September 26, 2012

  • TEN is the magic number... I guess.

    I shall assess ten papers today in Eng120; I did five (5) yesterday after assessing my WL240 P1s (which were amazing).
    I should be able to get them all wrapped up by Friday. Maybe. And tomorrow I'll tackle the Spelling Booklets my students had a WEEK to complete... many are using their penguin pass on the assignment. This saddens me a bit, and frustrates me, because they had A WEEK. During that week, we didn't have class; they had to sign up to chat with me, yes, but that's it. Wow. Well, it's not my problem. I just have to shake my head in their general direction & hope they do better next time.
    I read the Chronicle's newspaper in the library today (yes, I gave them a library day for P2; I wonder how many used it?), and it had some very interesting articles in it. One had a chart showing that some community college grads earn more (in their first year out), in certain disciplines, than those who go to a university... another claimed that "English" is dying, but I think parts said that we're just moving towards a creative OR technical use of it. Classes on literary analysis may die out; one person said, "Let's not write our obituary, but instead look to the future." Cheers to that... another article was a first-hand look at going from grad school to a tenure-track job; a question this guy asked was interesting. He said to himself, after the dissertation was in, "What now?" I think I've answered that for myself, but maybe some struggle to see what can happen after all the grunt work is done = there is more grunt work! 
    I think I have more to say about those articles, but I should probably grade like a fiend for a bit.
    But, coffee first.
    UPDATE: I have 19 left to cover for tomorrow & Friday. Yay. I shall conquer.
    VENI VIDI VICI

    p.s. Issues & Errors I've seen thus far:
    WL240Paper 1 Issues and Errors: 

    ---In-textcitations need page numbers (sample paper didn’t have them because the quoteswere from web sites). AWorks Cited page is needed, too. 
              
    ENG120Paper 1 Issues and Errors:  
    ---Definitions (and statistics) are not in our ownwords typically = they NEED quotation marks. Otherwise, it’s consideredplagiarism. [For P1, the deduction will be lenient (25pts.), but it will bemuch greated for the rest of the papers and projects.]  
    ---Not using the source in the text (-10pts).  
    ---In-text citations should be correct whether theyare color-coded or not. The color-coding is a bonus; you still need to usequotation marks (if info is taken word-for-word) and parenthesis (or an“According to” phrase), etc.   
    ---The instructional guide asked that we not argueabout gender stereotypes.   
    ---The paper’s question (and goal) was about thestereotype that YOU’ve been placed into; please do not argue about stereotypes ingeneral.