›

Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!

Sign In Register

In this Discussion

Grading

YoursTrulyYoursTruly
edited October 2013
Grading grading grading grading grading
Grading grading grading grading grading
Grading grading grading grading grading
Grading grading grading grading grading
do u know how long you grade
you grade forever
you grade forever and a day
every stack of grading that goes away means a new one is coming
I use a whole pen up for every stack
A million forests must be chopped down to make all these papers
i am only 1/5 done with the grading I have to finish by 3 today
how do u even grade
what even is this job
verbs nouns dangling modifiers
shitty stupid ideas they thought of one hour before the deadline
but you have to couch your criticism in a loving way
like a goddamn mother

Comments

  • YoursTrulyYoursTruly
    i am having a meltdown
    i am having a psychic break
    i can't believe there are still 3 more papers to go before christmas vacation
    i can't read another one of these papers
    i am an idiot for assigning any papers ever
    somebody help
    help
  • Dr_William_HaywardDr_William_Hayward
    edited October 2013
    The intent of grading is to create ongoing self improvement in the recipient. In the grader, it is all about deep breathing and Zen mind to defray a heavy responsibility. Make measures that make sense and use them as metric. They can be intuitive.
  • UncleBoatShoes2011UncleBoatShoes2011
    You get an F
  • MirandaJulyMirandaJuly
    I always have and always will hate the paper-writing based system of education in place.

    How many of us grow up to be professional writers? Pretty much none, right? SO WHY IS THAT HOW WE ARE EDUCATED AND EVALUATED?

    Granted, I have absolutely no alternative to propose. To do so would require writing, which, ick.
  • MirandaJulyMirandaJuly
    Like, even if you graduate and go into a career where you have to write some type of summary report of a study that was performed by your team, you will not also have to write essays on famous works of literature.
  • UncleBoatShoes2011UncleBoatShoes2011
    That's why you still owe me that movie review, huh?
  • YoursTrulyYoursTruly
    MZ you are crazy and that is crazy how dare you.

    Learning to write a clear, compelling, effective paper is a major way you learn to THINK clearly and critically. There's a reason the educational spectrum is just about writing longer and longer and more and more complex papers the higher up you get--it is how you learn to construct sophisticated thoughts and arguments. It's not arbitrary at all. I believe in papers and in grading them, I just wanted to complain, because grading them can be a real slog. It can also be amazing, to see a kid attain a stunning revelation via a clear structure that leads inevitably to a well-bolstered conclusion.
  • YoursTrulyYoursTruly
    edited October 2013
    your comment implies that everything we do in school should directly correlate in a literal fashion to what we will do for money later and that is a BULLSHIT thing to say

    Learning how to think is so important; learning how to write can be a huge factor in this

    I don't come down to where you work and slap the dick out of your mouth
  • YoursTrulyYoursTruly
    if I had two dicks I would surely use them both
  • flossy_log_ladyflossy_log_lady
    Come, come. I don't think MZ's comment "implies that everything we do in school should directly correlate in a literal fashion to what we will do for money later." He's right that our education is dominated in a huge way by paper-writing. I agree that it has its place, and I am particularly grateful to the writing training I received in high school, but it's also true that I graduated from college with a belief that because I was a pretty awesome writer compared to my peers, I must be more intelligent/qualified/marketable, etc. As if my writing ability (or the fact that I received high marks and encouraging comments from professors) was the premier measure by which people in the word (future employers) would judge me. Why wouldn't I think so? My professors LOVED me because I could write, and they were the only "higher ups" I'd ever known. Why wouldn't everybody out there love me for this?

    I was probably particularly naive, but still. I think the there's something to the idea that we should think critically about what we're teaching kids by basing their "value" (grades) almost exclusively on writing. Agreed, MZ!

  • UncleBoatShoes2011UncleBoatShoes2011
    YT is getting in fights on the internet today. I saw another one somewhere else.

    A real wild card
  • YoursTrulyYoursTruly
    edited October 2013
    I'm saying it's not the writing itself that is the meaning. If your professors loved your writing, what they loved was that you were displaying good thinking skills and that you were able to articulate concepts clearly. And yeah, I do think that those skills come into play in your life outside of college; I DO think future employers take those things into consideration. Do they give a shit that you got an A on a paper about Frankenstein? No. But do future careers require you to be able to critically engage with various materials and clearly explain yourself and weigh arguments and shit? Yes.

    Also "our education" is not dominated by paper writing. The vast majority of today's education is performed via multiple choice tests that specifically value the ability to assess "right" and "wrong" statements, which is a very different skill set than paper-writing, which asks students to be creative and imaginative in addition to being critical and logical. Even in college, where paper writing comes into play again, one must also take tons of science and math classes, in which no paper writing occurs. Not sure where this belief that all students do is write pointless papers comes from, as it has not been my experience as a student or as a teacher.

    Also I've never had to do math in my career so does that mean I should not have had to take math classes? Should we sit each kindergartner down and be like "Hmmm, you're obviously never going to write articles for the New York Times, so NO WRITING FOR YOU!"

    If you personally have never had to write a paper for whatever career you randomly ended up in, I'm not sure how we can apply that information to revamping the educational system for all students, since no one can know what career they'll end up in and thus how can we know WHICH skills we teach our students are actually going to end up being declared stupid and pointless by them 30 years later???

    I am getting in fights on the internet today because I am worked up and full of rage because I have misused my time today and hate myself for it
  • swamp_knobbler_mahanswamp_knobbler_mahan
    edited October 2013
    I'm all in with YT on this one. PAPERS.

    Also, I always hated math and never really progressed past algebra 'cause I thought I'd never use it and I was pretty bad at it, and now I have to use it a bunch in JavaScript and damn, if I was better at it I could do some pretty amazing stuff with programming.
  • YoursTrulyYoursTruly
    I am seriously so ragingly angry today about so many things. I am going for a walk so I do not burden you all with my psychological issues

  • YoursTrulyYoursTruly
    edited October 2013
    DELETED BY USER
  • YoursTrulyYoursTruly
    Not at all! What I believe is that there is a wide array of skill sets that are ideally nurtured and worked on in college. We all are naturally inclined toward some and not others. But I think that just because we might not be naturally inclined toward one set of skills--or just because we don't believe we ended up needing those skills in our careers--that doesn't mean that skill set was pointless to work on or to learn. I am trying to point out how learning to write a paper about Frankenstein is actually about working on a lot of complex thinking and expressing skills that are really valuable, and that just because you didn't ever have to write a paper on Frankenstein in your career that doesn't mean that being required to do it in college was pointless.

    I believe math is real and important and valuable and that knowing how to do it is evidence of having grasped a sophisticated set of concepts and skills, even though I personally can not do any math and got one of the lowest scores in my entire high school on the math portion of the SAT. Someone telling me that learning how to do math is good for my brain, and that the skill sets math classes work on are meaningful, is not something I take personally. It is okay to be good at stuff and not other stuff; what concerns me is the flippant denigration of the skill set itself, like because you don't have to write papers now it is a senseless task that didn't do you any good to work on back then. I strongly reject that notion and think it's both dangerous and depressing.
  • YoursTrulyYoursTruly
    no one on this board is dumb. The only thing that is dumb is saying that learning to write a paper is dumb, because it's not dumb

    fighting on the internet is also dumb

    maybe I am the dumb one
  • MirandaJulyMirandaJuly
    "That's why you still owe me that movie review, huh?"

    100% yes.

    I completely understand the link between writing and the ability to construct thoughts and arguments, and I anticipated your rebuttal. However, I just see a lot of paradoxes (paradoxii?) in the process. For example, I might have a really interesting thought on or firm grasp of the material at hand, but I fuck up on a bunch of stupid grammar rules and therefore I'm penalized.

    Like I said, I have no idea what a possible alternative could be (possibly because it cannot exist). It's just another one of those "thangs that bugs me," because I don't believe that a person's ability to write an A+ paper is directly related to their value on this Earth, and I have seen many people get bummed out due to their struggles in school that are directly related to being repeatedly evaluated on a weakness they have ("bad" writing).
  • MirandaJulyMirandaJuly
    "If you personally have never had to write a paper for whatever career you randomly ended up in, I'm not sure how we can apply that information to revamping the educational system for all students, since no one can know what career they'll end up in and thus how can we know WHICH skills we teach our students are actually going to end up being declared stupid and pointless by them 30 years later???"

    I think maybe what I'm feeling is that it should be more of a compassionate guidance towards your particular aptitude? Like, it's OK that we have everyone take Math and write papers on Chaucer, but if someone is not good at that particular thing, could it be less like "FAILURE" and more like "Ok, this isn't your thing"? (No, it could not. This is classic impossible idealism by me.)
  • MirandaJulyMirandaJuly
    "Also, I always hated math and never really progressed past algebra 'cause I thought I'd never use it and I was pretty bad at it, and now I have to use it a bunch in JavaScript and damn, if I was better at it I could do some pretty amazing stuff with programming."

    How could we ever possibly design an educational system that could anticipate this? Even if we could design it, radical change seems impossible. WE'RE DOOMED!

    Look, I just hate writing papers.
  • YoursTrulyYoursTruly
    it's fine!!
    I def have students who just don't like writing and aren't great at it, and they are still humans with lots to offer and other skills that I know nothing about and totally admire. Everyone is different. I just don't feel like "paper writing" is given as much emphasis in education as you guys were making it seem like!! My kids write five papers in 4 months, that doesn't seem that heavy does it? My other class only does 3. They're given many other opportunities to work on and demonstrate their other skills (talking in class and tests, and then over in their math/science classes they're doing shit like coding or whatever. equations. who knows what goes on over there. labs)

    everyone is smart and awesome and this world is beautiful because we are all good at different shit and shitty at different shit!!!!!!!!!!

    Let us all raise a glass and be glad we no longer have to do the things we were bad at doing in school!!!!!!!! LARGE WINES
  • YoursTrulyYoursTruly
    p.s. your paper on this topic is due tomorrow at 9 a.m.
  • swamp_knobbler_mahanswamp_knobbler_mahan
    All of this is because shrimp is in retrograde
  • YoursTrulyYoursTruly
    oh yeah I forgot! Explains some things
  • MirandaJulyMirandaJuly
    Maybe I'm over emphasizing paper writing, but when I think about whether I could ever go back to school (for what? I don't know.), the first thing that I think is "NO, I COULD NEVER WRITE ANOTHER PAPER FOR SCHOOL."

    Let's be clear, I pretty much *always* got an A on my papers, and even with that fact, I cannot stand having a paper deadline looming over my head. Even though it's "only" five papers in four months, you have other papers due for other classes, and it's just like there's always a paper due. I can't explain the relief that came over me when I graduated and finally had no more papers to write.

    I still write things for work, but I know that they will not be scrutinized and are generally only a couple hundred words at most. That's a level of pressure I can deal with.
  • YoursTrulyYoursTruly
    be that as it may, I've already given you one extension, and it wouldn't be fair to the rest of the class to give you another one. That 9 a.m. deadline is hard and fast--and I want it in hard copy, not email like last time when you "forgot" to attach it
  • MirandaJulyMirandaJuly
    Oh man, one time I got extensions for a whole extra semester of time and eventually just had to tell the professor that I realized I was never going to write the essay. Sorry, sir!
  • flossy_log_ladyflossy_log_lady
    I got a B in one of my art classes, which I felt was LUDICROUS so I went to see the (asshole) prof (actually was asshole) who told me I could write a paper basically describing how his class had changed my life, and then he would raise my grade to an A. I couldn't do it, which was really saying something because I sure was dedicated to those A's. I just couldn't. do. it.

    Re: writing emphasis of education - first of all, I took way fewer science/math classes in undergrad than many, and my perspective is based on my experience. It's not that the quantity or papers is not doable, it's just that most grades are based on papers. I'm also not saying that I have an alternative in mind, and I do certainly agree that being able to write/think is SUPER IMPORTANT.

    Actually, you know what? Forget it. I'm really glad I did all that writing, and I think I just like to blame my dissatisfaction with my own personal career trajectory on my educators because I'm lazy. I had awesome educators and an awesome education.

    "what concerns me is the flippant denigration of the skill set itself, like because you don't have to write papers now it is a senseless task that didn't do you any good to work on back then." --> did not mean to denigrate the skill. Just wish my education had also emphasized the value of other skills in a more balanced way. I've had too much coffee this morning and honestly cannot think/write, sorry. Also, something that is not the fault of my educators but is my own fault: very much wish I had participated in internships while in college. That would have really helped round-out my experience.
  • YoursTrulyYoursTruly
    oh brother, seriously, if we want to start talking about all the shit we wish we'd learned/paid attention to/done more of in college we shall never cease our talking. Imagine getting to do it all over again but with your current mind!!! I'd be a millionaire now!!!

    That art class professor sounds like a turd. I can not imagine making a kid write a paper specifically about how great my class was!!!!!!! I wonder where he is now?
  • ThickeningAgentThickeningAgent
    it's funny- as my 'career' as a collegiate professor inches forward, i am finding that my niche is the 'professional practice/dude who actually has some real world experience' role amongst a bunch of other professors who i know are actually much smarter than i am but have maybe never actually stepped foot off a college campus. that said, the one thing i emphasize over and over to the students craving my 'real world' experience is LEARN TO FUCKING WRITE. every class i've taught i have emphatically stated that learning to write well may be the single most important thing they accomplish in college.

    so while i am the guy who teaches things that "directly correlate in a literal fashion to what [they] will do for money" i tell my students "you ain't gonna get no freakin' job if you write or talk like a neanderthal..."
  • MirandaJulyMirandaJuly
    Yes, but I think what chafes me is the hyper formal and regulated type of writing that is the essay. In a screenplay, you can say stuff like

    KARL
    That ain't no dishwand, dude!!

    And you also do not have to cite where that came from (own brain).
  • YoursTrulyYoursTruly
    I just wrote a big thing that got eaten!

    to sum up: I work hard with my freshmen to get them to realize that "academic" (whatever that means--when used as a pejorative I think it just means boring?) writing not only can but SHOULD be literary and engaging. I do workshops with them on "voice" and how to infuse personality into their arguments. It's fun to see some of them click with it and start experimenting! And some never do, and that is fine also, we are all different.

    It sounds like you weren't given the opportunity to realize that infusing verve and character and jokes into your papers makes them better, which sucks and I am sorry!

    But yeah, the rigid 5-paragraph essay format everyone is forced to learn in high school is to actual academic writing what freshman algebra is to, like, Newtonian physics. Good nuts and bolts tools but not the final product.
  • ThickeningAgentThickeningAgent
    I DON'T TEACH SCREEN-WRITING

    at least not yet

    My point is is that those boring academic papers one writes really help down the road when you actually have to write/communicate something that is actually important (note that 'boring' and 'actually important' are used here in a (mostly) sarcastic sense). "Sure, you might never write an essay again for the rest of your life," I say to my students, "but if you ever want to get a job, a grant, funding for your film, hired to direct a music video, etc, than you'd better know how to write a good cover letter, grant application, synopsis, treatment proposal, etc. People will judge you HARSHLY on your ability to communicate, and in a super competitive field like (fill in the blank), would-be employers/funders/etc are looking for any excuse to throw your application in the trash."

    When i talk in these terms, I can see the fear in the eyes of those students who suddenly realize they should have taken their English/writing classes more seriously.
  • YoursTrulyYoursTruly
    edited November 2013
    plus learning how to do stuff that is challenging is good for you

    something it seems like we are forgetting more and more in all our entrepreneurial talk of pleasing the client (a.k.a. the student) and maximizing profits

    learning how to do hard shit is good for you

    BOTTOM LINE
    WTF
Sign In or Register to comment.