Edited because of privacy issues.
According to one of my students, in a paper he wrote meant to talk about the different approaches to history in Maxine Hong Kingston’s China Men and Island, edited by Him Mark Lai, Genny Lim and Judy Yung, China has historically been infused with a “racial ideology of male masculinity” and that is why so many “Chinese Americans believe in racial inequality.” I wish I could quote the entire two sentences for you; they are truly precious. It’s not just the poor quality of this writing per se that gets to me, though, it’s that phrases like “racial ideology of male masculinity” appear all over the essays I have been getting from far too many of the students in the literature class I have been teaching–as if the students were choosing one word from column A, two from column B, etc. in order to come up with a sentence that sounds so intellectually profound that I won’t notice it doesn’t really mean anything. It is depressing and debilitating when the papers handed in by my freshman composition students are, in many ways, better written than the ones handed in by the students in an advanced literature class.
Maybe the people who are already good writers go into other fields? ;)
Just a thought – I don’t know what the privacy standards are like in US universities, but as a tutor here in NZ I would be extremely strongly sanctioned were I to post any part of a student’s essay online. So… you might want to check whether that’s OK.
Instructors should be allowed to strike any student of normal or better intellect with a leather strap with moderate force, once for every gross grammatical, conceptual, or typographical/orthographical error in their assignment.
It is wrong to punish students for errors they cannot avoid, but six sigma quality in the areas of speaking one’s native tongue, understanding the direction of gravity’s pull, and correct spelling is not an unreachable standard. The students would quickly learn to apply themselves, and further unreasonable punishment would be avoided.
Some people might believe my position too harsh, but I believe if anything it errs on the side of an enervating liberal sentiment.
daedalus_x:
You are, of course, correct. I got caught up in the frustration of the moment. So I have edited the post.
I blame the professional ideology of student studiousness.
Or perhaps it is the ideological ideology of historically historical fictional novels–another favorite expression of my students in this class–and nonfictional creativity.
correct spelling is not an unreachable standard
Right, thanks for advocating for hitting my sister because she’s smart, means well, tries hard, cares, and still can’t spell. Spelling (and other cognitive tasks) can actually be quite difficult for people of normal and exceptional “intelligence” (a concept of dubious heritage anyway); it’s called a learning disability. Pretty sure this post was about a different kind of poor writing than what you described.
Junior year at MIT. Course 21.013, “Fantasy and Science Fiction”. Read an SF or fantasy book, write 3 pages on it, hand them in, talk about it in the next class. First assignment done and handed in by class.
We’re all sitting on the floor in some random room in the Humanities building. In walks our instructor, Janet Anderson. Holds up our papers all in a sheaf. “I have your papers right here.” FOOSH! Heaves them across the room, all over. “You all go to one of the finest universities on the planet and none of you can write worth a damn. You think that the bigger the words you use and the longer the sentences you write the better your writing is. I’m turning the next 6 weeks into a writing course. By the time I’m done with you, you’ll all learn to write a simple declarative sentence.”
She did. We did. I spent 4 years getting a strong education in biology, chemistry, physics, calculus, etc. – none of which I use in my present job. But the ability to write a simple declarative sentence and to clearly communicate technical concepts to non-technical people has been an invaluable skill in advancing in my career and distinguishes me from my colleagues. I use it every day.
>> “as if the students were choosing one word from column A, two from column B, etc. in order to come up with a sentence that sounds so intellectually profound that I won’t notice it doesn’t really mean anything.”
Maybe they are
From my own experience, it’s no different at a liberal arts-focused Ivy League that ideally should be better in such matters, though worse in science.
Actually, the Internet taught me to write, no joke. God knows the humanities departments in high school and, to a lesser but still inexcusable extent, college, still act as enablers for that type of Amanda McKittrick Ros-esque writing, so they didn’t help much. Having participated in as many blogs and online discussion boards as I have for the past decade has definitely helped me.
I always struggle with the desire to be supportive and encouraging in my responses to student writing versus the desire to tell them the actual bald truth. I cannot imagine that they re-read what they’ve written with any kind of attention, because if they did, surely they’d recognize the problems with sentences such as the following: “Breathing in biodiesel is better for our lungs and hearts.” (Than what, other forms of suicide?) “People will not emit green house gases if we burn this oil.” (All farting and belching–sources of methane, a greenhouse gas–will cease?) “This causes the city to turn into an inferno because it has nowhere to go.” (And the city really wants to go to the beach for a quick escape from summer heat.) I could go on. I laugh, of course, at the unintentional silliness, but part of me is also utterly discouraged and sad….
Hey Tonia! Welcome to Alas. Just to say to readers here that Tonia’s blog about teaching and the teaching life is well worth reading. You all should go over and take a look.
I have 12 papers to finish before midnight tonight because once again I’ve put off finishing grading until the last possible minute.
However, this quarter I was harder on students from Day 1 and gave them more mini-assignments leading up to their final papers than ever before… and the batch of papers from the other class section I’ve already graded is the best I’ve had in the 6 quarters I’ve taught this class. There are a few that show some moderate to serious trouble with written expression that I think are inherent to the student’s facility with and/or training in writing, but the amount of sloppy, un-edited, half-assed, didn’t-read-the-syllabus, couldn’t-be-bothered-to-put-in-more-effort papers I have in hand is very nearly nil. It’s heartening to see students actually performing to the best of their ability, because we can help them improve their proficiency, but it’s hard to make them care about showing their best work if they don’t see the point in putting the effort in.
(Though, it’s really emotionally taxing and time consuming to be “the hard professor.” Another faculty member commented that she didn’t give assignments as complex as mine because “all that grading takes too much time.” I had a talk with my program director and asked that we have a little program-wide conversation about the implications of that comment after the holidays.)
I’m really tired of grading papers though.
If I finish at a reasonable hour, maybe I’ll take myself to a movie.