Here are a few examples of the “essays” I received--essays The spelling mistakes are theirs and even though I told them to write at least a page, this is what I got:
"Sparta had won few wars, but they lost against persia because there army was stronger and they planned to defeat sparta by joining there shields together so that the swords wouldn't go through them."
"Empires crumbled and sparta had proven to be incapable of rising to challenge of being top dog..Even the gods seem to be in disarray."
"sparta were a city state that devoided themselves of outside interference or help but broke their laws to gain an advantage against the Athenians"
Then won the war but had mass causuaty leavin them vunerable to attcks makin them week.
Normally this would give me a few laughs but sadly a good portion of the exams contained “essays” in this caliber. What is going on with education these days? More importantly, why, oh why, do I even bother giving essays?
Holy Mother of God those writing samples are PATHETIC. Are those for real? Yes, I think they might be. I sure as hell hope you removed every single point from that portion of those students' exams. Horrid. Wretched. Awful. Those stupid fuckers should be expelled, but apparently college is for, you know, ANYONE who wants to give it a shot.
ReplyDeleteI actually had to teach my freshmen what was meant by "explain"
ReplyDeleteI still got some odd responses...
Q: Explain the function of a shovel.
A: Hole.
We should blame it on the English Department! It's all their fault!
ReplyDeleteJust kidding.
Mathsquatch out.
Hey Viva, are you the Viva I think you are? Care to grace the Misery with your latest batch of Gems?
ReplyDeleteYou would think they could do better than this simply from watching the movie "300." On the other hand, then they might be writing too much about ripped abs.
ReplyDeleteSounds like they were cramming as much as they could into a poorly worded, 140 character limited statement (i.e., Twitter).
ReplyDeleteBest quiz answer lately:
ReplyDeleteName some common barriers to good communication.
Answer: If you're like, missing an arm or something.
Oh, Isis, I hate that. I obviously have less opportunity to give essay questions. But I do give the occasional "explain" question. And the answers are so ridiculous.
ReplyDelete"Explain why molality is used to assess colligative properties rather than molarity."
"because the equation says m not M"
"molality is moles per kilograms"
"molarity is for the dilution one"
Cynical optimist, you have our sympathies.
Delurking to say hi to Viva! And I agree that you should share the assesment-y goodness over here!
ReplyDeleteViva, I know you from the same place that the Porpentine does. I just don't want to give away my identity over there. But I totally <3 you. :)
ReplyDeleteWe have the same students. Their introduction drafts are simply awful. You would think they had never written a research paper in high school.
ReplyDeleteOh, wait. With all the No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top bullshit, we have forgotten to teach students how to write and add. Thank you, government bureaucrats and Michelle Rhee.
They all spelled "Sparta" correctly! That's better than I would get.
ReplyDeleteIn my Southern State, we have "standards of learning" tests in elementary school. Yep. S.O.L.s. The irony is not lost on me. BUT...there are no essays on SOLs. And thus begins the descent into madness.
ReplyDeleteOh lawd; I think BlackDog and I are in the same Southern state. Anyway...
ReplyDeleteAt my son's HS (he's now a college student), they taught them a certain writing style (using a prescribed format) AND even had them properly format citations and references using a author/year format (similar to APA).
This was at a PUBLIC school in an urban city. While some have criticized the "style" for eliminating a little creativity, I saw stuff in HS that beat college writing and I saw a college paper last year that easily beat most of my Masters students.
Of course, this is a semi-motivated kid, but kids will adapt to processes when (as opposed to no process or free form exposition). Kind if like most kids will do as they're told, if you have some minimum level of discipline.
[This is funny... I write about writing and make some horrid editing mistakes!]
ReplyDelete@ Dr D:
ReplyDeleteYou have to learn the rules before you can break them intelligently. That's something that "find your bliss" pedagogy tends to miss.
Hey, I just visited a private elementary school where the fourth-graders were solving logic problems about 80% of my college students couldn't touch. And, they told me, "When we finish our unit on Greek history, we're reading The Odyssey." Not the kiddy version, the real one in translation. It kind of broke my heart, the vast distance between the haves and the have-nots. Or really, between the haves and everyone else from the middle class on down. Being middle class, we are unlikely to be able to send our kid to this school -- but it was a good reality check about what kids CAN do if their education is good from the very beginning.
ReplyDeleteDear Texpat... when I was in HS (...7 years ago), we wrote research papers. That was the year NCLB came out. I adjuncted last spring and oh my. It almost made me cry. Mainly because of all the time spent in undergrad learning to write papers. I also teach a subject that sort of requires writing, haha, otherwise it would be learning dates and facts.
ReplyDeleteMay I also mention that my Southern State (we're awesome) has struggled with what to cut out of history and how best to handle flakes from birth to college. It's not pretty. Like... they start American History with good ole George. Don't fight the War. So on. Then we get them as freshmen in college and they haven't had the Revolution since.. I think it's 7th grade. I believe the "educators" in our fabulous capitol finally saw the light, and actually listened to the -real- educators, because they're changing it up.
Wow. I feel -much- better now that I got that out. Climbing off the soapbox now.
Made a slight mistake. Should read "Mainly because of all the time I spent in undergrad learning to write papers. Because we did. A lot. I learned to appreciate a bloody paper back from the prof. And while in Hell, a.k.a. Grad School, I spent tons o time researching and writing, and busted my ass for it. Esp. with that one professor (hands down coolest professor ev-er), who basically told me why my writing was brilliant on the surface, but sucked in between the lines and what to do about it. Only then did I appreciate learning to write and SPELL in k-12.
ReplyDelete(and just graduated with the MA in May of this year, I'm still a little psyched about it. Until I get the real, full-time job.. then I'll want to go back)...(wait, I already want to go back).
> Q: Explain the function of a shovel.
ReplyDelete> A: Hole.
It is quite sad when students are too lazy to write out even a couple of sentences. ("Hitting over the head, digging a hole, putting dirt back into the hole after the body has been placed in it...")
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ReplyDelete