Assessing your learning:

I've been trying to create situations in which people's understanding of how text works has opportunities to grow.  I hope that's been happening, and I imagine you hope so too.  So here's a chance for us all to stop and have a look at that.

Here's what I want you to do.  Thom has, or says he has, or pretends he has, an aunt. Her name, usually, is Sadie.  She's crusty and skeptical, a bit old-schoolish, but she's real interested in what her nieces and nephews do and are learning.  He often invites folks in his classes to imagine they have an Aunt Sadie, who's helping out with tuition, but who wants to know she's not wasting her money.

Aunt Sadie's been helping out with your tuition, and you just had a phone conversation with her in which she said, "Well, what are you learning in English, then?  It all sounds pretty strange to me: I understand that this professor wants you to use language better.  Yes, and the other two as well, though I do not understand all that about the three courses all being one.  Never mind. What they're saying about written language makes sense to me.  But in my day in English class we read great literature and talked and wrote about it.  You say you haven't read any literature yet. So what do you know or understand that you didn't last September?  Can you explain it to an old lady so she'll know she's not throwing her money away?"

You said, "Listen, Sadie, it's tough to do that on the phone.  But I'll send you an email and explain, okay?"

Okay.  Send me that email. I suggest you write it separately, by hand or using a word processor, before you go into the mail program (it's a lot easier to edit that way).  Remember that Sadie's got a fair bit of patience: she'll read a few hundred words, maybe more.  And remember she genuinely wants to know, but she's going to take some convincing.

Send me that email by the end of Friday.