The Term Paper Subjects Helped Grab the Student’s Attention
The Term Paper Subjects Helped Grab the Student’s Attention
My junior year in college I began student teaching with my old high school english teacher Mrs. Craft. I really liked her but teaching with her was another story. I saw Mrs. Craft in a whole new light. I now knew why most students and teachers hated her. She was such a witch. I really couldn’t believe the way she talked to me. Mrs Craft would give me lesson plans that she wanted me to go through. And if I didn’t do them right she would really lay into me. I began to fear her. I felt nervous around her and I was so conscience of her watching me while I was teaching that I often messed up. Mrs. Craft never had one positive thing to say to me. Everything I did was wrong, everything I said was horrible and I would never be as good of a teacher as she was. Mid semester, Mrs. Craft asked me to think of term paper subjects as I was now going to be teaching all the classes on my own.
Term papers were fairly easy. And I told the students that. As long as they had an introduction body an conclusion they were going in the right direction. They would also need a thesis which is the one sentence that would drive the essay and critical analysis research was essential to a great research paper. The problem that most students were having was the term paper subjects.
Term paper subjects can make or break your paper. I understood that but I wasn’t so sure if Mrs. Craft did. I told her I wanted to encourage the students to write term papers on what they knew. She laughed stating that the students really didn’t know much. And that it would be up to me to come up with term paper subjects. Again we butted heads. I stuck to my guns and told Mrs. Craft that if the students picked their own topics they would have more of vested interest therefore the papers would be better. She again disagreed but agreed to let me “hang myself” in her words.
I presented this idea to the students. At first they were a little anxious about the idea. I think most students like structure and decision. But I continued to tell them that that picking their own topics would open up a whole new world of writing for them. Slowly but surely I could see light bulbs go on for the students. They were all talking at once. I could see the excitement building in the room. The students had ideas ranging from dogs to famous rappers. They were all very good ideas.
I could see Mrs Craft watching from the pack of the room with her little tablet taking notes but nodding approvingly. She too could see the excitement brewing in the classroom as well and came to me after class to apologize. Mrs. Craft said she was wrong and that someday she believed that I would make a very good teacher. I smiled as I began grading a stack of research papers. I thought I would make a good teacher some day to.
