Friday, December 18, 2009

To my students (or grading avoidance skill #123)

If only I could communicate this to more of my students. At least one student got it who wrote this line in his self-assessment essay:

"Unlike my other English classes I feel that what I’ve learned in this class will stick with me outside of college classes. Prior English classes had only taught me situational writing skills where a teacher told me what I had to do."

Yes, yes, yes!!! That's why I don't tell you exactly what to do. It's not to frustrate you, it's not because I don't know how to make detailed scripted assignments, it's not because I'm lazy: it's because I want you to learn something so we can engage in something real. That's all.

4 comments:

Lisa B. said...

Beautiful remark. Perhaps you can extract its DNA, turn it into a vaccine, and innoculate all future students. Y'know, like, science.

shane said...

Too bad those skills can be almost a detriment to the sick world we've created. But kudos for teaching it, anyway.

I'm looking forward to watching the video, but I'm in a cafe right now and I don't have earphones, so it'll have to wait.

Antistrophe said...

Yes, please do what Lisa said and provide that vaccine for all of us.

Clint Gardner said...

Now that's an excellent outcome!