Have a holly, jolly Christmas

It's no surprise that I'm not a fan of Christmas music. In fact, mere minutes of it trigger my homicidal reflex. (This probably stemmed from working retail in high school; the Gap's 45-minute loop of poppy Christmas songs is something from which I may never recover.)

But just when I thought I couldn't get more cynical, I stumbled upon this article about the secularization of Christmas through Christmas music.

Another interesting thought about the great American gift card exchange.

Happy Festivus.

Why speling is impotent

In an email from a student explaining why he missed my office hours today:

Sorry...I got raped up in my take home philosophy final.

That really shouldn't be as funny as it is.

Irony at Work

Before I begin grading, I arrange the papers from (anticipated) worst to best—so I generally feel pretty good by the time I finish grading the class. I realize that this is both horrible and what education classes taught us not to do—in fact, they say to arrange them from best to worst. But as a striving optimist, I do the opposite. (As my husband says, "I feel bad for the poor kids who are on the top of that stack.")

I spent my day (and evening) yesterday grading a section of 101 proposal papers. One student, who has managed to climb from the beginning to the middle of the stack, wrote a fantastic paper. I was truly proud of the fact that Andrea had put so much effort into the paper—dozens of questions in class, emails, and even IMs—for she had created an exemplary product. Except there were no citations.

Technically, I should have failed this student—internal citations are detrimental to her ethos as a writer and, really, her integrity as a student. But I consider myself a generous person, so I wrote her a paragraph explaining that hers was an A paper, but she can't get an A without internal citations. It breaks my heart! I wrote. I know you'll crush the next one! Then I penned a B+ and circled it.

Today after class Andrea was a wreck. She tried pleading with me, asking to put in the citations so that I could give her the A. I explained a (true) story I had heard from another professor: he had a student who submitted a research paper without internal citations for the portfolio review, so he failed. He didn't just fail the portfolio review—he failed the course. So really, I said, the B+ is generous, because technically she should have failed. I then said that I hoped that she would learn from the situation so she wouldn't be the unfortunate student who has to repeat a course—or worse—because of something so silly.

Andrea was far from satisfied, but she eventually exited the classroom. I then went to my last class, a 102, and later stayed after to speak to a handful of students who had questions on their upcoming draft.

One girl, Lily, relayed an anecdote about a girl she met in the stairwell who started talking about being caught for accidental plagiarism; she had forgotten to use internal citations in her paper. The stairwell girl had told this perfect stranger, "This is bad karma for all the times I plagiarized. This time it was entirely by accident—and I got caught! I can't believe it."

I hope Andrea learned not to plagiarize—accidentally or purposefully—at least in my class. If nothing else, I hope the irony isn't lost on her.

Catholic Guilt as a Teaching Strategy

A concept I emphasize to my freshmen is knowing your audience. This is especially true with knowing my students.

I just—as in minutes ago—read a paper by a particularly competent writer. In fact, I saved his paper for the bottom of my stack so that I won't feel depressed when I go to bed tonight. This student wants to please me and wants to do well in our class, but he's definitely a freshman—he runs to our 12:50 class with his contact case in his hand because he woke up minutes before we're scheduled to meet. It's been apparent that his social life is infringing on his academic priorities, and it has become more apparent now that I've read his third paper.

This is the note I wrote for him at the bottom of his last page:

This paper is not double spaced. I'd rather your paper run short than have you think I'm too dumb to notice.

Frankly, I'm disappointed. It's clear you know how to conduct research and incorporate it into your own ideas, but your paper lacks development and seems thrown together. I sincerely hope you put more effort into your next paper because you're a talented writer who just isn't meeting his potential.

I'm curious to see how he does on the next one.

Out of the Mouths of Babes

On the wall of our department's reading room (faculty lounge) is the photocopy of a professor's letter written to an advice columnist. In short, course evaluations left the professor questioning her career path; the columnist reassures her by saying that "to allow students to say what they like anonymously about their teachers strikes me as democracy gone mad."

The columnist has a point about professors being the ones responsible for passing judgment, and that the distressed professor should be less concerned about being liked and more concerned about being an effective teacher. However. Just like students, professors should also be held accountable—perhaps even more so. These students are, after all, paying a hefty sum for the privilege of higher education; it is therefore our responsibility to provide that education.

This college professor should know her classes—and herself—well enough to discern immature ranting from constructive criticism; if she cannot, then perhaps she should consider a change of vocation.

Rhetorical Trainwreck

This is one of the best pieces of terrible rhetoric I have ever seen. I don't know whether to laugh or shake my fist in the air.

I'll punctuate you in the face

Today I taught punctuation to my 101 kids. As always, I began the lesson by writing the following on the board and asking the students to punctuate it:

A woman without her man is nothing

After they couldn't do anything more than add a period, I changed it to the following:

A woman: without her, man is nothing.

I then asked, "What happened when I added these two pieces of punctuation?"

One of my students said, "It made the sentence false."


For more on why punctuation is important, see this YouTube video. (Thanks, Rob.)