How To: Make your English Teacher Love You
Alyssa Vetter, Staff Writer
October 9, 2009
Filed under Commentary, How To...
Now some of you may think that making an English teacher love you may be extremely difficult . . .they are, after all, maniacle grammar and writing police with red pens of destruction. Fret not, kind reader, for in the next few lines your frown will turn upside down (and quite possibly your teacher’s frown too).
First you must know a few things about your teacher; for example if you want to make Mrs. Barron happy you would be much better off smiling and enjoying class than being salty and disinterested. There are a few ways you can seek this kind of information, you can…
- Strike up a conversation on both your free time and hers. You can begin with something simple like “Hi Mrs. Trout, I noticed you have a poster of Dr. House on your wall…do you watch the show?” Then as your conversation progresses you will undoubtedly learn something fun about your teacher.
- Ask your friends, chances are someone you hang around with knows something about your teacher that you don’t.
- Watch them from their windows…NOT! Don’t do that! They will think you’re creepy! You’re much better off with sticking to the first two.
Here is a list of a few simple “likes” of your English teachers:
- Barron: healthy snacks, jokes (that are actually funny), smiles, excitement about English, the 49ers, and travel
- Trout: yogurt mama, witty debates, honest opinions, sense of humor
- Yoshida: sweet treats, notable excitement, people who can laugh at themselves
The next step is to understand what your English teacher wants to see in the “ideal English student”.
The Ideal English Student
- *has an opinion about the topic being discussed (and expresses it at an appropriate time, using school safe language)
- *can make “real world connections” with the literature
- *participates
- *makes an honest effort (teachers are lie detectors and know when you’re “pretending to try”)
- *knows how to write specifically for their teacher! Believe it or not, every teacher wants you to write in a specific way which might vary greatly from teacher to teacher. You must know what she wants because there is nothing worse than a teacher who is sick of grading stacks of essays that weren’t written the way she wants.
In closing, you must remember that teachers are people too, they can’t always be happy (especially if they have to grade essays all night). Our teachers value students who make an honest effort in their studies and don’t make excuses; if you didn’t do your work, say you didn’t. They genuinely want you to succeed, so try your best. If it’s too hard, ask for help and more often than not you will do fine. You may even realize that your effort has made you an ideal student, and your English teacher just may love you.