Beautiful and devastating things

As I've refined Peace Studies these last four semesters, I've gotten clearer and clearer (and more in love) with the fact that my class invites students to surf the space between the personal and the political. Readings in sociology, history, and political science? Uh-huh, of course. Reading and writing memoir? You bet!

Increasingly, the writing assignments they do for me are short (500-800 words) and personal. As in, What is your gender? Are you conscious of it and how it influences your interactions? Do you act differently around men or women? Are there implicit or explicit expectations of you because of your gender that you like or don’t like? OR: Is feminism relevant for you and your generation?

My motivations for this personal tact are fairly shameless: at that age, they tend to be good at writing about themselves (and if they're not, it's good to start them in the hopes they cultivate a lifetime of introspection). And, because I think the concepts will mean a lot more to them, and penetrate a lot deeper, if they personalize them.

But when they bare their souls to me.... how do I grade that as an English assignment??

I've had boys reflect on their experiences with masculinity and having to be tough, and girls talk about how their sexuality alternately empowers and disempowers them. Later in the semester I will have them write a story of an experience they had in which they were aware of their race. These kids consistently write the most beautiful and devastating things.

The most appropriate response is to honor and thank them for their story, and to be humbled by their sharing it with me. I am often humbled.

So I write them long comments, ask them lots of questions, and offer them lots of praise. But I also circle their typos and grammatical mistakes, and beg them to be more careful about paragraph breaks and run-on sentences. I do it all hoping they don't get stuck at the grade as my judgement of them, but instead hear me saying (whispering, across traditional teacher-student lines) I see you, I honor you. Thank you.