Tale from Academia #1
| Teaching, it turns out, is simultaneously the most rewarding part of my job and the most infuriating. I'll give you an example, because I feel like whining a bit this morning. Student A has been turning in consistently below average work all quarter. I don't mean that she's stupid or unintelligent (although who knows, maybe); she never completes assignments fully, talks to her friend constantly in class, and has problems with grammar and sentence structure that make me want to refuse to read her papers. So now, it's the end of the quarter, and she gave me a rough draft of her paper on "representations of the vegetarian lifestyle on restaurant's websites" (I'm paraphrasing -- nowhere in the paper was the topic this coherent). And I just... gah. I don't know what to do with her. To get an A she needs to do so much work (like actually analyzing the websites instead of just noting that a tomato = appeal to veggies) that there's no way she can do it. She's obviously not putting any effort into the assignments, and her last one had such appalling grammar mistakes that I gave her a C purely based on the incomprehensible grammar. I usually don't grade on grammar, but I couldn't understand what she was on about at times. I probably should have given her a D, but I'm a complete pushover when it comes to grades. It doesn't seem fair that a student should fail a university-wide required course like English 110 when they have much more important things to worry about their Freshman year. And now I'm rambling and going nowhere. I guess my point is: fer fuck's sake, kids, put just a little effort into your papers. Where the hell did you go to school that you passed, and got good enough grades to get into college, by turning papers like some of the ones I've seen. I'm putting effort into teaching you, and I'd like to see a little attempt at showing me you've learned SOMETHING (other than to staple your papers before handing them in -- I've got them trained by now). Off to meet with my little scholars today. On a more inspirational note, I have a brilliant student who is writing me a paper about grasshoppers in Salvador Dali's paintings and she incorporates Freudian theory. I think I actually hugged her paper. |
posted by Sarah at 8:28 AM
Comments on "Tale from Academia #1"
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Anonymous said ... (3:21 PM) :
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Sarah said ... (7:39 PM) :
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Sarah said ... (9:03 AM) :
post a commentI feel your pain. Grading essays today, and it's not a pretty sight.
One word of advice - if at all possible, keep a copy of those rare papers that really nail the assignment to show future classes what you expect. (In my case, it helps when I'm up against the parental "You expect too much from a sixth-grader.")
Mom
Mom
Oh, I do keep the good ones. In fact, I schedule a day at the end of the quarter in which the class goes over a good paper and a bad paper, and we discuss each paper. It's usually really helpful for the students who actually pay attention.
That's a really good idea. Do you use bad papers from the previous year, or what? And how do you get students' permission ("May I use your paper as a bad example"?)
Well, I never, EVER, leave a student's name on a paper I'm using as an example (good or bad), and I try not even to reveal the gender of the writer. But, because of the way our classes are scheduled, the students only get their final papers back from me if they make a special trip to my office the following term. Most of them don't.
So, I use any one that's left with me, sans identifying (re)marks, of course.
And there is an offial "permission slip" we can use if the student does want their paper back, but we'd like to hang on to it. This rarely happens. Right now I've got at least 60 papers from previous quarters taking up space in my apartment.