is the word 'diary' better than the word 'blog'? probably not.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Call me Professor TeachWell.
Usually when I get a batch of papers from students and something is wrong with most of them, I decide there must have been something wrong with the assignment, something unclear in my instructions, some sort of mishap with how I phrased the question or questions, so I go easy on them. But FINALLY I have proof that it is not always or not only the teacher's fault when a horde of students all do abysmally bad on a paper or one or two questions out of a set of questions.
As part of the final I gave my students in one of my courses 15 take-home questions, to be answered short-answer style. I realized, after handing out the assignment, that one of the questions was a bit tricky. It wasn't DIFFICULT. It just required a fairly specific answer, and then an explanation of that answer. So. I made a handout that I handed out in class on the day we discussed that topic. On that handout I put the answer to the specific part of the question. And then I said to the class: this is part of the answer to question #12 of the final questions.
AND STILL. Most of the students left that question blank, or answered it totally wrongly. Mein gott! What more could I have done, I ask you? Ha. Oh well. A few students answered it beautifully well. And that's because they did the reading and listened in class. And, though I know that many of the non-answering students probably also did those things, they clearly did them less thoroughly, so perhaps all's fair, right? But man, as I was grading the questions I first got really annoyed, then angry, then resigned, and then it was just wryly funny.
I'm back at Starbucks again. This time I'm in lovely Benicia, CA, at the corner of 1st and Military. Literally. I finally wised up and brought some headphones with me, so that when the music took at very bad turn, I was able to open up iTunes and fire up Dean and Britta. Problem solved. Speaking of which, if you don't have the album Back Numbers, I recommend that you remedy that oversight STAT. It, along with Charlotte Gainsbourg's album 5:55, is my favorite in the category of hipster easy listening.
2:10 p.m. - December 21, 2007
Vermont cousin - 2007-12-22 13:17:46
August helped me make greek cookies and chocolate covered peanut butter balls this morning. He's a baking superstar. He also went snow shoeing and made snow angels. It's hard to keep up with him!
Hope you're having fun in CA.
-------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
