., who evidently didn't realize she was WAY in over her head in thinking she could write an op-ed worthy of publication in The Oregonian. She is miles away from that. What's worse, if this is any indication of what T.I. has to show after weeks of research and interviews with primary sources, I shudder to think at how she will get through this school year.

I think of fellow bloggers -- most notably my former colleague Angie Chuang, now teaching journalism at American University, and Rachel Colina (aka Perfect Sand), who teaches English Composition to nursing students in Cincinnati -- who write so eloquently about the preparation and strategies that go into teaching writing to young adults and I wonder if, given enough lead time, if I could have worked with T.I. to pull off a decent piece. I suspect not.

I suspect it would have taken weeks, if not months, for her to acquire the basic vocabulary and absorb the fundamental concepts needed to write a persuasive piece. I hope I haven't lapsed into a blame-the-victim post here, but the experience with T.I. has taught me one valuable lesson -- don't assume too much of the other person. In a similar situation, I will ask the student's teacher(s) if he or she has the skill set to pull off whatever project or paper that's been proposed.

Clip art copyrighted by Bobbie Peachey, http://webclipart.about.com