No bedbugs, protective custody or fiance's pet chemotherapy sessions surfaced this term.
Things were pretty routine: one death in the family, one death of a child's best friend and one apartment eviction were the extent of the drama (thank goodness it was accelerated term; things might have gotten really scary over 16 weeks).
Hardly a single email was worth saving...until this arrived....after grades were posted:
EXACTLY as sent.
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Subject: Notes on Final Asst.
Hello, I wanted to let you know that the problems mentioned in my project, are entirely fictional. Therefore I didn't need to cite any sources. And I created. The graphs and info.
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You can't make this up.....
Indeed, you can't.
ReplyDeleteWow. Just... wow.
ReplyDeleteWhat did you do?
Sounds like time to file a grade change, to F. And send the whole thing up through the campus judicial process.
ReplyDeleteMy response echoes ^GA's.
ReplyDeleteWhat the tea-partying hell is in the water that makes students believe that this is legitimate??
Can't decide is he tool
ReplyDeleteor just a fool?
Hello,
ReplyDeleteI wanted to let you know that my university allows me to change your grade if I made an error in its calculation. Since your paper was a bunch of bullshit, obviously I made an error. The grade on that paper is now 0, and your grade in the class is now F.
What's with the William Shatner-esque writing style?
ReplyDeleteMy colleague received an email in which a student first commented resignedly on his less-than-stellar mark, "that cannot be changed," and but then asked if the mark could be "bumped up."
The students we're now encountering have been raised to negotiate with their parents for everything. Logically, this extends to other "adults" in their lives, even when they become adults (in age, anyway) themselves.
DeleteOne, online forum that I read sometimes, has a guy who, puts commas, everywhere, sort of like this. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to where the commas go, and it gives all his posts a choppy, "breathless" quality. It's pretty annoying to read.
DeleteUn-fricking-real....
ReplyDeleteLooks like a nice piece of evidence for the honor board (or local equivalent).
ReplyDeleteIt's also good evidence that the student still needs to take a writing course (though I have to admit that I don't usually cover where to put periods; I expect them to have learned that elsewhere).
I suspect this email had a line at the bottom: "Sent from my iPhone." The random punctuation reminds me of texting mistakes.
ReplyDeleteThe idiocy, though, that's all genuine. Yowza.
You know, once I had a student with quotes in her essay that didn't seem plausible to me so I questioned her, and she said she'd made the up (along with the sources). I was thoroughly puzzled by that then, and your situation now shows that she wasn't alone in this behavior. I hope this isn't a trend!!!
ReplyDeleteI'm surprised no one has noticed that it's probably a Google translation. Only a translator would come up with a word like "fictional" instead of "made up" or "bs".
ReplyDeleteAs with everything there's a much longer story. But it doesn't much the awesomeness of that note...
ReplyDelete