June 23, 2008
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And here it is. The point at which students realize they like or hate my class
and me (yep, I’m connected to my classes forever).
Why?
I’m in the middle of assessing the first paper.
Yes, it’s that time that I just adore in every course. Ugh. I’d really like to know what is so hard to understand about: “Think of a stereotype (shy away from using the typical male/female stereotype) that includes you, one that you think is applied to you unfairly (or, perhaps, fairly). Write an essay, as outlined below, explaining to your classmates how you are or are not different from the stereotype.” And I lay out the play-by-play of the paragraphs in the essay as well as have a sample essay (written by me about being a supposed hippie) for them to read. Now, perhaps it has nothing to do with me. Perhaps they are just too busy to care. Perhaps they figure ‘Hey, I’ll just find a paper I’ve written about stereotypes in the past and try to get some points off that.’ Whatever the case, I’d like to know why so many don’t do well (meaning As & Bs) with that much information in front of them. It’s not even that they can’t write; THEY CAN. The deductions today were mainly due to not following the paper’s focus/guidelines or length or the lack of parenthetical citations. I rarely have to subtract pointage for “bad writing.” Seriously.Ah. I just needed to vent. And now I need to fill my stomach.
