Is It Really That Hard?

[BentonGrey]

Guys, I'm getting fairly frustrated with my students this semester.  As always, I told my classes that they had to have annotated works cited with these papers (informative essays about a topic of their choosing).  As I do every semester I exhaustively went over what annotations are and how to do them, as well as devoting my usual equally exhaustive attention to MLA citation format in general.  My policy is that students lose a letter grade each for not having: works cited, annotations, and in-text citations.  I even make them repeat that back to me multiple times over the weeks we spend on this section. 
"What happens if your paper doesn't have annotations?"
"We lose a letter grade." (Chorus)
Despite that, every semester a large portion of my students will turn in papers without one or all of those three.  I'm prepared for that.  I expect it, even, with a grim, cold certainty.  This semester is especially bad, though.  Out of all the papers I've graded so far (2/3 of them) only ONE student has had all three items.  In fact, only ONE student has had annotations, period.  I'm beginning to see red.  Out of all of those papers, only three have earned passing grades.  That's a pretty slim minority, and it's utterly ridiculous.

On the plus side one of my students apparently wrote her informative essay on the true and utterly factual existence of a conspiracy by the Illuminati to take over the world.  Her sources?  Youtube videos.  So, that should be pretty entertaining.  Ohh, and no annotations on this one either...

[Podmark]

What year are you teaching?
Can't say I'm surprised at this at all. Even when I was doing my Bachelor degree I always found annotations a pain. I always did them but I'm a completest and a lot of people don't care. Especially first year students.

[Cyber Burn]

Taking classes at both a JC and a CSU, I'm watching people in general just act like they care less and less. Why pay the money if you're not going to put in the effort?

[Mr. Hamrick]

Do you want honesty here, Benton, or would rather have sympathy in your plight?  I'm not trying to be snarky or sarcastic, I just wanted to know.

First, if you really make your students repeat back to you what happens if they don't in chorus then most of them either hate you or are pretty close to it.   The students probably don't care because they have already written off getting any sort of passing grade in your class because of your reputation from other students in the school.  This is especially true if you are teaching freshmen or sophomores.  You're not doing anything wrong, per se, just know that most of the kids already have heard horror stories about you and do not have high hopes for doing well in your class to begin with.  You are what was I would call back in my days in school a survival at best class.  (IE: biology and foreign language classes in my case and math classes in high school.)   The students... or student... who has gotten everything in properly in your class will probably be hated equally by his or her classmates not because they did the work but because that student is seen as a suck up to you.  This is not a knock on you, this is the probable mindset of many of your students.

As for the question of "Is it really that hard?": to some extent yes.   I had to look up the proper format and even what an "annotation" was and I have a degree in English.  I can honestly tell you that not one professor I had back then required annotations but were very anal about the proper citing of sources at the end of the paper and "in-text" citations.  If I had been required to include an extra three paragraphs of annotation on each source that I used then I would have probably not passed a single paper.  I mean requiring students to turn in a 5-10 page paper on top of another 3 pages of annotations (which may or may not include the works cited page) just kinda seems like the professor is either unknowingly sadistic or has an ax to grind with the students.  I'm not saying you do but that is from the student's perspective on the matter. 

Furthermore, a lot of first and some second year students will either not get "why" you want the annotations.  Some may get a bit confused on what exactly you are looking for them to say about a particular source in the annotation.  You will (I say will instead of may because I KNOW YOU) scoff at this but many professors do not consider the mindset of the student when looking at the material that they are trying to annotate.  For example, I can recall specific instances where I cited one or two pages out of a work and barely bothered to read the rest of it.  You want me to summarize the entire book based on the two pages I read?  Seriously?  I wager many of your students will do similar. 

Oh, and given that there are Indicative, Informative, Evaluative, Combination annotations, were I to decide to humor you on the matter of annotating that couple of pages I read then which one would you like?  They will skim the index looking for something related to their topic, turn to that page, use that bit of information, and not read the rest.  That is the mindset of the student.  I suspect you know this but want to convince yourself otherwise.

I'm not trying defend your students here, though.  You asked a question and I am answering it.  However, I will expect to receive one letter grade lower because I am not annotating or citing any sort of works cited.    Personally, I find the idea of this young lady's "informative" essay on an Illuminati conspiracy to be laughable at best.  At the same time, it is a prime example of a student having such extreme low expectations of doing well in your class from the outset that she is just throwing out whatever she can.  I would even question rather or not she is doing an "informative" essay or a "persuasive" essay given her topic.  (I know a gentleman who is so into the conspiracy theory stuff that he just assumes that his attempts to "inform" are not attempts to persuade people that he is paranoid and delusional.) 

I'm not sure what to suggest here as a solution, though.  I would assume that you are making it clear to your students that if they are having issues with a particular source then you will assist them.  (This may sound silly to you but it isn't.  Some students will get confused not so much on the MLA style but of finding the elements to satisfy MLA style in their source.)  In the case of your resident conspiracy theorist, make sure "all" your students understand that this is an "informative" essay and not a "persuasive".  If I were going to be informed about an alleged conspiracy then I would want to know both sides of the alleged argument that one does or doesn't exist.

Most importantly, remember that they are taking more classes than just yours and you are not the only one assigning them homework papers or "seemingly impossible to get in on time papers".

[thalaw2]

BG, do you give your students build up assignments/assessments (ie a summary of an article or other source, an annotated paragraph, making an outline with places where to included citations, etc.) or are they given the full blown assignment right away? 

I share your pain...I'm working with ESLs/ELLs and in the increasingly digital age that makes it easy for guys like you and me to write academic papers it also makes it easier for those that don't care to just skip all the important stuff. 

Anyway, what we did is make a bare-bones outline (introduction, body paragraphs, conclusion) handout that all students must complete and hand in a few weeks before the big assignment.  It has helped greatly and we can catch disasters on one page before they expand to an entire essay, but it is not a silver bullet--those that don't care will always be with us. 

[BWPS]

I used to be a student. Paper writing requires way more work than other core (I'm assuming) class assignments, and even putting in the minimum requirements doesn't necessarily get you a good grade. So skipping the hard parts and turning something completely fail-able in gets you what? A 50? Even that requires hours of work.  And papers are sometimes worth as little as 25% of the final grade. Formatting and annotating is probably the most annoying thing about the papers and more importantly are usually done last. At that point the stress of paper writing factored in with the marginal increase in grade often leads to a deep sigh followed by a F***IT! and a print. Paper writing has to compete with daily assignments in other classes and studying for test grades related to their degree worth 75-100% of their grade.
Anyone who doesn't have the time or skills to make an A on every single assignment has to make cuts somewhere, writing a terrible paper instead of a good one costs the least amount of grade and yields the most amount of time. So much so that it is very easy to realize that early in college.

College is extremely time consuming - for new teenagers especially, and moreso for teenagers with jobs or sports or whatever the Greek houses do (sexually assault new pledges to death?). They have other things going on and their priorities are different from yours or an English major's. This isn't something you should have to care about, but since you asked. Yeah it is pretty hard for most people.

You chose to get into English teaching because you're a good writer and probably enjoy writing. They are going to your class because they are forced to in order to do the things they care about.

[BentonGrey]

Urg, y'all are killing me.  Let me be clear here, this is composition 101, basic college writing.  The papers are pretty much all there is.  Students can't pass the class if they don't pass the essays, and they have to pass the class to graduate, as it's a requirement.  In addition, students don't have to be good at writing to get good grades on their papers.  They do have to put some effort into them, but I teach and grade this class with the knowledge that many of these students never got proper training in writing.   

I'll explain as I respond to Hamrick's book:

Do you want honesty here, Benton, or would rather have sympathy in your plight?  I'm not trying to be snarky or sarcastic, I just wanted to know.

First, if you really make your students repeat back to you what happens if they don't in chorus then most of them either hate you or are pretty close to it.   The students probably don't care because they have already written off getting any sort of passing grade in your class because of your reputation from other students in the school.  This is especially true if you are teaching freshmen or sophomores.  You're not doing anything wrong, per se, just know that most of the kids already have heard horror stories about you and do not have high hopes for doing well in your class to begin with.  You are what was I would call back in my days in school a survival at best class.  (IE: biology and foreign language classes in my case and math classes in high school.)   The students... or student... who has gotten everything in properly in your class will probably be hated equally by his or her classmates not because they did the work but because that student is seen as a suck up to you.  This is not a knock on you, this is the probable mindset of many of your students.

You seem to always have the idea that I'm some sort of surly, burnt-out, ogre of a teacher, MH (or at least am perceived as such).  Let me dissuade you of this.  My students usually love me.  In fact, I've gotten almost perfect evaluations all three years I've been teaching (average rating of 3.8 or 3.9 out of 4.0).  My classes are usually full, and students have been begging for me to teach 102 in addition to 101 since my first semester here.  Sadly, the full-timers tend to dominate those classes.  I understand that most people don't jump at the chance to take a comp class, and I also understand just how important this class is.  Keeping in mind that I've almost always got a resistant audience as the semester begins, I have a very practical approach to the writing skills we cover, focusing on how learning to frame and express an idea is going to serve them well no matter where they go.  I work hard to engage my students, and while that's always a challenge, I'm usually relatively successful.  I love what I do, though it does frustrate me to no end some days, and I care about my students.  Some days, though, their laziness, and yes, in this instance, it is definitely laziness, is ridiculous. 

As for the question of "Is it really that hard?": to some extent yes.   I had to look up the proper format and even what an "annotation" was and I have a degree in English.  I can honestly tell you that not one professor I had back then required annotations but were very anal about the proper citing of sources at the end of the paper and "in-text" citations.  If I had been required to include an extra three paragraphs of annotation on each source that I used then I would have probably not passed a single paper.  I mean requiring students to turn in a 5-10 page paper on top of another 3 pages of annotations (which may or may not include the works cited page) just kinda seems like the professor is either unknowingly sadistic or has an ax to grind with the students.  I'm not saying you do but that is from the student's perspective on the matter. 

I really have to wonder what kind of an experience you had in higher education that makes have such an adversarial view of teachers, MH!  I suppose I had my share of obnoxious teachers, but that certainly isn't me!  The answer to the question is, "no."  It isn't that hard, and let me tell you why.  First off, this is only a three page paper.  They aren't exactly writing a dissertation here.  I require students to do annotations, but this is not a research based class.  I'm teaching them the basics of MLA format, that's it.  So, when I say that I require annotations, I mean that I gave them a very specific assignment to get them to think about the types of sources they were using.  They had to answer three questions about each source, writing a grand total of, MAYBE three sentences after each works cited entry.  All they had to do, and they had this in writing, was tell me 1) What was this source about? 2) How was it useful to you? 3) Was it biased or not?  Literally, that's all they had to do, and they only needed to have three sources to begin with.  It takes, at most, about ten minutes.  This is freshmen writing, I keep it simple and clear.  I gave them very specific instructions, went over it several times, and reminded them of it as well.

Furthermore, a lot of first and some second year students will either not get "why" you want the annotations.  Some may get a bit confused on what exactly you are looking for them to say about a particular source in the annotation.  You will (I say will instead of may because I KNOW YOU) scoff at this but many professors do not consider the mindset of the student when looking at the material that they are trying to annotate.  For example, I can recall specific instances where I cited one or two pages out of a work and barely bothered to read the rest of it.  You want me to summarize the entire book based on the two pages I read?  Seriously?  I wager many of your students will do similar. 

Oh, and given that there are Indicative, Informative, Evaluative, Combination annotations, were I to decide to humor you on the matter of annotating that couple of pages I read then which one would you like?  They will skim the index looking for something related to their topic, turn to that page, use that bit of information, and not read the rest.  That is the mindset of the student.  I suspect you know this but want to convince yourself otherwise.

We talk about the "why" pretty extensively.  I always make it a point to address the usefulness of what we're learning.  We look at examples of biased sources and talk about the importance of standardized citations and how they keep us honest.  Also, for what little I require them to do, two pages would probably be enough background.

I'm not trying defend your students here, though.  You asked a question and I am answering it.  However, I will expect to receive one letter grade lower because I am not annotating or citing any sort of works cited.    Personally, I find the idea of this young lady's "informative" essay on an Illuminati conspiracy to be laughable at best.  At the same time, it is a prime example of a student having such extreme low expectations of doing well in your class from the outset that she is just throwing out whatever she can.  I would even question rather or not she is doing an "informative" essay or a "persuasive" essay given her topic.  (I know a gentleman who is so into the conspiracy theory stuff that he just assumes that his attempts to "inform" are not attempts to persuade people that he is paranoid and delusional.) 

Don't be silly, you fail outright!   Yeah, an informative essay on the Illuminati is something of a contradiction in terms, but this is what comes of giving students as much freedom as possible in choosing their topics.  I love it; they write about the craziest stuff.  I almost always wind up learning something from these assignments.  Anyway, it's true that the idea of writing a research based paper on a shadowy conspiracy that could not, by definition, be researched, is pretty silly.  However, she did a pretty decent job of it, and I imagine she'll earn a passing grade, though with some notes about why certain types of sources aren't considered reliable.  Ha, you see, I'm teaching them different forms of writing, and she managed to get the rest of the basics of the form correct.  I want students to write about something that interests them, and if this interests her, great.  The main thrust of my class is to actually get these kids thinking, and she obviously thought about this essay. 

Also, where in the world did you get the idea that my class was impossible to pass?  These students aren't doing very well, but there are opportunities to gain extra points.  Plus, classes vary like that.  One semester you'll have a group that will get mostly "A's," the next it will be mostly "C's."

I'm not sure what to suggest here as a solution, though.  I would assume that you are making it clear to your students that if they are having issues with a particular source then you will assist them.  (This may sound silly to you but it isn't.  Some students will get confused not so much on the MLA style but of finding the elements to satisfy MLA style in their source.)  In the case of your resident conspiracy theorist, make sure "all" your students understand that this is an "informative" essay and not a "persuasive".  If I were going to be informed about an alleged conspiracy then I would want to know both sides of the alleged argument that one does or doesn't exist.

Most importantly, remember that they are taking more classes than just yours and you are not the only one assigning them homework papers or "seemingly impossible to get in on time papers".

Ha, wow yes.  I keep pretty extensive office hours, a good deal more than are required, and I am always encouraging students to come see me or email me if they have trouble.  I stress it pretty much every day.  I find that the ones who really know what an education is worth (often older, returning education students) will come by my office and go over their papers with me.  As far as I'm concerned, I get paid to teach them, but that doesn't stop when class ends.  Also, they've got, literally, step-by-step instructions on MLA format in their textbook.  It is pretty excellent.  Plus, they can send papers off to get them read by experts and marked up, for free, thanks to MyCompLab. 

In terms of the fact that most of them are taking other classes, well, I'm pretty aware of that.  All of my papers have a lead time of at least two weeks.  That's a good deal of time to write three pages, even for students who have busy lives outside of class. 

Thalaw, I give them the full assignment, but we work on different pieces of it in the weeks leading up to its due date.  We work on annotations one day, citations another, etc.  I even give them some time to do research and get direct help in class.  That outline idea sounds like a good one.  I guess it makes them think about their paper before the last minute.

BWPS, papers are, as I said in the beginning of this post, the entirety of this course.  Heck, I remember what it was like to have to write papers.  I didn't want to do some of them, and yeah, I do enjoy reading and writing.  Yeah, that's different from some of my students, but one way or the other, I can't comprehend doing something that you know is going to fail.  Why, as CB said, waste the money?  Why waste your time?  If you don't want to take the class, well, no-one is holding a gun to your head, making you.  If you need it to graduate, then you need to pass...so, that brings us back to the beginning.

[ow_tiobe_sb]

I, too, feel your pain, Benton.  It pains me to admit that I have asked myself the same question many a time.  I feel as if I have given the matter a great deal of thought during my years at university, so please forgive me if I indulge some of those thoughts in this post.  (I will try to be as succinct as possible.)

This well documented and endemic problem (which includes both students' non-adherence to certain conventions AND instructors' resultant exasperation, for the typical professorial response to the problem inadvertently perpetuates this cycle), as I perceive it, seems to arise due to a collision of contrary discourses: one, the non-dominant discourse, which still holds that reading/writing and literature, in general, still have something to offer this market-driven world we inhabit--that they still maintain an alluring polish on that oft-cited "mirror [held] up to nature: to show virtue her feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure" (III.ii.17-24)--and the other, the dominant discourse, which maintains that literature and the art of academic essay writing are merely the products of academia and the leisure class (and certain impoverished, syphilitic madmen--who may also be college professors ) meant to be consumed (if one is so inclined) but not produced by students who are, themselves, indifferent at best (and sometimes openly hostile).  To those adherents of the dominant discourse, much of the reading assigned in either a composition or literature course seems irrelevant to their daily lives, and arguments mounted on and supported (cited, documented, annotated, etc.) by those readings represent a second order irrelevance--the sort of tedious pastime best left to those bitter, academic has-beens and never-weres.  To those adherents of the non-dominant discourse, students' lack of engagement with either readings or the approved methods of critical thinking/writing about those texts seems, at best, a mystery, or, at worst, evidence of laziness, irresponsibility, or unwillingness to adapt to academic expectations.  (Sadly, much of the academy does nothing to destroy the common illusion that it is a closed, secret society when it unreflectively enforces its seemingly abstruse methods of intellectual exchange and assessment of those exchanges.)


What have I learned?  What measures have I taken to anticipate and avoid this collision?  I have done what anyone might do when forced into a room with others who do not adhere to my discourse: I have learned to speak a common language, one that can dispel the notion that a life enriched by literature and reading/writing is merely an undead life (a figure which hints at the common but mistaken, politically-charged notion that the academic world is a parasite on the real world that it would hope to counsel and govern).  I have begun my semesters with two bold claims: "This class will be extremely relevant not only to your everyday lives but to every other course you take in your academic career," and "There no longer exists the study of literature or composition, per se."  I then endeavour to make good on the first claim by teaching students to read, e.g., Moby Dick ("Bloody Battle in Affghanistan") alongside current magazine articles about foreign wars critically and with an eye toward the formulation of defensible thesis statements.  We explore the mathematical bases of poetry and scansion, the biographical/historical/political/legal/economic contexts of our readings, and the alternately simple (or complex) musicality and complex (or simple) architecture of words and sentences used to delight and persuade.  I give practical reasons for everything I expect students to do, and I couch those reasons in languages familiar to them.  In-text citations are not merely conventions established by that shadowy organisation, the Modern Language Association, but tools used in the evidentiary process that has its courtroom (the essay), its advocate (the student author), and its judge/jury(/executioner  ) (the instructor/grader).  I remind the students, "Failure to follow the rules of the evidentiary process in court can lead to equally bad results in my class: undocumented arguments that lead to a mistrial/bad grade."  Annotated bibliographies are not merely sadistic research exercises but "outcome measures" for the instructor (i.e., whether or not substantive learning has occurred); I typically quote that familiar Chinese proverb to illustrate this point: "I hear, and I forget; I see, and I remember; I do, and I understand" (attributed to Xún Zǐ).

In sum, what I have found effective is not rote learning to ensure adherence to seemingly meaningless conventions but contextual and analogical demonstration of causal relationships--the answers to the big question in students' minds, "Why?"--between critical reading/thinking/writing, their chosen major, and their everyday lives.  My aim as a facilitator of learning is for students to grasp the critical importance of rhetoric and rules of argumentation which mark the difference between passive consumers of literature/information/other arguments and active, smart consumers/producers of the same.  I wish them to understand, e.g., how aesthetic choices are political choices (and vice versa), and how a strange fellow writing (what at first blush sounds like) stuffy verse over two-hundred years ago may have anticipated and articulated, e.g., Kim Jong-Il's cult of personality or the way Mr. Moore made Ozymandias speak and Mr. Gibbons made him look and move.  What I have learned is that more care needs to be taken to meet the students where they are, which is, more often than not, in a temple that worships the dominant discourse (which is not to say, Benton, that you do not take care to do so, for perseverance is also necessary).  I think this approach has served me well, and I think it has helped me achieve one of my greatest successes, which I will hold close to my breast as a cherished memory until I die: I was privileged to witness the epiphantic moment in which an engineering student, who was fiercely resistant to poetry all semester long, made a life-affirming connection between his own training and career goals and those examined in William Butler Yeats's "Among School Children":

O chestnut-tree, great-rooted blossomer,
Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?
O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,
How can we know the dancer from the dance?  (VIII.5-8)

This is late Yeats poetry.  This is dense poetry.  This made a lasting difference in the life of an engineering student in Boston, who graduated several years ago (and only took one class with me) but still writes to me at least once a year to update me on his life and career.

How hard is it to reach one's students?  Very hard--perhaps one of the most difficult things one will ever attempt--but it can be done.

ow_tiobe_sb
Phantom Bunburyist and Whirled Braker

[BentonGrey]

Thank you for the response, Tiobe.  I agree with pretty much everything you've said, and your post, expressed with a great deal more precision than I can muster, hits the nail on the head.  Any attempt to teach writing or literature is meet with a great deal of resistance, and to simply rail against the average student's reticence is useless.  I try very hard to, as you say, speak a common language.  I try to relate everything we do in class to their concerns.  I love your courtroom analogy.  I think I may have to steal that! 

It is an amazing thing when you see a student have one of those Damascus Road moments.  It's the best part of teaching.  I had a student a few semesters back who was in class every day, but who never engaged and put zero effort into his papers.  He was resistant to the entire idea of the course, unsure what he wanted out of life, but certain it didn't have anything to do with composition or literature.  He was failing, so I sat down with him and asked him if he wanted to pass.  He looked at me, surprised, and said, "of course," the idea of failing the course apparently never having been real to him.  We discussed what he'd have to do to manage a passing grade, and I encouraged him to bring his next essay, our literary analysis essay, to me for help.  He chose to write about Robert Frost's "Birches," thinking it was short and easy, but he was stumped.  He just couldn't decipher it, and the attempt had frustrated him even more.  We sat down and went through it, and it just clicked.  He made a connection, and suddenly he saw in this poem a mirror for his own struggles, trying to deal with the responsibilities of being in college and working, but regretting the loss of the carefree attitudes of youth.  He turned it around in the class, and that paper was simply written, but thoughtful, and he poured his heart into it.

[Deaths Jester]

I say fail the little bastads if they don't follow the rules you set forth.  You don't see an annotation at all, fail 'em...even if it's a well written piece.  You set  the rules out extremely clear and if they can't tak ethe time to follow them, then that's their own bloody idiotic faults.  (I always annotated his research..because I've always been a great researcher...and avoided the internet for info too...hehe)

[ow_tiobe_sb]

(I always annotated his research..because I've always been a great researcher...and avoided the internet for info too...hehe)

I see.  Am I correct in surmising that the author of that parenthetical statement is another one of your personalities, DJ, given that it conflates first- and third-person perspectives at will?

ow_tiobe_sb
Phantom Bunburyist and Whirled Braker

[Deaths Jester]

(I always annotated his research..because I've always been a great researcher...and avoided the internet for info too...hehe)

I see.  Am I correct in surmising that the author of that parenthetical statement is another one of your personalities, DJ, given that it conflates first- and third-person perspectives at will?

ow_tiobe_sb
Phantom Bunburyist and Whirled Braker

Yep...been fighting internally lately thanks to their evil-ness inside...lol..

(Acutally started writing it one way and changed it halfway through but didn't catch the mistake...heh.)

[lugaru]

In college I studied under the cruel master Pai Mei.

If you did not provide the figures for your calculations, once in rough, again neat, he would pluck out your eye where you stood.

[Tomato]

I don't really know what I can really add to all this, but this thread is kind of a punch to the gut for me because I've had to deal with both sides of this on a very personal level. On the one hand, I'm a great writer when I choose to be... having been home schooled, my parents elected to teach me grammar and proper sentence structure rather than bombarding me with pointless writing classes that teach nothing other than how to stretch nonsense to its greatest extent. I have, on more than one occasion, written papers over the course of a few hours that outshine those my fellow classmates wasted a full week doing. And it's not because of some great untapped talent, it's just that I was raised to understand how to write in a way most people simply never learn.

When I started my "college" education (I quote "college" because it was a community college and I don't consider most of the classes I took there to really be considered college level courses) one of the first classes I was require to take was a writing course. And let me tell you, that class was the easiest I have EVER had. Seriously, we had to turn in one page (barely even that most of the time) papers every week with such topics as "Your Favorite movie" or "how did 9/11 affect you."

However, the real eye opener came at the end of one of the assignments. Instead of just handing it in, we were to give our paper to the person next to us and make the corrections ourselves. Now bear in mind, I'm only 16 at this point. Even in an entry level college course, I was the punk kid. The person I was sitting next to was quite a bit older, someone in late twenties early thirties attempting to go back to college and get a degree. She glanced through my paper, made two marks on it, and set it back down. I read hers though... I gave up correcting halfway through because I felt so bad. So believe me, I can understand your plight here.

On the other hand, I've been on the other side too. In another writing class at a proper college, I failed the course not once, but TWICE. Not because the writing was difficult in and of itself, but there was so much of it. The course had apparently just been revitalized as a mainly net-based course before I'd taken it, requiring 100 word snippets for random topics every 2 days, responses to other classmate's snippets on the days off, and full fledged papers due at the end of each week. And while I'm more than capable of writing a couple hundred words a day, at a certain point my brain just shut down and I couldn't even look at the site anymore. Even when I took the class again during a later semester (after they'd kinda realized how insane the course was and pulled it back a bit) I was still so resistant to writing anything whatsoever for that class I ended up failing again.

I'll be honest, I've come to hate writing anything other than stupid forum posts. I'm good at it when I want to be, but even when trying to write for myself I get overwhelmed by feelings of apathy and annoyance. But I also recognize the value of the written word, even if I personally don't like doing it very much. Writing is, in its most basic form, a clear expression of the writer's thoughts. Whether it's a hastily jotted down note for what you need to grab next time you're out at wal-mart or an idea that has been considered and researched, we use writing to convey messages we cannot as easily give with spoken word. And in a time where text messages and tweets are spreading even the most pointless of thoughts to everyone around the world, it is more important than ever that we maintain our ability to think coherently and reasonably.

[Tawodi Osdi]

I think one of the problems is that these days lower education is more interested in teaching kids to feel good about themselves without necessarily teaching them how to earn the right to feel good about themselves.  Once these kids get into higher education or on an actual job and start actually having demands made of them, they lack the necessary self-discipline to apply to there studies.

This kind of reminds me how a felt as an older guy returning to college for the first time in several years.  I expected the people fresh from high school would be mopping the floor with me because everything thing the know would be fresh.  I was sadly mistaken.  I remember being sick on the week Charlemagne was being taught in Humanities.  I didn't get the reading assignment, but when I remember watching a film on Charlemagne in the 6th grade.  During discussion, I still managed to trounce everyone else.  Never mind that I was around 40 years old when I returned to college and it had been around 3 decades since I watched that film strip.

[Tortuga]

This is why I teach Grade 5.  For the most part, they're still in the "we'll do anything you say, Mr. Teacher!" phase.  Lucky for them, I don't exploit that. 

That said, the #1 problem encroaching on school society is an overblown sense of entitlement.  The #2 problem is apathy (often used as a coping mechanism for failure).  This is a bad combination and it's up to parents and teachers to combat this.  Unfortunately, many parents do a crappy job of doing so (as do some teachers).

[Tawodi Osdi]

I did substitute teaching for a year.  I mostly did grades 6 through 8 and mostly with mentally and emotionally disadvantaged kids.  I found 8th graders to be the absolute worst, and I found my normal students to be wearying but emotionally satisfied, but for the most part, I counted myself as doing a good job if there was no blood on the floor at the end of the day.  The best time I had as a teacher was teaching a 3rd grade class.  Even though the subject matter was some what lame to me, but it was nice teaching kids that really wanted to be taught.

[BentonGrey]

I say fail the little bastads if they don't follow the rules you set forth.  You don't see an annotation at all, fail 'em...even if it's a well written piece.  You set  the rules out extremely clear and if they can't tak ethe time to follow them, then that's their own bloody idiotic faults.  (I always annotated his research..because I've always been a great researcher...and avoided the internet for info too...hehe)

In college I studied under the cruel master Pai Mei.

If you did not provide the figures for your calculations, once in rough, again neat, he would pluck out your eye where you stood.

These two things made my day.  Haha, awesome guys.

Ha, 'Mato, I understand precisely how you feel.  After the very arduous process of composing my thesis it took me a decent amount of time to feel up to even working on FF missions, much less my actual stories.  Hopefully that reluctance will fade in time and you can enjoy writing again.

Tawodi, I think we've got a very broken system and a very broken culture, and our problems are, sadly, manifold.  That said, our lack of rigor and discipline in primary and secondary education has a lot to do with our problems, and Tortuga's points about entitlement and apathy (usually running in complimentary currents, in my experience) are also pretty dead on.  Unfortunately, with our very scattered and uneven approach to education, our mistreatment of educators, our anti-intellectual-anti-effort culture, the complete lack of support from parents, the eroding family structure, and a thousand and one other factors magnify, feed into, and/or feed out of the other, more easily visible problems with our education system.

Tort, I taught a 3rd grade class briefly, and even they were some smart-mouthed, punk kids...or maybe I was just never meant to teach below the college level!   I have a great deal of respect for guys like you, who are daily holding the line down in the trenches. 

Erg, Tawodi...I taught middle school a few times, and even my relatively brief experience, coupled with the dim memories from that grim period in my own life, was enough to fill me with an abiding sense of wonder that anyone makes it out of those grades alive...or sane.

[Figure Fan]

Taking classes at both a JC and a CSU, I'm watching people in general just act like they care less and less. Why pay the money if you're not going to put in the effort?

College these days has become such a business. The administrators are in the business of admitting as many people as possible (who think college = a job/being a successful, worthwhile human being), gradually lowering their standards, and reaping all of the tuition money to line their pockets. Loan companies rake in tons of cash through interest on loans that students are hard-pressed to pay back, and the wheel turns and turns..

It's nothing against professors. I've had great professors, and since I enjoyed studying I actually engaged myself in their classes and interacted with them in and out of class. They're just gradually losing their audience here, which could explain the apathy and lack of interest in academics among the overall student base. I went to a community college and a university, and the class quality was practically identical (and often times laughable). I couldn't bring myself to continue paying for it out of pocket.

I feel for you, Benton. I'm sure you're an excellent teacher, especially from reading your posts here on the forums and seeing your enthusiasm for your work. Hopefully your luck changes, and soon.

[Deaths Jester]

I believe, aside from failing the little bastads for idiocy, that part of the problem within the colleges and the students not writing up to their levels revolves aroudn the fact that many of the lower English classes nowadays are taught by grad students who force their way of writing on the students.  I'm not saying all colleges are like this or that all grad students who teach are bad but during my time in college I ran into quite a few grad students who railed anything that wasn't a simple sentence (single verb, noun set up) 8th grade reading level format.  As you can tell from my writing, I found myself often at a disadvantage in those classes due to my true writing level (away from the forums...here I take to my normal drunken, stumbling words) hits the 12th grade and above level, due in no small part to my love of compound, complex sentences.  Hell, one of the grad students even told me, face-to-face, that I should've been taking a rudimentary English class instead of his becuase he believed I didn't know how to write in, as he put it, correct sentence structure - yet for some reason in that class he believed a student, a second-rate football freshman at that, who wrote papers similar to what one would see in a "Dick and Jane" book (ex: "See Dick run.  See Jane run.") was an absolute genius.  The absolute horror caused by that one class almost made me quit writing altogether but happily the next semester I got in an class where the grad student was much more into encouaging 12th grade writing levels from college students (I mean, you're in college...you should write like it at the least) and expanding people's thoughts on writing as a whole.

I still say fail the bastads, though!!

[detourne_me]

The biggest issue i have to deal with at my school is this new online homework setup.
Honestly, it's week 6 and I still get texts and emails from students complaining that they don't know how to sign up (after I've already been through the procedure in weeks 1 and 2, and reissued new login ids in weeks 4 and 5)
I just want to tell them, "You are university students. You are responsible for your own grades. If you haven't already come to see me for help, it is too late to come to me now." but the administration here really baby's its students.   For real, my dean told us during a faculty meeting to treat them like customers.

[Tomato]

Well, to be fair, they are customers. Customers who are paying you to treat them like adults so that when they go out into the world they'll actually be prepared to act like adults. Because really, regardless of what career field they're training for, the fundamental thing people are in college to learn is how to start taking responsibility for themselves. Leave the babying to high schools when they're still living at home with mommy and daddy.