Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, May 27, 1994 TAG: 9405270079
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-12 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By MARA LEE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: SHAWSVILLE LENGTH: Medium
Those small numbers mean small classes, especially in advanced-placement courses. Blacksburg High has 267 advanced-placement spots; Shawsville has 38.
What's it like to teach a class of eight instead of 20? Five instead of 27?
"It's wonderful," said Kathryn Atkins, who teaches eight in her advanced-placement English class. "It's like eight torches in a room. When you have eight in the classroom and they're all lit, it's just glowing. Almost total illumination."
Atkins works on writing. Every six weeks her students have three or four timed writings, designed to teach them to write concisely.
"When they come to me, they write all the way around the topic," she said.
She also teaches them to quote literature from memory in essays.
"Address your audience as an educated audience," she tells them.
Every six weeks, she assigns a 10-page typed research paper with literary criticism sources. Students should write a journal entry daily.
The first six weeks, she reads every word of their journals, trying to assess writing. She always sees a wide range. And she doesn't let up on the students who have earned straight A's all the way through. Atkins said, "I fine-tune them, too."
With so few students, Atkins is able to spend as much time planning as grading. She estimated she spends 25 hours a week outside of school working on all her classes.
But smaller isn't necessarily better, she said. Eight is really a little too small - 15 would be ideal. Discussion can be less fertile with only nine points of view - especially on those rare days when nobody's read, "the days there's only one torch lit ..."
Calculus teacher Dee Davidson teaches five students in her advanced-placement class. If eight is possibly too small, five definitely is.
"Sometimes it's very frustrating, because nobody wants to say anything," she said. With such a small class, sometimes it's difficult to risk a wrong answer. First-period class proved her point, as students didn't try a problem that was set for y instead of x.
"I'm curious, how did you set up 13, Donny?" He didn't. "Amy?" She didn't. "I'll give you another one like it to do tonight."
But calculus at Shawsville is growing. Three years ago, just one student enrolled. Next year, there'll be eight.
On the up side, Davidson knows right away when somebody isn't getting it.
"How do we find the area of a circle?"
When a student couldn't come up with an answer, Davidson asked her four more questions, pushing her a little more until she understood the answer.
After each silence, "I guess so," and wrong answer, she pushed her a little more, until she understood the answer.
by CNB