lolaraincoat | cake or death?

Current Mood: a danger to myself and others
Current Location: grading hell
Current Music: a very strange Russian performance of "In C"

Entry tags:

spork u.

cake or death?

I had intended to do a year-in-review post, plus also complete a lengthy exegesis of Spike Lee's New Orleans documentary When the Levees Broke (to sum up: wow, wow, wow) but instead I am grading. The second-year survey class is making me suicidal again. We've had the by-now traditional references to "slaves who were badly paid" in the midterms and oh so many more facts which are not. Many of their essays have begun with the dread phrase "In today's society" despite my repeated and specific warnings that if they used that phrase they would be cruelly mocked in front of their peers. They all seem to agree that while everyone has a race, only women have gender; in fact, one student made that idea (and I use the word loosely) the basis of his paper's argument. I have to get through seventeen more of these essays before tomorrow morning's class. Or I guess I could just kill myself now. Augh!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Is it possible to drag them out and set them on fire? The students, I mean, not the essays. Or do you think they will learn better when they get older?

Oh yes, there has been some discussion already of abandoning the red pencil in favor of the flamethrower. But that (as a certain expresident of the US used to say) would be wrong.

They may learn better when they get older. But right now I am feeling doubtful about the possibility.

I really think that making snarky comments in the margins that show up their piss-poor thinking will be a big start. I bet no one's ever called them on it before.

Um, look at this as a teaching opportunity? Think of how you could crack their little, wee brains right open! Come on. It will be fun!

The problem is that this represents a teaching failure -- mine, that is -- in that they haven't learned it already. That's what makes me want to shoot myself instead of shooting them.

It may in part be that they were freaked out and exhausted when they wrote 'em. We all revert to stupid a little under those circumstances. I'm sure you're an excellent teacher and you can hardly be expected to reverse two decades of xenophobia, sexism, and sloppy thinking in one three credit hour class!

Don't be so hard on yourself.

You are fighting two decades of programming. Every influence they have encountered in their itty-bitty lives has taught them that male is normative and female is other. How can one person change that programming in a single semester?

I'm fighting that battle with my husband who thinks the dishes and the laundry are "women's work." I'm not winning, but I don't feel as if it's my failure.

Maybe the kids are just dumb?

Remember, if you end it now, THEY WIN. Hang in there. For us. Please?

Gah.

Um, hello. Are you the person who wrote the Fried Green Tomatoes Yultide story? Because if you are, I've been meaning to send feedback, but was eaten by the grading monster and am therefore behind.

If you are, I thought it was an excellent piece, and I hope to send actual feedback next week.

If not, my apologies.

That was me, indeed -- and thank you!!

I've been so busy (we still haven't met the fall grade deadline, bleh), that I read a grand total of one yultide story, and I adore FGT, for obvious reasons, so I read yours in the middle of grading final exams, and it made me smile. I thought the mom was particularly well done, and I will say more next week, but, whoo hoo, I can release my guilt over not having at least sent quick feedback! Rock on. The Land of El Jay is in fact a small world, and I'm glad I could both pass something along feedback-wise and yet still feel compelled to send real feedback later.

Your icon is helping me not give up, by making me giggle.

And yet ... I could be reading through the Yuletide archive right now. Damnit!

Think of it as the soft, pillowy carrot at the end of the rainbow.

Or, you know, not. Because ew. ;)

You know, one of my favorite parts of popslash was that Joey from NSYNC was legendary for wearing vaguely inappropriate t-shirts. (He's allegedly been spotted in ones that say things like "*NSUCK" and "I go to *NSYNC concerts for the pussy." )

When we got photographic proof of him in this one, I about died with the glee. Because on the long list of reasons that popslash has always read as so damned lesbian to me (aside from the fact that early Lance Bass with his bad bleach job looked like any number of women I knew who played rugby, and that Chris Kirkpatrick dressed like half the dykes I know), is that the boys just make it so easy for us to appropriate them as, you know, as

ladyjax would say, being into the girly bits.

Glad it helped, and glad you liked my little rendition. Sadly, after last night's batch, I could add more, but some of them pain me too much.

Since the dawn of time, students have written craptastic essays. In this comment, I will discuss the three major ways that students write essays that are not interesting. First, there is the cliched opening sentence. Second, there is the lack of anything resembling a varied sentence structure. Third, there is the creation of words that do not exist. Sprinkled amid the real gems however, student papers also rely heavily on misplaced modifiers then there are the run on sentences of doom which continue on and on and on like the Energizer bunny commercials of course it is possible that in Canada you no longer see those commercials, and miss them (much like the student missed ample places to put a comma, but lo, no, we get an extra in the middle of a compound predicate.) In conclusion, I'm not sure what the schools are teaching to a student, but they really need to spend more time teaching them about essays, and apparently unclear pronoun references.

I'll stop now, but I feel your pain. I find it helps to perform dramatic readings of said papers to my girlfriend. She has not yet waded through reams of the things, and she gets quite properly indignant when they do stupid things.

My personal favorite was when her first reaction to a bad piece of work from last term was "Wow, that's not chauvinistic." Because, sadly, I have become so inured to the low grade sexism of 18 to 20 year old creative writers who think that shock value is good that I didn't even notice it on a conscious level.

Hah! Brilliant! I see you've been reading my students' essays, or else some essays that are oddly similar.

And yes, I have come to understand that Fishwhistle actually enjoys the days when I have grading to do, the bastard. He came in the door today all whistling and smiley, and demanded that I read him the good ones.

At this point, I'll take any moral support when it comes to grading in whatever form I can get it if it helps me finish the buggers, you know?

Sadly, those are all from my students' essays. And I left out my fave invented word, on the v. slim chance that the student who used it could find his or her way here, but it's a sad thing to leave out because it was an excellent one.

Tee hee!

I think that the creation of words that don't exist is a special bonus that makes our lives BETTER. My favorite, I think, was the time a student used the word "anthropologist" as a verb, as in "they didn't anthropologist." I never did figure out what she meant.

Many of their essays have begun with the dread phrase "In today's society" despite my repeated and specific warnings that if they used that phrase they would be cruelly mocked in front of their peers.

I'm looking forward to reading your descriptions of the cruel mocking. You have threatened to cruelly mock them in front of their peers. Failing to fulfill your threat equals teaching them that authority figures are inconsistent and unreliable. They will leave your tutelage one step closer to being scofflaws and anarchists. As a responsible educator you cannot let that happen.

Ah, the yute of today's society!

Your students have come up with some doozies (yes, entertaining for me!) but I'm not quite convinced yet that any of them have ever topped "the Earth is, in part, transparent," which I got on an astronomy exam once. Or the one astronomy student who, when I asked them a question about where the sun rises during a particular part of the year, said it rises in the west.

Well, today I am on the 4th-year students' papers and they are little better. Also, my computer is dead, I left my cell phone at the office again, and there's cat puke on the front hall rug. Everything is bad! Everyone is against me!

Well, it's transparent to neutrinos...

My favorite isn't even one of mine, but from a student in the general astronomy class that one of my fellow grad students had a couple of years ago. The student (not a native English speaker) wrote a brilliant essay, accurately describing our current theories on the beginnings of the universe, with the central concept being the Big Band Theory.

I think I've seen a cartoon of the Big Band Theory. (It shows the earth popping out of someone's trumpet.) I'm waiting to hear about the Big Bong Theory, though.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

cake or death?

no subject

no subject

Crivens! I'll gie them sich a kickin'!

Only women have a gender

Re: Only women have a gender

Re: Only women have a gender

No suicide

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

And another thing...

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject