Paper requirements: 6-8 pages, typed, DS, researched argument (not a straight research paper), minimum 4 sources (no more than 2 from the web-at-large).
So far I have gotten 4 1/4, 5 2/3, 5 3/4, and some other subtle variations on not-quite-6 pages.
I have graded at least two whose resources (all 8) are from the web-at-large.
I have graded 5 so far that are straight research papers. Thesis not arguable at all. Despite my telling them over and over and fucking over again, the thesis must be arguable, here is how you do it, here is how you take your topic and make an arguable research paper out of it.
I am so frustrated. If I was an Avenger, I would be Hulk. Mild-mannered (OK, maybe not as mild-mannered as) David Banner, but piss me off, and I turn into an "enormous green rage monster" who goes around breaking shit into satisfying chunks.
These people, these people had a solid month to do this project. There was a proposal. There was a 15-source annotated bibliography (required specifically to keep them from using whatever shit comes up on the first page of a fucking Google search). There was an initial peer review on a Thursday. The following Tuesday was a second peer review, and the paper was due on that Thursday. Of the papers I have graded so far, some students showed up for the first peer review with 1 page written. ONE FUCKING PAGE, a week before a major paper is due!!!!!! At the second peer review (after they'd had a weekend to work on it), these same people had come to class with a 3-page rough draft--yes, you read that correctly: they showed up two days before a 6-8 page paper was due with only 3 pages completed. Two of these people sat in the back of the classroom all semester and had side conversations and whispered to each other and then didn't follow the fucking directions and expect to pass. Both of them will need to repeat the course which, unlike the stuff over at Udacity is not free. Though for what they pay me to teach it, might as well be.
WHAT. THE. FUCK. IS. WRONG. WITH. THESE. PEOPLE???
I am having the worst week of my life, personally. This unbelievable crap I am reading is not helping.
They turned in revision (*snort* hahahaha) portfolios today, so at least I do not have to see them again...until they show up in my class next semester because they didn't pass this semester. FML.
Maybe I'll go see The Avengers again tonight. Joss Whedon is the balm that soothes my soul.
The teacher in me sympathizes completely, having just done this exact thing a couple of weeks ago.
ReplyDeleteThe nerd in me needs to point out that his name is Bruce Banner. ;)
You're correct, but oddly, so am I--in the TV series when I was a kid, he's Dr. David Banner. The Incredible Hulk (1977-82) IMDB has him listed as "Dr. David Bruce Banner"--http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076190/
DeleteThat's nerd-core right there. :-)
The reason for the name change for The Incredible Hulk ('77-'82) is pretty interesting stuff. On the one hand, the show's creator didn't like alliterative names because they felt comic-booky.
DeleteOn the other hand, the name Bruce was seen as a gay name and they didn't want to make the Hulk look gay. One of the recent Hulk movies has Stan Lee talking about it a little in commentary, and Lou Ferrigno gave an interview in 2008 where he also says that was the reason.
It wound up to the point that Marvel made his full in-universe name in the comics Bruce David Banner to maintain a semblance of consistency.
Oh, YEAH? Well, the Hulk's transformations are blatant violations of mass-energy conservation. Never try to out-nerd a physics major. ;-)
Delete@Mad Dreamer: I did not know that. You're right--it is interesting, and speaks to the ways in which comics are so subversive--and the ways in which people are stupidly prejudiced: "Bruce" is a "gay" name? Oy vey.
DeleteI watched the Incredible Hulk as a kid, so my memory of the Hulk is mixed up with Bill Bixby's character and Lou Ferrigno's portrayal. I didn't read the comic books.
And I thought Mark Ruffalo did a FANTASTIC job in the film. If you haven't seen it yet, do yourself a favor.
@Burnt You win. I bow to your nerd-fu. :D
DeleteI don't know, I don't know, I don't know. Why can't they synthesize information? Argue something in relation to another argument? Organize evidence in a meaningful order? Paraphrase and summarize? Write transitions? Punctuate correctly? Write sentences with a subject and verb?
ReplyDeleteWhy? Why? Why? Is it No Child Left Behind? Overstuffed college classes? Social promotion in middle and high school? The self-of-steam movement? Attachment parenting? Killer bees?
Yes, all the above, especially those killer bees.
DeleteYou forgot TV, video games, and how e-mail and especially text messaging displace genuine literacy (in other words, reading books) by narrowing our students' horizons to the shallow, non-stop social interactions of teenagers, the thesis of The Dumbest Generation.
DeleteCould you provide documentation for the above assertions? I cannot assign a grade without credible evidence! :o)
DeleteOK, how about "Amusing Ourselves to Death," "The End of Education," and "Technopoly" by Neil Postman, "The Dumbest Generation" by Mark Bauerlein, "The Shallows," by Nicholas Carr, or "High-Tech Heretic," by Clifford Stoll?
DeleteOr the PBS Frontline documentary "Digital Nation: Live on the Virtual Frontier"--
DeleteFor a short read, Carr's Atlantic piece from 2008 (which led to his writing "The Shallows") provides a nice precis about technological change and our ability to think. It's not really about Google at all: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/6868/
I am looking at the prospect of having students in 2013 who have only had e-texts, have only had to pass quizzes and tests to pass classes, and have looked at homework (i.e. practicing the skills they're being taught) as optional. They already look at homework that way. The students who are not passing my class with a C (they need a C for credit/transfer) did not do the homework.
I taught this exact same class (sounds like it, at least) back in the mid-00s. I had the same results. It seemed like none of them did a fucking thing nor learned a fucking thing. Oh, sure, like maybe 25% of the class did all right (ok, they did EXCELLENTLY!) BUT WHAT ABOUT THE OTHER 75%?????
ReplyDeleteComplaints. Mutiny. Blaming me for them doing NOTHING. Lack of awareness of how to use quotation marks. Lack of knowledge about simple formatting. Since when is a page an acceptable draft? Even when you tell them it isn't!!?!?!?
One brat skipped the last month of class and then handed in something using footnotes! Yeah, the class was taught how to use internal documentation (MLA or APA style), and explicitly told not to use footnotes, pumpkin; your chronic absence got you downgraded.
In the end, just to avoid all the grade appeals the dept chair told us to avoid, I started passing out Fs for lack of basics. Minimum pages not met? F. All web references? F. No references at all? Easy F. Not double-spaced? You were warned- F!
Just start handing out the zeros and save yourself the trouble of giving them "some points." Seriously, it probably won't matter mathematically if you give a F (zero) or F (twenty-five)....
I am in a similar hell, but I just got a giggle out of it. One student's draft claimed, without evidence, that anthropogenic climate change was "a man-made hoax." I gave him a 1/3, since it was poorly researched and poorly written.
ReplyDeleteHe thought it was unfair, accusing me of political bias. I pointed out to him that I wanted these papers to be primarily scientific papers, not opinion pieces. Just asserting an opinion based on no obvious research, and certainly with no references cited, was not what I wanted.
That it was a 1/3 and not a 2/3 was because it was also badly written. Never mind "man-made": even "artificial hoax" is redundant, since all hoaxes are made up by humans.
He misinterpreted all of this, and produced a final paper that is a shameless rah-rah propaganda piece pro climate change, no doubt because he thought it would please me. He's getting a C, because it's still poorly written, and it's still poorly researched. Honestly, if he could do real research that really did demonstrate that we need not worry about climate change, I'd be happy.
OH, my Fuck... this will be me in four weeks. And I am dreading it. Absolutely dreading it. We start the research paper process on Monday. I think I'll just up front say, "F for anyone who doesn't do x, y, and z," and save myself a lot of grading. Not enough sources cited: F; Word length not met: F; No argument: F. Grading done. :o)
ReplyDeleteI'm so sorry!!! I feel your pain. And it's giving me palpitations right now.
"I think I'll just up front say, "F for anyone who doesn't do x, y, and z," and save myself a lot of grading. Not enough sources cited: F; Word length not met: F; No argument: F."
DeleteYes, do this. I should have done it. I will be doing it next semester. No more D- grades for turning something in. Doing that only perpetuates the cycle started in HS.
The bottom of the assignment sheets from here on out will clearly state: 'Failure to do X,Y,Z will result in failure of the assignment.'
I just graded a paper that was an A. The student had come to the first peer review with 7 pages of a rough draft. (I know how many pages the rough drafts are because I require them to turn the entire project in to me.) It was obvious that the student had tried--really had engaged with the assignment and cared about what s/he was turning in.
So yes, there's hope. Deep breaths. That's the way to get through it.
I wish my colleagues also held to this so I don't feel like I am the only professor holding them accountable... and it's good to know you're at least holding them accountable wherever you are.
DeleteJealous jealous jealous! We have to abide by Faculty norms when marking: we cannot create a 'don't do this, counts as a non-submission' rule.
DeleteSeriously, at a training session, I questioned the essay marking scheme where 15% = 'entirely inaccurate or entirely irrelevant' guide (0 marks = blank paper, or entirely inaccurate and entirely irrelevant') criterion by pointing out that accuratly writing down say the first two lines of the periodic table or the words of the national anthem or indeed the local bus timetable would gain 15%, which in a three-essay-question exam was half a grade on the final mark, only to be told that that would be a fair outcome since the student had 'demonstrated some knowledge'.
GAH! If the burger-person gives them onion rings when they wanted a coffee, would they still pay them? (also, recitation of facts is NOT KNOWLEDGE!)
I can write 8 pages in two days if I have to. It's not fun, and I can't do anything else during those two days, and it won't be my best work, but it is possible, and the result is passable. I've done it before, many decades ago, when I was in school.
ReplyDeleteNow, if you explicitly asked for a draft on Tuesday, as you did, then they ought to have a draft. But one shouldn't necessarily assume that those without drafts are doomed solely based on the supposed impossibility of meeting the Thursday deadline without a Tuesday draft. Believe me, good students will find a way.
You may argue that you don't have good students. That's fair. But in my years of teaching I've found that if you treat your students as if they are good, they might live up to your expectations. On the other hand, if you treat them as if they are bad, they will definitely live down to your expectations. So I tend to give students a freer hand to schedule their work however they want, without worrying about how they get the work done as long as it gets done.
I can write like that too. I am exceptional, and I would bet that you are, too. That is not snark.
DeleteThe majority of my students are not capable of producing passing-level work in two days. My students come from the bottom 25% of their graduating class. They did barely enough to pass in HS, and they come into my class thinking that the same applies.
They also come into my class with fewer skills than the years before them. When this semester is over, I will be re-vamping my class to increase the amount of online self-graded quizzes on basic information they should already know when they get to college, but for whatever reason, don't know. And I don't have time to teach them what they should have learned in HS. My course has a set of departmental learning outcomes that I have to teach them--and if they refuse to learn, if they disengage, I cannot stop them. I also cannot pass them on.
I do not treat them like they are idiots. I treat them like the adults they're supposed to be: I provide clear performance expectations, and I provide plenty of tools and time to meet the minimum requirements for a passing (C). The expectations for the assignment were clear: full rough draft (6 pages) for the first peer review. Many showed up with 1 page. The original due date was the following Tuesday, but I pushed it back to Thursday to give them extra time to polish.
What I got was a bunch of shit. And for you to blame this on me expecting them to "live down to [my] expectations" is also a bunch of shit.
Your way works for you. I don't know where you teach or what kind of students you deal with, so I won't assume anything about how your methods have developed or how they work. I'd appreciate it if you did the same.
I've found that working with drafts helps even the good students, those that would possibly 'find a way" on their own. These students may end up turning in something passable at the last minute, but they won't have learned a whole lot without this process. Obviously, for most of BurntChrome's students, these extra steps become especially important. Here's hoping they'll understand that the next time around.
DeleteI don't blame you for anything. I'm just sharing my experience. I'm glad you share yours.
DeleteThe point is that you don't always know what else is going on in your students' lives that they would prioritize over coursework. It could be bad stuff like drugs or crime, but it could also be because they have to put food on the table and therefore have less time for schoolwork than they would like, which I think few of us could fault. Scheduling drafts is useful but only insofar as it demonstrates cause and effect to the students: "Oh look, the students who had drafts prepared ended up with much better grades in the end." The schedule is a means to an end, not an end in itself. The eventual goal is to get the students to self-schedule, which is at least as useful a skill as writing. But for many students, their problems have built up over many years, and it takes time for these students to unwind their home lives to the point where they can start scheduling things ahead of time without disrupting their ability to put food on the table in the short term. I think this process takes more than one semester, and requires cooperation at least in spirit from other instructors in the department or even the entire school.
Having at least some good students in the class is crucial for demonstrating the cause and effect factor. If all the students are bad, then the bad students have no good role models to learn from.
I've tried requiring drafts and not requiring drafts. While we may expect them to behave as adults, they often lack the scheduling skills to pace themselves as they should and, by and large, I've found that when I schedule drafts, they do better because they were forced NOT to wait until the last minute to do their work. When I don't require drafts, even for upper division classes, I get poorer quality work, and student complaints increase, as a result.
DeleteScheduling the drafts helps them not only get started sooner in the process (yes, this is part of teaching them to do it themselves, but even when they KNOW they should, they still don't do it), but allows me time to also intervene and help along the way and later provide justification for a poorer grade, if needed (i.e. Remember how you only had 1 sources last week when you were supposed to have at least 5?).
I have found that simply leaving them on their own to follow a schedule leads to students not submitting work or submitting crap work. At least, with scheduling drafts, and conferencing with them, I'm also able to see how far they've come and reinforce to them the need to work harder or take it easy (in rare cases).
Simply having good students in the class doesn't necessarily show the poor students how to behave (they don't make that leap in logic themselves). Reflecting on the process, and asking them to apply the knowledge gained from that process on their next essay, however, does seem helpful.
Good discussion. :o)
what CC says. I've also found that students who are bright enough to get decent grades at the last minute in classes in the first year at uni will mostly still come unstuck for lack of those skills later, usually s in higher courses where the material is harder but the marks count more towards the degree, or on longer assignments - a 6-page paper is a lot easier to flub your way through in a weekend than a twenty-page paper, especially given the extra amount of reading/citing required to get good grades at higher levels.
DeleteI'm in the UK where the credits obtained in different years of study are weighted differently (e.g. first year average contributes 10% to the final degree average, second year 30%, third year 60%), so students do tend to think they can mess around in the first year, but if they don't at least get exposed to skills like time management then, they really won't have the tools to tackle higher level work which matters. Also, don't know about YOU, but I'd prefer it if the plans for a new building weren't thrown together in a sleep-deprived, caffeine-buzzed haze, that the legal underpinnings of my contract had been thought about, discussed and revised, that my (theoretical) kids' teacher planned ahead and worked out how to fit the whole curriculum into the year rather than cramming it all into the month before the exams etc.etc. I'd rather know that the person driving behind me in the morning rush had had a decent night's sleep rather than been up all night doing their work at the last minute too!
Requiring students to do drafts is about exposing them ALL to skills/processes that they WILL need somewhere, somewhen, AND about giving them all the best opportunity to excel in my class, by giving them a little external scaffolding to help them work in the way that is proven to produce better grades.
It's their choice if they engage with that process or not: they're adults, after all. In higher years, I would expect to need to be less fussy and explicit about the details, because they are supposed to grow and get better during their degrees (for many of them, by having screwed up somewhere along the way and paid for it with a bad grade).
Ah Burnt Chrome. I know your pain. I had a last minute student request to count a rewrite of the research essay I had due in my class several weeks ago. The student had done a comparison of pot to alcohol (laws, effects good and ill, damage caused by etc). But instead of using reasearch she had written the whole thing off the top of her head. When she "revised" it all she did was put quotes around certain parts and make up sources those quotes allegedly came from. Sigh.
ReplyDeleteOverheard a class once: "She's required to postpone the due-date if over half the class isn't ready to begin with."
ReplyDeleteTheir class was to begin in ten minutes, their paper due in two days, so they decided to attempt a filibuster.
Someone should do a serious study of how students get these cockamamie (cockamamy?) ideas about institutional rules: it's a fantastic combination of wish-fulfillment and "telephone game"....
DeleteWe just had a multi-year struggle between faculty and student governance because student understanding of a policy drifted over time to the point where they felt faculty were being unfair. It wasn't enough to clarify the policy for students: they wanted a procedure in place to attack and penalize faculty who violated the policy as they understood it. The result of this multi-year struggle so far? One adjudication, dismissed because the faculty was, in fact, not violating the policy as written.
That said, I've seen weak instructors bullied into concessions: I watched a language class talk their way out of a major writing assignment with a notorious pushover. Being a nerd-geek, I'd already done most of it.... pissed me off.