Thinking Context: No More Writing "Workshop"

ByJohn Warner. I think about the language I use with my students a lot.
For example, even in the sentence above, I notice my instinct to use “my” in conjunction with “students,” connoting a kind of ownership.
Or is it responsibility?
Is this a good thing, turning these people on the class roll into my students? Doesn’t it suggest that they may not have identities outside of their relationship to my course?
Sometimes in class I will call them “kids,” though this does not sit well with me and I try to correct myself. Read more...