Miss, can you please help me. Please explain how to organize essay point by point or subject by subject.This is with regard to an essay they got back today. This student got an F but can rewrite it for his final portfolio. Also, I let them out 15 minutes early so that those who wanted to talk to me about rewrites could do so. He did not stay.
Stella wrote a while back about the detailed notes we give for this kind of essay. Like Stella, I told them to write this shit down. I gave handouts.
The bummer of it is, I like this student. He's a sweetie. He has written some okay stuff, and he struggles with English. But WTF? I'm not gonna review this shit through the kid's cell phone.
What the fuck are these people thinking? What the fuck are they just thinking?
So I told him no, I can't do that via e-mail, and he should review his notes, the ones I know he did not take.
Sigh.
Miss? Are you fucking kidding me?
ReplyDeleteLOL! Ben, "Miss" is par for the course.
DeleteI can tell we serve very different populations!
The way it's phrased sounds very ELL-ish.
DeleteMiss seems to be becoming a more common form of address. I've gotten it several times in the last year or so, after not hearing it for decades (even though I am, in fact, technically a Miss, though I strongly prefer Ms. or, failing that, Dr.). Maybe they all called their daycare teachers, whatever their ages, "Miss [firstname]," and have never adjusted their form of address since then? "Mrs.," of course, tends to indicate confusion with their high school teachers.
DeleteMy wife runs a home daycare and all of her kids call her Miss Patricia from Peoria.
DeleteMaybe I should insist that she make them call her Mrs. Patricia from Peoria.
Southern etiquette filtering north, perhaps. Every female, married or not, is "Miss X" down there. I was just treated to a heaping helping of that when we went to my father-in-law's funeral.
DeleteCC and Introvert are probably right. God knows I've fought against my kid calling my friends Miss First name or Mr. First Name, only to be rebuked by my friends themselves. The elementary school teachers still hold the line but that's about it.
DeleteMy last department head told me that my insisting that my students address me as Dr. Academic or "sir" was considered intimidating. It apparently made them feel that they were unworthy to approach me and, thereby, wouldn't learn anything. If they wanted to call me "Doc" or simply "No", I should have let them. After all, part of my job was to create a "safe learning environment".
DeleteOf course, that apparent intimidation didn't prevent them from hurling abuse at me whenever they felt like it and lambasting me in their evaluations.
"Why are you being so unhelpful? I mean, come on! They asked nicely and politely, and you're declining to help? This is what is wrong with professors these days." <--- this is a response an acquaintance of mine gave when I complained of something similar recently... I feel your pain!
ReplyDeleteI once had class in which several of the students thought I was being "unhelpful" because I wouldn't do their work for them. One of them, and I think I know who it was, complained to the acting department head, asking if they could have their money back for that course.
DeleteGuess who got into trouble?
Oh, no, you never compose a readable reply to emails like this. What you write is, "Were you emailing from a cell phone? What came through was sort of garbled..."
ReplyDeleteIt makes them think they can't trust their cell phones to send proper emails. Which is of course a good thing.
I like Stella's response.
ReplyDeleteIf you want to be a bit more helpful, you might suggest the student check with the writing center (assuming you have one) for handouts on the subject. Every writing center I've ever worked in, or otherwise encountered, has had a handout on exactly that subject. In the olden days, they were in racks outside the door; these days, they're on the web (usually on a site accessible by the public, so even if you don't have a writing center, this would stil be an option). Then again, you said you already gave out handouts, so maybe that suggestion isn't much good. Still, it never hurts to mention the writing center, if only as an option for next semester, when the student retakes the class (if your writing center is anything like ours, it's probably booked solid through the end of the semester).
Yes, yes, the writing center. I did tell him that, since my office hours are booked solid for the next week (after sitting and polishing my nails in there all semester) he should try the Writing Center.
ReplyDeleteAnd, of course, as they have been all fucking semester, my handouts are on Blackboard. All my handouts, including how to send an e-mail, and how to take notes, and of course, how to organize a comp/cont essay.
They should take notes, in addition to the handouts. The handouts just end up, sometimes, rarely actually, but sometimes, making MY life easier.
Follow up: when I told him he could check Blackboard for the handouts on this, he wanted me to explain to him how to go on Blackboard! And because I am such a pansy, and also because I have been asked this question soo sooo soooooo sooooooo many times via e-mail, I sent him a lengthy, step by step, even includes reminding them to breath in between steps, list of how to get onto Blackboard.
Somehow, I wonder if THAT is going to be too much for him.
Yet curiously, when you introduce them to computer programming, many of them have absolutely no idea how to break a task down into individual steps to explain it to a computer. I have no idea what conclusion to draw from this.
DeleteI've often had students ask me how to solve a problem. What they really meant was if I would do it for them, which I refused. Instead, I told them they would do it but with my assistance.
DeleteI'd start by making sure they understood what the objective was. The next step was to assess the situation, determine what was known, and then figure out what needed to be done. When there was something unknown or unclear, I'd ask them if the information was available somewhere, such as the yield point of a certain material, or if there was an equation by which one could find it. Eventually, step by step, the student would arrive at the solution because that's how it's done in the real world.
Many of them didn't like that because I made them think. They probably knew how to do it but either they didn't know how to organize themselves or they were simply too lazy.
I admit that I was like that when I was an undergrad. It was only after I had spent some time in industry and as a grad student that I understood what many of my profs were trying to say when they used that same approach with me.
Just to clarify, because I am trying very hard not to get back to the 100 plus stack of things I have to correct: I have that detailed how-to-get-on-Blackboard e-mail in stock. I'd never write something like that right now. I think I wrote that in a different life, when I was a nicer person than I am now.l Like over the summer.
ReplyDelete