Conservative. Idaho. Software engineer. Historian. Trying to prevent Idiocracy from becoming a documentary.
Email complaints/requests about copyright infringement to clayton @ claytoncramer.com. Reminder: the last copyright troll that bothered me went bankrupt.
"And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose." -- Rom. 8:28
Crying. I don't know how native speakers of English can get to this point with such a tragic command of English. I feel terrible about having to grade some of these papers this harshly, but these problems needs repair before some students take any other classes.
If their writing is that bad, perhaps they should get credit for not plagiarizing. The last time I graded papers (I've been retired for a couple of years), in a class of 28 students, five got zero's for plagiarizing. This, after they had two semesters of "composition," and a lecture from me on how to write a paper without plagiarizing.
Both--poor grammar and plagiarizing--are sad, of course, but simply reflect the fact that (a) high schools are not doing their job, and (b) a large number of people who go to college don't belong there in the first place (even if their grammar was okay). I'm glad to be out of the college racket.
Could the decline in knowledge, erudition and acumen be any greater if it was accomplished by design?
An orchestra is a sophisticated organism that accomplishes a common goal from a specified plan, and is not termed a conspiracy. But it is orchestrated.
I started teaching about 30 years ago while still an undergrad. I stopped about 5 years ago when it became just not worth the effort. The difference in the quality of students who decided to go to college was serious. But what do you expect when everyone is told to go to college? And when they're told to take out unwise loans to do that?
Back in the 70s and 80s college was unusual enough that you had folks who were intended to go to college going to college. By the late 80s you had the folks who really had no business going to college being subsidized by loans that no sane folks would make to go and study random stuff (which is why the government was the one making the loans). By the late 90s the quality of freshmen had deteriorated so much that it was depressing.
I don't mind teaching graduate students in engineering. I was an adjunct and did that because it was fun. But these days I wouldn't even consider teaching freshman undergrad courses since it's not worth the frustration. And that includes engineering courses.
Crying. I don't know how native speakers of English can get to this point with such a tragic command of English. I feel terrible about having to grade some of these papers this harshly, but these problems needs repair before some students take any other classes.
ReplyDeleteI thought Gingrich had an interesting idea - charge the high school for the remedial classes its students had to take in college.
ReplyDeleteIf their writing is that bad, perhaps they should get credit for not plagiarizing. The last time I graded papers (I've been retired for a couple of years), in a class of 28 students, five got zero's for plagiarizing. This, after they had two semesters of "composition," and a lecture from me on how to write a paper without plagiarizing.
ReplyDeleteBoth--poor grammar and plagiarizing--are sad, of course, but simply reflect the fact that (a) high schools are not doing their job, and (b) a large number of people who go to college don't belong there in the first place (even if their grammar was okay). I'm glad to be out of the college racket.
Could the decline in knowledge, erudition and acumen be any greater if it was accomplished by design?
ReplyDeleteAn orchestra is a sophisticated organism that accomplishes a common goal from a specified plan, and is not termed a conspiracy. But it is orchestrated.
I'm grading papers today too, Clayton.
ReplyDeleteSame frustration.
If you really want to cry, read this: http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/184448/#respond
ReplyDeleteI started teaching about 30 years ago while still an undergrad. I stopped about 5 years ago when it became just not worth the effort. The difference in the quality of students who decided to go to college was serious. But what do you expect when everyone is told to go to college? And when they're told to take out unwise loans to do that?
ReplyDeleteBack in the 70s and 80s college was unusual enough that you had folks who were intended to go to college going to college. By the late 80s you had the folks who really had no business going to college being subsidized by loans that no sane folks would make to go and study random stuff (which is why the government was the one making the loans). By the late 90s the quality of freshmen had deteriorated so much that it was depressing.
I don't mind teaching graduate students in engineering. I was an adjunct and did that because it was fun. But these days I wouldn't even consider teaching freshman undergrad courses since it's not worth the frustration. And that includes engineering courses.
What happened with your effort to have he students write a practice paper early in the term that would be used to diagnose their writing skills?
ReplyDeleteSome of those who an okay job on the practice paper suddenly wrote trash for the research paper. I am a bit mystified.
ReplyDeleteMaybe they "had help" writing the practice papers.
ReplyDeleteOr perhaps because the practice papers were first person narrative, it was less of a struggle.
ReplyDelete