Rob at the SayAnything blog got an email from an anonymous reader who is a student at North Dakota’s Williston State College. The student is required to write an essay paper for his English Composition class.
The topic: Do you agree or disagree with the idea of government sponsored health care
Sounds easy enough, right? Well, there’s a twist
I have to write a paper about whether or not I agree with government sponsored heath care. But the thing is that I have to support my argument with the sources supplied to me. And all of the information supplied to me is basically FOR government sponsored health care. Is it fair that I have to write a paper arguing something that I don’t agree with?
So far the only thing in the information given to me that is against it states “No literal reading of the US Constitution acknowledges any right to heath care.†I can’t support a personal opinion with out correct documentation. As I am not provided any documents that support that opinion, I can’t really buck the system and pass.
About the only thing I can do is suggest that the student contact FIRE (watch their video at the link), but that may not be quick enough.
Any other suggestions?
I honestly think that using examples of failings of state-sponsored health care is sufficient. I work in a writing center, and I see these papers all the freakin’ time. Someone arguing for state-sponsored health care would use examples of instances where someone used the system successfully (they’re only arguments, after all – no source is perfect), so why not use instances where someone has not been successful in a state with gov’t health care? I KNOW there are articles about it. If Michael Moore can get half-assed arguments for it in Cuba, then you can find full arguments against it in Canada.
It is not necessary to back up an opinion with anything except to say that it is your opinion. Having actual facts with which to back up your opinion are helpful, but not necessary. “I hate broccoli.” is an opinion. I believe state sponsored health care is bullshit because it has been proven not to work time and again is an opinion backed up with facts and statistics.
Obviously, the professor is confused about what constitutes factual reporting and editorializing. He is also confused as to what constitutes subjective or objective opinion.
Given this, my paper would be rather short; I disagree with state sponsored health care because the United States Constitution, our founding charter, does not enumerate health care as a right of the people. Because the Constitution does not enumerate this so called right, it is left to the States or the People, respectively, to decide per the 10th amendment.
See Amendment 9. We have a right to unfettered access to health care, just as we have an unfettered right to education, or to travel, or to firearms, or any number of other things.
We do not have a right to demand that such things be provided at the expense of the taxpayers.
As a one-time composition instructor at both the community college and university level, I have never heard of anyone asking a student to write from only sources supplied to him. We were supposed to teach research methods as well!
I suppose it’s possible, but I sure would like a peek at the assignment.
That said, most students today seem to know how to use Google, if nothing else.
This happened to me once with an online course:
I was asked to write a paper explaining how I feel that our prejudices toward the Islamic world (Orientalism) contribute to terrorism.
I advised the professor, up front, that I did not feel they did, that I was having great difficulty constructing such a paper because I felt the ideas I was being forced to outline were fundamentally illogical, and that I wished to write a paper explaining how the prejudices *of* the Islamic world contribute to terrorism. She was sympathetic to the inherent bias in the question and allowed me to do so. I quoted a number of Islamic scholars frantically misrepresenting the West, including one specifically blaming Orientalism for the “myth” of Islam as the “religion of peace”, describing it as a Western plot to trick Muslims out of making war on us. Got an A.
Of course, that was because the instructor had good intentions. The reader’s mileage may vary.
Use your paper to fisk the snot out of all the “sources” provided.
Shred them mercilessly.
I also am an instructor of English at a community college; in fact, I am an instructor at this student’s community college, Williston State College.
I find it interesting that a student has taken such an inocuous assignment as this, an assignment meant to test his abilities in citation, documentation, analysis, and argument, as so threatening. Is it impossible to argue for something that a person does not necessarily believe? Is it impossible to take a comment in favor of a topic and rationally establish the flaws of the comment?
This is an exam. Certainly no student has the time to do the research over an exam to find effective source material in the space of two hours and then write as well. Also, the sources provided are hardly credible. We, the English Department, made them up.
Finally, the student has not fairly described the exam. Actually, three sources are for the topic and three are against the topic. This was intentional to provide students the opportunity to determine for themselves which they should use to make their claims.
Before condemning the assignment, consider the assignment’s purpose and the context for which it was used.