The Comma Conundrum

I began a new session on Sunday with my first lecture on Monday for OU2. I conduct two, one hour lectures each week over audio. There is no video component but students can chat through text while they are listening to me.

It seems in each class there is some man who toes the line of appropriateness. I usually ignore them, although the other students seem to enjoy the comments, and just keep lecturing; this seems to be effective enough and they eventually stop. (Really, do you think comments about vibrators belong in a Composition class? Or where is it appropriate to tell your teacher she has a sexy voice and a cute picture? It's a classroom, not MySpace or eHarmony.)

There is also the freak out student who doesn't understand the concepts, has no writing skills to speak of, and I have to work from the very basic fundamentals--thus, the comma conundrum.

As I told a friend recently, "With [this school] on a 5.5 week cycle, I have all of these issues condensed. Week 1=week 4 in a normal session. I've had to adapt and deal with it quickly."

Unfortunately, these two students are one this session. Needless to say, I have my work cut out for me. This student is determined to not use any punctuation other than a period, only simple sentences, and fights me on different activities. I tried out something new last night and he tried to sink it by telling me that it's "kindergarten stuff". This is after he has asked what a semicolon is, why we need anything other than periods, and told me that commas are just too complicated to use. There were several points when I wondered if he was just yanking my chain. Without audio and working only with text, it can be difficult to read intent and subtext.

My solution: stick around after class and we'll talk. What a difference this made. He was open to suggestions about going to tutoring and visiting the Writing Center lectures and working with me to understand the concepts. Once he was no longer performing for the other students, he was alright. No inappropriate comments, no resistance, and he accepted the fact that commas were going to be an essential part of his life. I do have to slow down and really break it into smaller, simpler ideas for him but the extra attention out of the spotlight did help. Looks like this will be the break down in my office hours this session.

My punctuation protester may be manageable after all. We'll see.