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| I don't know, Freddie, what do you wanna do? |
I'm really glad that your grades, your family life, and your social life have all improved since you joined a church. And your church-related volunteer activities sound very laudable -- real feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, helping the prisoner and the alien stuff. Really, I'm down with all of the above. But when I asked you to give me a bit of biographical information *and* some information about your major, your interests, and the kinds of writing you've done related to both, I have to admit that I was at least as interested in the latter information as the former, since that's what I need to form the class groups. Despite the wealth of information you provided in your written introduction, you've now been reduced, at least for the purposes of group placement, to what I could find on the registrar's site: major and minor.
Peace,
Cassandra
P.S. You did redeem yourself somewhat by being one of the few people in class today who had clearly done, and thought about, the reading. Keep that up, and I'm likely to forget about the gaps in your introduction.
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P.P.S. to the CM community: is anybody else feeling the urge to set up an email filter that automatically trashes any message subject-lined "help!," "urgent!," or "so confused!"? So far, all such emails I've received this semester have asked questions the answers to which were readily available in the class materials.
cool graphics...wish I had Photoshop or whatever.
ReplyDelete@ Kimmie -- There's a free online app called Aviary.com that's essentially an open-source Photoshop knockoff.
ReplyDeleteThe email filter is a good idea but it fails in practice. It doesn't work because students misspell the words you try to filter. If they were smart enough to spell, they probably wouldn't be cunfusd and need hlp solving urgunt problems.
ReplyDeleteWWBTAHCS?
ReplyDelete(What would Bible thumping alpha-hole colleague say?)
A: You made a commitment and God calls us to keep our word. That means to not dick your teacher around.
Atleast, that's how I'm expected to act...
I guess you can always use "Jesus would be displeased with your performance" if he slacks off.
ReplyDelete@Beaker, way to kill my buzz, dooood. :o) I was SO excited about filters and then... wham...
Oy, Cassandra. I've almost stopped asking for autobiographical statements because of the zealots.
ReplyDeleteAs for email filters, I love 'em! But I use them to send emails from annoying coworkers to the junk folder. And anything with a subject line of "free", "lights on", "football/basketball/etc", and so on.
Cool graphic, indeed, but I can't take credit for it. Must have been Gordon or his elves (or are they gremlins? Given what I've heard about the compound, I'd guess the latter.)
ReplyDelete@EMH: I don't think he was trying to dick me around, or even, necessarily, convert me (which would be redundant; I may not be a born-again Christian but I have definitely accepted the Christian tradition into which I was born) or his classmates. I think he just got going in one direction, and sort of lost track of the point of the exercise. Perhaps I should follow Annie's lead and stop asking, but I do learn some interesting things about my students, including details that can be useful when it comes to helping them find research paper topics.
As for the panicked emails, so far answering each one once with a brief summary of the information that's in the class materials, and a mention that there's more detail in a particular handout, seems to be working. Good thing, since the filtering capabilities of our school program are very limited (and, as Ben points out, I'd still have to deal with the misspelled missives, and the ones with three exclamation points instead of one).
CC, I beg you, for the love of all that is good and beautiful, please don't summarize for them. It's what they want, it's extra work for you, and then they expect it of all of us. Won't you please try this reply?:
ReplyDeleteDear Flakey,
The information you are seeking is in the syllabus. Please let me know if there are specific sentences that need clarification.
XOXO CC
[PS: Darla, I LIKE XOXO]
I found Jesus too.
ReplyDeleteHe was behind the couch the whole time.
Cassandra, I also could not take credit for the great artwork that appeared on my most recent post. Hmmmm....Gordon's Gremlins. This has potential.....maybe our new CM mascots?????
ReplyDeleteI second Frog and Toad. In Outlook, you can set up different "signatures" (which can look like emails) for such occasions, and include a link if you have a web site with FAQ or a syllabus posted. Then it takes about 5 seconds to open the panicky email, hit reply, select "panicky" signature, and hit send.
ReplyDelete@Annie: great idea! I'd despaired of filtering the all-college announcements of the latest cafeteria special. The filter wouldn't let me tag that "from" address. But maybe by topic, yeah, that might work. I'll also include "congratulations" since that means someone wants something from me.
@F&T and Eskarina: I know I shouldn't; really, I do. But I'm non-TT and student evaluations count for a lot at contract renewal time, and one of the few areas in which I consistently score very high (rather than quite high -- i.e. in the 4.00-4.50 range on a 5-point scale, which seems pretty good to me, but apparently isn't high enough for the Dean's taste) is "accessibility/helpfulness." So I'm reluctant to jeopardize that by phrasing my suggestions that they re-read the course materials in any way that shows that I doubt they have already done so. So I summarize the directions in a sentence or two, and send them back to the materials for details. Wimpy, I know, but it feels like the best I can safely do in the circumstances. If I had tenure, I'd definitely be tougher about this, as well as about giving more grades in the C range (rather than too many Bs that should be B-s, and B-s that should be some sort of C).
ReplyDelete