When Cassie handed me the exact same essay the next class, I took it, wrote comments and suggestions on it that were at least as long as what she had written, assigned her a grade of Zero and told her she could rewrite this for her portfolio but that it would count as her one allowed "freebie" rewrite (the one that results in a new grade, not an averaged up grade).
Cassie was mad. Cassie was REAL mad. "This essay is impossible! I took this essay to my other English teacher --and she teaches 101 too~ --and she said it was the most confusing thing she has ever seen and even she could not help me with it!" Hmmm. "Other" English teacher? Interesting. Cassie cannot come in to see me during my office hours---they are too inconvenient. She cannot e-mail me a draft because she can't get her e-mail provider to allow her access to Inner City Community College's weird and exclusive e-mail system (the same one that the rest of the world has no trouble using---it's just a microsoft outlook program). So even though I offered to give more explanation and go over drafts with her to help her understand the first narrative assignment to narrate a turning point in your life, Cassie could not take me up on the offer. She also could not ask questions in class because she was so confused by every word of the assignment that she did not even know what to ask.
Cassie had other issues she needed to air: "Also---the formatting IS SO correct! I know because the guy at the Computer Lab told me it was double spaced and stuff." No, it isn't. See, Cassie? This essay here has proper formatting? Yours looks very different from that one, don't you think? "Well, how am I supposed to get it right, then, if the computer lab guy tells me wrong? Who am I supposed to get to do this for me?" You have to do it for yourself, Cassie. How about you e-mail this to me, and then I can show you right here in the classroom after class how to format it in Word? Oh---right---you can't e-mail me anything. And you never have time after class. Ok. Guess I can't help you then. Bye Bye Cassie!
I went back to my office and looked up Cassie's transcript. She has taken the remedial writing class twice, both times receiving a grade which indicates she did not pass but was "making progress." She never should have been allowed to register for my class at all, but apparently some "kind" soul in the advising center wanted to help her out, and overrode the prerequisite condition.
AUGHHHH!
some "kind" soul in the advising center wanted to help her out, and over rode the prerequisite condition.
ReplyDeleteWasn't me. I can't vouch for anyone else.
I guess she'll be taking your class twice then, too.
ReplyDeleteI hate bald faced lies. No one "told" her anything. Tell her the guy in the computer lab told you she cheated. Anyone can say that someone else told them something. What kind of argument is that? When she flips out about it, ask her WHO in the computer lab told her that. Ask her WHO her "other" teacher is. I go bat-shit when they use "that's what [someone]said" or "that's what [someone] told me" as an argument. Anyone can say that!
ReplyDeleteThat hits a nerve. I can't stand it. And what the fuck would the computer guy know about your formatting anyway? You could make the assignment to do it with 2.5 inch margins, in 14 pt. font and triple spaced if you want. But you didn't. For the next assignment, I would actually do that. I'd make the margins huge, the font huge, the spacing huge, and then I'd make the page requirement 1800 pages.
Formatting games are such kindergarten bullshit. What the hell are we doing this for? We're all fucked - so get your ties and fedoras ready, because we're all going to be homeless when these shits are running the country.
This is off topic, but is anyone else seeing ads for Yaro stuff at Amazon? "Nambo Yaro Individual Salad Bowl" only $74.99 and Naturalizer Yaro Slip on Sn." only $69.00!
ReplyDeleteYARO!!! I wuv YARO!!
Also, sorry for the typos! I want to share something but then I am always rushing, trying to get other things done at the same time....
For the next assignment, I would actually do that. I'd make the margins huge, the font huge, the spacing huge, and then I'd make the page requirement 1800 pages.
ReplyDeleteThat made me laugh.
Oh how I loathe students like this one. Their problems are caused by everyone else, never themselves. And as a note to all the kindly souls in advising who helpfully waive requirements and allow students who are not ready to enroll in courses above their current competence level--STOP IT ALREADY. It's not actually helping; it's setting someone up to fail.
I always thought that formatting was something one learned in high school.
ReplyDeleteCassie is yet another Academic Derp, somehow "smart" enough to get into college but totally unprepared for even the most basic tasks. That fool from Texas and his "No Child" nonsense has badly screwed us up, and Cassie is the shambling product of that Scantron factory.
ReplyDeleteI thought it was Biden who came from Scantron.
ReplyDeleteThe Student Services people feel sorry for them because they are using up all their financial aid on courses that will not count for credit. It really does seem a shame that if they are eligible for a full financial aid package (which means they are pretty darn poor) they use up half of it just getting what they should have learned in high school, or even before.
ReplyDeleteCassie, for example, earned a "D" in a life skills class that is required for all students who place into a remedial course. A D in a class that teaches things like how to send e-mail(she obviously did not learn that one) how to take notes, how to get and use a library card and how to study. We have students who actually fail this course too, multiple times.
Cassie is one of the students who will use up quite a bit of her financial aid trying to get to the college level, and then, if she does not change her attitude, she will drop out. I find the whole thing maddening because I don't actually think there is anything wrong with Cassie that prevents her from doing these basic things. When I talk to her, I get the impression of someone with a basic intelligence---ie, she CAN, in fact, find her way our of a paper bag. She can navigate things she wants to navigate. She just puts her energy into blaming the system and the representatives of it rather than doing the tasks that are in front of her. She puts her energy into being angry and thinking up new obstacles rather than solutions to old obstacles.
Cassie is very young. She strikes me as the kind of person who might come back in a decade and be a star student who works very hard. The essay she found so incomprehensible, the turning point essay, resulted in more than a few stories from former students like that who, as a result of some life experience, decided to turn themselves around. I wish we could bottle that, because my administration seems to think I can infuse them all with the drive they lack. I wish I could!