Again a long hiatus, but at least I have a few gems to share that I've saved up. Mostly, I've been drowning so much in trying to get this crap graded that I haven't felt like I have the time to write up blog posts pointing out how our educational system has clearly failed.
These first snippets come from a "research paper" on selling vs. restoring old cars.
"How to know what price to sell one's part at need's to compare the prices of some other places and web sites."
So many things wrong there, I didn't honestly know what to tell him to fix it. I think I ended up just underlining it and putting a big old question mark next to it. I'm still not sure exactly what that sentence is supposed to say.
"next i am goin to talk about the increase in prices for certian parts."
Mind you, this paper was in fact typed, so why they didn't at least run spell check is beyond me. I am impressed with his perseverance in writing like a second grader (no offense to second graders) despite the many times I told them that a: they should not use first person in their paper, b: they should not tell me what they're going to write about next in their paper, and c: they should use formal language in their paper. I'm glad that he listened so carefully to my instructions.
"How many of a certain parts that ceritan company made will impact the price of that part."
The most impressive part about this sentence, for me, is that he managed to spell "certain" both correctly and incorrectly, and incorrectly in a different manner than he had earlier in the same paragraph. That's just...special.
Now, a special treat. I recently gave an essay assignment on Medieval Romance, which was supposed to be a 1 page essay on one of three topics I offered. One student chose the topic "King Arthur as a prime example of a romance hero" for his essay, and then promptly ignored everything I had taught them about what a romance hero is. I present to you his essay in its entirety:
KING ARTHUR
How was the king Arthut a prime example o fa romance hero? Well there are some ways that he fulfilled that title. First he is going to mary a woman named Guenivere. Second Arthur dies for his town and for his people. Now i am going to tell you how he completed the title "Romance hero".
First Arthur is planning on marrying a yong lady named Guenivere, but Guenevere is in a prediciment because she loves a man named lancelot. Lancelot is a man who goes day by day, and doesnt kno wat to do just where ever faith takes him. So the marrige took place and Guenevere and Arthur are married. So Lancelot saves Guenevere's life and Guenevere ends up kissing Lance lol but while they are kissing Arthur walks in and catches them.
Now the wat Arthur is a Romance hero is that he Died for his people, now the way he did that was when Lancelot and Guenevere were on court than Galagant attacked but rode up to Arthur and asked for his town and total controll. But Arthur didnt like that too much so he said no and one of Galagant's men shot Arthur with a cross bow and killed Arthur.
In conclusion that is how Arthur is a "Romance hero". First he is a marrige with a young lady. And second he dies for his own people and for his own dignity.
I just don't even really know where to start. I should probably tell you that, while they were allowed to turn this essay in handwritten, this student took the time and effort to type his up. Clicking on spell check, once again, would have just been too much, I guess. Then there's the character names. I'm not sure if there are now two women in King Arthur's life, or if this kid just couldn't decide which of the many valid spellings of Guinevere's name to use, so he went with two of his own creation. Secondly, we've got lancelot, Lancelot, and Lance lol. I like the third one, but I can't say I've ever seen it before. Finally, there's poor Malagant, who gets called Galagant. You'd think they'd be able to remember at least the first letter of the bad guy's name, especially after we discussed the fact that his name even started with the prefix "mal," which means "bad." Then again, this kid ignored just about every other suggestion I made for their essays, including proofreading and actually engaging his brain while writing it.
So...not sure when the next entry will come, as I'm busy trying to turn what you see above into something worthy of a high school diploma...
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Can't I just write what I know in my research paper?
It's that time of the semester again, where I have to resist the urge to gouge my eyes out with a rusty spoon. Yep. Research papers.
The fun part about grading research papers when your school does the Graduation Project is that about 80% of the time, I have no idea if the content of what the student is writing is actually accurate unless I want to take the time to cross check what they're talking about. This happens, oh...never. But sometimes it's pretty easy to spot when they are a: full of shit and/or b: using shit for resources and/or c: clearly writing while under the influence of something that high school students should not be consuming.
Exhibit A: This student's paper is supposed to be about the positive influences that youth ministries have on teens. She does at one point mention missionaries, but then she talks more about youth groups. Without any editing (other than not including the citation she had included at the end...I wouldn't want to embarrass her source), here is one of the paragraphs in her paper.
Africa and AIDS have become almost synonymous. There are a lot of problems like diets and nutrition need to be improved, men and women and children all need health education, and child mortality rates need improving. The missionaries of Africa look upon all of the help and the grace of God they can confront, but there are hundred more like this and the missionaries of Africa is such many steps, unassumingly.
To be honest, I wasn't sure how to comment on her paper without completely crushing her soul, so I just wrote that it felt unrelated and I wasn't sure what she was saying. Here are some of the things I would have liked to say, however.
1. A continent and a disease should never be anything remotely close to being synonymous, for a number of rather valid reasons, not the least of which being that if you were to go to the doctor, they would be unlikely to be able to treat you fro Africa.
2. I don't think you ever want mortality rates to improve. At the very least, this is a somewhat insensitive way to suggest that there is an overpopulation problem.
3. I'm not terribly religious, but I'm pretty sure confronting God generally doesn't end well. I mean, look at what happened to Lucifer...
4. The last part of that paragraph broke my brain with its utter lack of intelligibility.
Exhibit B: This student's topic is "How the Evolution of Web Pages has Inform the Public."
The title alone warns you of fun to come. The first sentence set the pace for the rest of it, as well. He opened with, "Webpage design is a new concept that has been around ever since the 1990's, but over the past few years, webpage design has expanded enough for it to be considered an actual career."
Um. Unless you're talking about periods in the formation of the earth, I don't really think you can call something 20 years old a "new concept." The paper kind of went downhill from there. Not that it was a long trip, considering the starting point.
Exhibit C: This next paper was supposed to be about the mental, emotional, and social effects of chemotherapy. Really, it was more a completely disorganized collection of miscellaneous statements about cancer treatment and strangely worded stories about cancer patients. Here are a few examples of things that she wrote, that, while they did not all come from the same paragraph, would make the same amount of sense put into a single "paragraph" as the rest of the paper did.
Since standard treatments have been proven very effective, chemotherapy should be as well.
I have no idea what "standard treatments" are for cancer, though I know enough to know that "very effective" is unfortunately not something we can put as a blanket label on all of them. I do know that just because one thing is effective, it doesn't mean something completely different from it automatically will be...
Families everywhere have certain problems, however chemotherapy has a strong impact on them in most cases. A boy named Alex had to make difficult decisions between having cancer and going back to school.
Sounds like a tough decision for this kid. Gee, let me see...go to school, or have cancer. Tough one. I should save this as an example of how wording things carefully really does matter.
If a family member were in this position my family experiencing depression from cancer medications , but try to fix things to the best of ability.
I...I just don't know here. I can't even make fun of it, because I have no clue what it's supposed to say.
Perhaps the scariest thing, however, is that with the conversion scale that the district has given us for the rubrics we are required to use, all of the papers I've quoted here ended up with a passing grade. This, quite honestly, frightens me more than a little.
The fun part about grading research papers when your school does the Graduation Project is that about 80% of the time, I have no idea if the content of what the student is writing is actually accurate unless I want to take the time to cross check what they're talking about. This happens, oh...never. But sometimes it's pretty easy to spot when they are a: full of shit and/or b: using shit for resources and/or c: clearly writing while under the influence of something that high school students should not be consuming.
Exhibit A: This student's paper is supposed to be about the positive influences that youth ministries have on teens. She does at one point mention missionaries, but then she talks more about youth groups. Without any editing (other than not including the citation she had included at the end...I wouldn't want to embarrass her source), here is one of the paragraphs in her paper.
Africa and AIDS have become almost synonymous. There are a lot of problems like diets and nutrition need to be improved, men and women and children all need health education, and child mortality rates need improving. The missionaries of Africa look upon all of the help and the grace of God they can confront, but there are hundred more like this and the missionaries of Africa is such many steps, unassumingly.
To be honest, I wasn't sure how to comment on her paper without completely crushing her soul, so I just wrote that it felt unrelated and I wasn't sure what she was saying. Here are some of the things I would have liked to say, however.
1. A continent and a disease should never be anything remotely close to being synonymous, for a number of rather valid reasons, not the least of which being that if you were to go to the doctor, they would be unlikely to be able to treat you fro Africa.
2. I don't think you ever want mortality rates to improve. At the very least, this is a somewhat insensitive way to suggest that there is an overpopulation problem.
3. I'm not terribly religious, but I'm pretty sure confronting God generally doesn't end well. I mean, look at what happened to Lucifer...
4. The last part of that paragraph broke my brain with its utter lack of intelligibility.
Exhibit B: This student's topic is "How the Evolution of Web Pages has Inform the Public."
The title alone warns you of fun to come. The first sentence set the pace for the rest of it, as well. He opened with, "Webpage design is a new concept that has been around ever since the 1990's, but over the past few years, webpage design has expanded enough for it to be considered an actual career."
Um. Unless you're talking about periods in the formation of the earth, I don't really think you can call something 20 years old a "new concept." The paper kind of went downhill from there. Not that it was a long trip, considering the starting point.
Exhibit C: This next paper was supposed to be about the mental, emotional, and social effects of chemotherapy. Really, it was more a completely disorganized collection of miscellaneous statements about cancer treatment and strangely worded stories about cancer patients. Here are a few examples of things that she wrote, that, while they did not all come from the same paragraph, would make the same amount of sense put into a single "paragraph" as the rest of the paper did.
Since standard treatments have been proven very effective, chemotherapy should be as well.
I have no idea what "standard treatments" are for cancer, though I know enough to know that "very effective" is unfortunately not something we can put as a blanket label on all of them. I do know that just because one thing is effective, it doesn't mean something completely different from it automatically will be...
Families everywhere have certain problems, however chemotherapy has a strong impact on them in most cases. A boy named Alex had to make difficult decisions between having cancer and going back to school.
Sounds like a tough decision for this kid. Gee, let me see...go to school, or have cancer. Tough one. I should save this as an example of how wording things carefully really does matter.
If a family member were in this position my family experiencing depression from cancer medications , but try to fix things to the best of ability.
I...I just don't know here. I can't even make fun of it, because I have no clue what it's supposed to say.
Perhaps the scariest thing, however, is that with the conversion scale that the district has given us for the rubrics we are required to use, all of the papers I've quoted here ended up with a passing grade. This, quite honestly, frightens me more than a little.
Sunday, February 6, 2011
creative spelling and faulty thinking
New semester brings a new batch of terrible/interesting writing. These are all excerpts from the journals I have my students write in daily.
My prompt: What would your impression of the "New World" have been if you had been a pilgrim?
Their responses:
My impression on the new world if I was a pilgrim would be. "Umm cool. I wonder if there is girls here? If not, I wanna go home."
So, he would have been interested only in the female natives that, as a Puritan, he would have believed were going to hell. Also, some day I will have students that know how to use the conditional subjunctive...that day has not yet arrived. Oh, I wish I were a teacher of students with some actual mental ability...
If I was a pilgrum I would have thought it would been very boring and hard to survive. It would been very boring because I would have been used to european life style. It would have also been hard to survive because they did not have to hunt for food back in england.
Right. Because in England at that time, any game that people wanted to eat would obligingly walk into the house of its own accord. Damn animals in the Americas made you actually go out and hunt them. Also: I find it interesting that this student only sometimes remembered to include the "have" in his sentences...
Another prompt: Why did the Native Americans tell myths, and what was their purpose?
These responses feature some creative spelling...
Because that what there spirt told them to believe in. The spirts sat around telling myths and stories around the camp fire They also have their special dances. So there children know about the myths and knowing there heritage. Knowing there herritage is a big thing in the children.
Not sure why she spelled heritage correctly the first time, and not the second, nor why she can sometimes spell "heritage" but doesn't know which "there" to use, or how to spell "spirit."
This next response is to the same prompt, but I really am not sure what she's getting at. At least the first one I can understand what she meant, but this other girl...well, decide for yourself:
To tell how events happenen. They did it to the people how something happend, and for interatanment.
I think the last word is "entertainment," perhaps. This child just doesn't have a whole lot of brain power, I'm afraid, though she generally tries hard. In response to the prompt that said, "You are a Puritan. What do you do for fun? What kind of books do you read? What is your goal in life?" she answered rather simply. "I was a puritan. I would play outside." Apparently she was able to place herself in the past, but then failed completely to understand the fact that they would not been fans of letting anyone "play outside," as a 16 year old woman. This after we spent a good deal of time discussing these facts. Then again, this is the same student that sat there, practically staring at me while I explained a grammar exercise, and not 5 seconds after I finished explaining the directions, called me over and asked what she was supposed to be doing.
Oh well. At least some of my students this semester seem to have almost the appropriate number of functioning brain cells to still maintain coherence.
My prompt: What would your impression of the "New World" have been if you had been a pilgrim?
Their responses:
My impression on the new world if I was a pilgrim would be. "Umm cool. I wonder if there is girls here? If not, I wanna go home."
So, he would have been interested only in the female natives that, as a Puritan, he would have believed were going to hell. Also, some day I will have students that know how to use the conditional subjunctive...that day has not yet arrived. Oh, I wish I were a teacher of students with some actual mental ability...
If I was a pilgrum I would have thought it would been very boring and hard to survive. It would been very boring because I would have been used to european life style. It would have also been hard to survive because they did not have to hunt for food back in england.
Right. Because in England at that time, any game that people wanted to eat would obligingly walk into the house of its own accord. Damn animals in the Americas made you actually go out and hunt them. Also: I find it interesting that this student only sometimes remembered to include the "have" in his sentences...
Another prompt: Why did the Native Americans tell myths, and what was their purpose?
These responses feature some creative spelling...
Because that what there spirt told them to believe in. The spirts sat around telling myths and stories around the camp fire They also have their special dances. So there children know about the myths and knowing there heritage. Knowing there herritage is a big thing in the children.
Not sure why she spelled heritage correctly the first time, and not the second, nor why she can sometimes spell "heritage" but doesn't know which "there" to use, or how to spell "spirit."
This next response is to the same prompt, but I really am not sure what she's getting at. At least the first one I can understand what she meant, but this other girl...well, decide for yourself:
To tell how events happenen. They did it to the people how something happend, and for interatanment.
I think the last word is "entertainment," perhaps. This child just doesn't have a whole lot of brain power, I'm afraid, though she generally tries hard. In response to the prompt that said, "You are a Puritan. What do you do for fun? What kind of books do you read? What is your goal in life?" she answered rather simply. "I was a puritan. I would play outside." Apparently she was able to place herself in the past, but then failed completely to understand the fact that they would not been fans of letting anyone "play outside," as a 16 year old woman. This after we spent a good deal of time discussing these facts. Then again, this is the same student that sat there, practically staring at me while I explained a grammar exercise, and not 5 seconds after I finished explaining the directions, called me over and asked what she was supposed to be doing.
Oh well. At least some of my students this semester seem to have almost the appropriate number of functioning brain cells to still maintain coherence.
Monday, January 24, 2011
Guess I'll just drop out...
Monday's are bad enough normally, but when it's a Monday when you have to give a state test to students that you don't even know, that's just asking for trouble. You would think that even a high school freshman would realize that it's a bad thing if a teacher that has never met you before knows your name less than five minutes after you walk in the door. This was the case for one of the 21 kids that came in to my room for the English I retest this morning. Somehow, me telling him once that he could not in fact leave as soon as he was done and that he would have to wait until the end of the testing session was insufficient. He asked me three times, I guess hoping the answer would change. It didn't.
Then, he tried to talk after I had officially started the testing session (after delays that already made me irritable, like a late proctor and a missing test which took about 15 minutes to get straightened out). I had to move his seat, because he couldn't figure out how not to talk with people around him.
Next, he had the complaint that his desk wasn't flat enough. Really? He wanted to sit on the floor to take his test. I was sorely tempted to say yes, on the condition that he let me put a dog collar on him. I refrained, however, and told him no. Both times he asked.
He continued to be annoying, fidgety, and potentially misadministration-y for the rest of the exam session. I was so glad to see him leave, and God help him if he ends up in one of my classes (assuming he ever makes it out of English I).
Then, there was the icing on the cake of my student interactions for the day. One of my seniors came by to ask me why he had gotten a 56 in the class. Now, this student had failed to complete his Graduation Project by the deadline, and claimed to have gotten an extension from the administrator in charge of it. I gave him the benefit of the doubt during the semester, but every time I asked if he had gotten it in, nothing. His extended deadline came and went, and meanwhile, his grade in my class continued to plummet as he stopped doing any work in class. So then, this past Monday, over a month after the extension deadline he had been given, he turned in roughly 1/4 of what he was supposed to have done. The AP and I looked at it, and determined that, due to how little there was and the low quality, coupled with how far past the deadline it was, the grade on it essentially was still a 0. This decision was partially based on it being that bad, and partially based on the fact that his grades were so low overall, any points I could reasonably give him for it wouldn't actually effect his overall grade at all.
So, I explained to him that a: his project was no where near what it needed to be, b: with how late it was, he really didn't get any credit for it and c: even if he had gotten credit for it, his grade in the class was so low, he would still fail.
His response: But, I shouldn't have been penalized for it being late! I had an extension!
Um...yes, but it was late even with that. And it sucked. And you still fail. I didn't say the last two parts, though I wanted to. I told him I was sorry, but there was nothing I could do, as he had not done anything in class for the last several weeks.
His response: It's all right. I'll just drop out.
And he walked out the door. Now mind you, I like this kid. I wanted him to pass, but I wasn't about to just *give* him a grade. My students have to *earn* their grades, and he *earned* an F. Pretty consistently. This kid, I thought, liked me, too, as we had some pretty nice conversations during class about things unrelated to school, most of which involved him trying to convince me that WoW doesn't suck. I still think it does. Anyway, he apparently said some choice words that I wish I had heard once he was out in the hallway, because two of my coworkers then came into my room asking, "Was that directed at you?"
Hate to say it to him, and I won't unless he asks, but if you're unwilling to do the work for one final semester to get your diploma, and you want people to just *give* you a passing grade so you can graduate, you're barking up the wrong tree. And that's not just with me, but with all the English teachers. Good luck getting and keeping a job with that kind of attitude...
This rambling post brought to you by: it's my birthday, and it's been a kind of shitty day, so I need to vent. Thank you for listening.
Then, he tried to talk after I had officially started the testing session (after delays that already made me irritable, like a late proctor and a missing test which took about 15 minutes to get straightened out). I had to move his seat, because he couldn't figure out how not to talk with people around him.
Next, he had the complaint that his desk wasn't flat enough. Really? He wanted to sit on the floor to take his test. I was sorely tempted to say yes, on the condition that he let me put a dog collar on him. I refrained, however, and told him no. Both times he asked.
He continued to be annoying, fidgety, and potentially misadministration-y for the rest of the exam session. I was so glad to see him leave, and God help him if he ends up in one of my classes (assuming he ever makes it out of English I).
Then, there was the icing on the cake of my student interactions for the day. One of my seniors came by to ask me why he had gotten a 56 in the class. Now, this student had failed to complete his Graduation Project by the deadline, and claimed to have gotten an extension from the administrator in charge of it. I gave him the benefit of the doubt during the semester, but every time I asked if he had gotten it in, nothing. His extended deadline came and went, and meanwhile, his grade in my class continued to plummet as he stopped doing any work in class. So then, this past Monday, over a month after the extension deadline he had been given, he turned in roughly 1/4 of what he was supposed to have done. The AP and I looked at it, and determined that, due to how little there was and the low quality, coupled with how far past the deadline it was, the grade on it essentially was still a 0. This decision was partially based on it being that bad, and partially based on the fact that his grades were so low overall, any points I could reasonably give him for it wouldn't actually effect his overall grade at all.
So, I explained to him that a: his project was no where near what it needed to be, b: with how late it was, he really didn't get any credit for it and c: even if he had gotten credit for it, his grade in the class was so low, he would still fail.
His response: But, I shouldn't have been penalized for it being late! I had an extension!
Um...yes, but it was late even with that. And it sucked. And you still fail. I didn't say the last two parts, though I wanted to. I told him I was sorry, but there was nothing I could do, as he had not done anything in class for the last several weeks.
His response: It's all right. I'll just drop out.
And he walked out the door. Now mind you, I like this kid. I wanted him to pass, but I wasn't about to just *give* him a grade. My students have to *earn* their grades, and he *earned* an F. Pretty consistently. This kid, I thought, liked me, too, as we had some pretty nice conversations during class about things unrelated to school, most of which involved him trying to convince me that WoW doesn't suck. I still think it does. Anyway, he apparently said some choice words that I wish I had heard once he was out in the hallway, because two of my coworkers then came into my room asking, "Was that directed at you?"
Hate to say it to him, and I won't unless he asks, but if you're unwilling to do the work for one final semester to get your diploma, and you want people to just *give* you a passing grade so you can graduate, you're barking up the wrong tree. And that's not just with me, but with all the English teachers. Good luck getting and keeping a job with that kind of attitude...
This rambling post brought to you by: it's my birthday, and it's been a kind of shitty day, so I need to vent. Thank you for listening.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Not everythng they write is poorly written
So, I had my students write their last journal entry for the semester on the best/worst part of the class and why they liked/disliked it. Most of them were fairly mundane. Several suggested I stop giving tests and making them read. It's only English class...why should they read? Some of them were very nice and told me they liked the class, and a few even mentioned having actually learned something. Go figure.
One, however, gave me a response that was quite entertaining, and for once it wasn't because of abysmal spelling or grammar. For a little background, there was one student in the class with quite possibly the worst case of ADHD I've ever seen, coupled with actual intelligence, and a complete and utter lack of common sense and tact. This resulted in quite a bit of him saying stupid and/or inappropriate things, and he was not well liked in the class at all. To be honest, I am quite happy to not have him in class either, and not because I dislike the kid, he's just exhausting and extremely frustrating as a student. So, one student gave me the following response in his journal:
I would have to say that the worst part of this class was [student name]. Please pass him, so no one else will have to deal with him in the future.
Very selfless of him. Luckily for all of us, this student managed to pass on his own, so none of my fellow English teachers will have to put up with his inattention again. Not that I blame the author for the comment...I'm sure he wasn't the only one in the class thinking it, he was just the only one that wrote it. Of course, this author was also one of the few kids in the class that actually understood the material before I had to water it down, so he probably picked up on the fact that this kid was simply incapable of controlling himself.
Also: got probably the most interesting scantron sheet ever this semester. This was from a student that could not possibly pass the class because he did not complete his Graduation Project. Instead of answering the questions on the final test he bubbled the following on his scantron:
Side 1: HAPPY DAYS!!
Side 2: COWABUNGA!!
But hey, he scored a 2/100. Not that much worse than the kid that supposedly actually tried and got a 27/100. Yeah, that class didn't exactly do great on the exam...good thing they got their ridiculously inflated Graduation Project grades as their Final Exam grades, as the class average on the test before the curve was a 53%. Clearly remembering things is over rated.
Note to self: I am better at writing blog posts when I don't do it right before bed. Please remember that for next time...
One, however, gave me a response that was quite entertaining, and for once it wasn't because of abysmal spelling or grammar. For a little background, there was one student in the class with quite possibly the worst case of ADHD I've ever seen, coupled with actual intelligence, and a complete and utter lack of common sense and tact. This resulted in quite a bit of him saying stupid and/or inappropriate things, and he was not well liked in the class at all. To be honest, I am quite happy to not have him in class either, and not because I dislike the kid, he's just exhausting and extremely frustrating as a student. So, one student gave me the following response in his journal:
I would have to say that the worst part of this class was [student name]. Please pass him, so no one else will have to deal with him in the future.
Very selfless of him. Luckily for all of us, this student managed to pass on his own, so none of my fellow English teachers will have to put up with his inattention again. Not that I blame the author for the comment...I'm sure he wasn't the only one in the class thinking it, he was just the only one that wrote it. Of course, this author was also one of the few kids in the class that actually understood the material before I had to water it down, so he probably picked up on the fact that this kid was simply incapable of controlling himself.
Also: got probably the most interesting scantron sheet ever this semester. This was from a student that could not possibly pass the class because he did not complete his Graduation Project. Instead of answering the questions on the final test he bubbled the following on his scantron:
Side 1: HAPPY DAYS!!
Side 2: COWABUNGA!!
But hey, he scored a 2/100. Not that much worse than the kid that supposedly actually tried and got a 27/100. Yeah, that class didn't exactly do great on the exam...good thing they got their ridiculously inflated Graduation Project grades as their Final Exam grades, as the class average on the test before the curve was a 53%. Clearly remembering things is over rated.
Note to self: I am better at writing blog posts when I don't do it right before bed. Please remember that for next time...
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
this post brought to you by the "snowpocalypse"
Ahh, snow in the south: cause for mass panic, and the absolute shutting down of the state for several days. Since it's been about 6 months since I posted, I figure it's time for me to write something again. Ahh, a posting schedule I can stick to: once in a very great while.
So, after spending the past couple of days doing a whole lot of nothing because I'm actually caught up on grading, I bring to you some choice excerpts from my most recent batch of really shitty papers. Mind you, in my students' defense this time, several of them have no right to be in a Junior English class. But as someone did them the "favor" of passing them along, I have a Junior class that is collectively lower than any other class I've taught before. Arguably even the freshman class I had when I was student teaching...
Our first excerpt comes from a student that shouldn't be required to have a literature class to begin with. This child has no aspirations beyond the farming and tree care that his family has done for generations, but thanks to NCLB, we inflict literature he will never use on him. Now, to explain how truly un-gifted this child is in the mental department, I will tell you that, when we were talking about the phrase "carpe diem" in relation to the American Romantics, he asked why they didn't just all use English, instead of using those other languages that don't make sense. So, anyway...his paper is about trees and their care. Here is a single...sentence, which I use only for lack of a better term.
Pruning techniques is a big part to know when you are pruning a evergreen tree you should know how much to take off an how much not to take off if you take off too much off a evergreen tree it will start to change coilers as well as getting riley dry it will go from being dark green an flimsy to dark brown an dry and it will not be a party site that you were looking forward to seeing and in about two to three weeks it will be dead so becarefull pruning them.
Like so many students before him, not only did he blissfully ignore the rules of spelling and punctuation, he also apparently missed the whole "don't use second person (you) anywhere in your paper, or it will become a how to paper" thing.
One of my other kids informed me in a research paper on recycling that, "If the planet recycled enough glass bottles and jars the planet can stack them the people should be able to reach the moon and half way back to earth." There's some physics in there that my poor English teacher brain can't handle, and some improbable actions such as planets stacking things. Of course, earlier in the paper, he mentioned that, "If the planet recycled paper the people can do different things." Maybe one of those different things would be a mastery of subject-verb agreement, which at the moment seems to escape at least this student, if not more than half of this class.
Another student has an apparent flair for sweeping over-generalizations coupled with unintentional puns. His paper is on obesity. "Did you know obesity is growing bigger in bigger in America than anywhere else. The reason obesity is so big in America is because everyone has lack of exercise and diet." Not sure how obesity happens with a lack of diet, but I can certainly see the problem with everyone lacking exercise. Later in the paper he goes on to mention that people have a "more greater" risk with multiple risk factors...
The student writing about "the Horror/Thriller genre" apparently felt it necessary to provide definitions of every form of the words horror and thriller, with an individual citation after every portion of the definition. I'll give her props for actually citing her work, but I really didn't need to read a full page and a half of definitions of words that most people know the definition of. The worst part is, she had done that one the first draft she turned in, and I had marked on there for her to stick to one definition of one form of the word, if she really felt the need to, and still I ended up with dictionary vomit in her paper.
I really think I should invest in stock in red pens. This batch of papers looks like I had a fight with a razor blade in close proximity to them. It definitely looks like I lost.
On the plus side...I have a solid 2 weeks in which I won't have to look at research papers, unless one of the 8 kids from this class that didn't turn in a paper decides to do so tomorrow, on the last day of class. But why would they do that? They only had an extra 3 days to write it, on top of the 2 extra weeks they had when they failed to turn it in when it was due, before Christmas...
Oh yeah, I get new kids on January 26th. Three days after that, I'll get to collect papers from my seniors that are supposed to be revised versions of their junior paper. Guess it'll be time to break out the razor blade, er, red pen then...
So, after spending the past couple of days doing a whole lot of nothing because I'm actually caught up on grading, I bring to you some choice excerpts from my most recent batch of really shitty papers. Mind you, in my students' defense this time, several of them have no right to be in a Junior English class. But as someone did them the "favor" of passing them along, I have a Junior class that is collectively lower than any other class I've taught before. Arguably even the freshman class I had when I was student teaching...
Our first excerpt comes from a student that shouldn't be required to have a literature class to begin with. This child has no aspirations beyond the farming and tree care that his family has done for generations, but thanks to NCLB, we inflict literature he will never use on him. Now, to explain how truly un-gifted this child is in the mental department, I will tell you that, when we were talking about the phrase "carpe diem" in relation to the American Romantics, he asked why they didn't just all use English, instead of using those other languages that don't make sense. So, anyway...his paper is about trees and their care. Here is a single...sentence, which I use only for lack of a better term.
Pruning techniques is a big part to know when you are pruning a evergreen tree you should know how much to take off an how much not to take off if you take off too much off a evergreen tree it will start to change coilers as well as getting riley dry it will go from being dark green an flimsy to dark brown an dry and it will not be a party site that you were looking forward to seeing and in about two to three weeks it will be dead so becarefull pruning them.
Like so many students before him, not only did he blissfully ignore the rules of spelling and punctuation, he also apparently missed the whole "don't use second person (you) anywhere in your paper, or it will become a how to paper" thing.
One of my other kids informed me in a research paper on recycling that, "If the planet recycled enough glass bottles and jars the planet can stack them the people should be able to reach the moon and half way back to earth." There's some physics in there that my poor English teacher brain can't handle, and some improbable actions such as planets stacking things. Of course, earlier in the paper, he mentioned that, "If the planet recycled paper the people can do different things." Maybe one of those different things would be a mastery of subject-verb agreement, which at the moment seems to escape at least this student, if not more than half of this class.
Another student has an apparent flair for sweeping over-generalizations coupled with unintentional puns. His paper is on obesity. "Did you know obesity is growing bigger in bigger in America than anywhere else. The reason obesity is so big in America is because everyone has lack of exercise and diet." Not sure how obesity happens with a lack of diet, but I can certainly see the problem with everyone lacking exercise. Later in the paper he goes on to mention that people have a "more greater" risk with multiple risk factors...
The student writing about "the Horror/Thriller genre" apparently felt it necessary to provide definitions of every form of the words horror and thriller, with an individual citation after every portion of the definition. I'll give her props for actually citing her work, but I really didn't need to read a full page and a half of definitions of words that most people know the definition of. The worst part is, she had done that one the first draft she turned in, and I had marked on there for her to stick to one definition of one form of the word, if she really felt the need to, and still I ended up with dictionary vomit in her paper.
I really think I should invest in stock in red pens. This batch of papers looks like I had a fight with a razor blade in close proximity to them. It definitely looks like I lost.
On the plus side...I have a solid 2 weeks in which I won't have to look at research papers, unless one of the 8 kids from this class that didn't turn in a paper decides to do so tomorrow, on the last day of class. But why would they do that? They only had an extra 3 days to write it, on top of the 2 extra weeks they had when they failed to turn it in when it was due, before Christmas...
Oh yeah, I get new kids on January 26th. Three days after that, I'll get to collect papers from my seniors that are supposed to be revised versions of their junior paper. Guess it'll be time to break out the razor blade, er, red pen then...
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Oh right, I have a blog...
I've come to the conclusion that it's incredibly difficult to keep up with a blog during the school year...especially when you don't know if anyone is even reading it. This year was particularly difficult, as my school decided that while the Graduation Project was supposed to be a school-wide project, they would just dump it on the English teachers without actually giving us any control over it. As such, I had more than my fair share of really shitty papers to read. There were a couple decent ones, but on the whole, I read a lot of crap this year. I would have posted excerpts of their complete lack of a command of the English language, but to be honest, I wouldn't even know where to start. Several of them amazed me not with their skill with words, but with the fact that someone somewhere saw fit to let them get all the way to Junior year of high school without learning the difference between the words "an" and "and." Another left me speechless by turning in a "rough draft" consisting of just a cover page. An incorrectly formatted cover page, at that.
Perhaps at some point I will be more consistent about writing here, but I won't make any promises. What I might be more motivated to do would be to create a blog of creative writing...but we'll see how things pan out. In the meantime, I'm going to finish getting ready for my wedding and my honeymoon. Those are definitely priorities at the moment.
Perhaps at some point I will be more consistent about writing here, but I won't make any promises. What I might be more motivated to do would be to create a blog of creative writing...but we'll see how things pan out. In the meantime, I'm going to finish getting ready for my wedding and my honeymoon. Those are definitely priorities at the moment.
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