My English 101 class in an online sort of set-up. The Prof sets up the assignments. Every Monday we all log into the college’s website and read them. We then read the assigned texts from the TWO books we had to buy for the class (though we haven’t been told to touch the second one as of yet). We then write the assignments due at various points during the week and post them to the assignments “blog” site she has set up on the college’s servers.
I just cut & pasted the Week #3 assignment into Word and saved it onto my thumbdrive so that I can access it w/o needing an internet connection. In reading this assignment I have lost all remaining confidence in her competence. I have loaded it below the fold for y’all to check out.
At first, from her syllabus and previous assignments I had the feeling she might be a “dolphin whipserer” or some other type of foolishness. However, now I’m just under the assumption that she is a standard grade twit. She manages to be both condescending and a dork on the same page. Also, I’d probably have better luck getting my emails responded to if I started sexting her.
To add to that, with six assignments under my belt so far, I have received 100% on all of them except for one which I tuned in with 449 words instead of the requisite 500 (I lost a whole point for that). I have received no feedback and no corrections to my work.
If seven years of blogging has prepared me to get nearly 100% in a college level English Composition course, then I’m going to start posting memes in my assignments.
I think, for my final assignment, that I’m going to write some frightening TEOTWAWKI fiction or something. If I’m paying for this, it may as well be entertaining.
Week 3 Asignments
Hello, English 101 Students!
Last week, we worked on INVENTING for our Essay #1. You read a brief description of the process, and then you tried your hand at your own invention.
Then you read another essay about invention—you might have read Spike Lee on journaling, Anne Lamott on notecards, or one of the essays written by instructors about teaching their students invention.
Invention is the first stage of the writing process, and it generally takes a lot of time and work. A synonym for invention is PRE-WRITING—in other words—you write before you actually start writing. Writing before you actually write . . . there’s a little paradox, a Zen kÅan of sorts, for you to ponder.
This week, Week Three, we are going to read about and practice another stage of the writing process: DRAFTING. Again, as we read about this concept, we will be practicing it as we continue the writing process of Essay #1: an Essai.
This week you will perform the following reading and writing activities:
1) READ “Drafting, Responding, and Revising†on page 252. This is the introduction to Chapter 5.
2) READ “Shitty First Drafts†by Anne Lamott on page 259. This is by far your instructor’s favorite essay in the entire textbook, and her favorite essay on writing in general. She hopes you will enjoy it as much as she does, and even if you find it a bit hard to believe, she has found every word to be true and immensely stress-relieving in her own writing, both academic and creative. Please ENJOY!
3) WRITE blog entry #5: What the Reading Made Me Think About and How This Relates to my Essay. In this blog, please describe
— Your reactions to the introduction to Chapter 5 and your reactions to “Shitty Rough Drafts.â€Â Tell the instructor and your peers what excited you, confused you, made you think about things in a new way, or puzzled you.
— Then describe HOW you will take what you learned from this essay about drafting and apply it as you draft essay #1.
This blog entry is 1000 words, and it is due by Wednesday night before midnight.4) DRAFT your essay #1. You may use any of the inventions you created during Week Two, and feel free to add/expand to them in any way you feel necessary. Or you may start over from scratch if none of your inventions pleased you.
Note: I’ve created a forum for you to ask me questions about your prewriting—your drafting—anything that relates to your questions/comments/concerns regarding your particular writing process for Essay #1Please post your DRAFT of essay #1 as a blog (Blog #6.) Your draft should meet the criteria outlined in the assignment (found in the Week Two folder) and it must be posted by Friday night before midnight.
5) READ “Responding—Really Responding—to Other Students Writing†by Richard Straub on page 289.
6) WRITE blog entry #7: What the Reading Made Me Think About and How This Relates to my Essay. In this blog, please describe
— Your reactions to the essay on how to peer review. Tell the instructor and your peers what excited you, confused you, made you think about things in a new way, or puzzled you.
— Then describe HOW you will take what you learned from this essay and apply it as you PEER REVIEW essay #1.
This blog entry is 1000 words, and it is due by Sunday night before midnight.
Peace,
Jen
I’d wish “peace” to you too, Jen but I think I’m getting the gist of your kind of “peace”.
Isn’t this the kind of “peace” you’re into?
http://www.lifelibertyetc.com/product.aspx?pid=3
I see a bit of cut and paste in your future.
Twist, Pull, Turn and let it burn,
Chad
Phil, your writing professor can’t write common English.
In her second paragraph, she has two grammatical errors: first one is the use of a non-word, “journaling” for “write a journal” and the second is the unnecessary use of a comma before the word “or”.
In the third paragraph, she invents another term, “pre-writing”, and capitalizes her invention for effect. I gave up and didn’t read any more, but I could probably get over a dozen errors out of her piece at that rate.
The only thing that can be said of this chick’s writing is that I can understand it with some effort, but it sets my teeth on edge to read it.
Lessee, if this is English 101, what happened to the 100 varieties of English that preceded it?
I’ve mentioned this previously – I earned an English with Writing Emphasis degree from UW 12 years ago. While there are intelligent, thoughtful instructors in the English department, you should understand up-front that most of the instructors of 100-level courses are grad students who are trying to avoid the working world on their parents’ dime.
“Invention”?
Sheesh, you’re not taking English! That’s clearly a journalism course.
Don’t frighten the rabbit people.
Write a grade A paper and be done with it. Getchyer grade, and get out.
When in doubt, be professional. Don’t let the snarky beast out unless it’s on your own dime. It might be fun, but do you want to have to re-take this course?
Good advice Kristopher ….. but it’s got to be SO tempting, him being my kid and all. It sure would be for me !
Lately I am starting to wonder about my plans to go back to school post retirement from the Navy.
If this is what passes for college level work these days, can I just survey the course and test out of it, or something?
I might have to start CLEPing some of my basic stuff out of the way while I am still in. I don’t think I could deal with insanity such as this.
Mark, I don’t know what command you are in with the Navy, but most of them, even including down to the individual warship level, have some sort of on-board professor attached to the crew who teaches these courses.
I have a good friend, retired USNR Lt. Commander, who went back to sea to teach, and he has done it on warships as small as a DE.
Yes, the airedales on my ship had several such professors. Unfortunately when you are on five and dimes watches for 6 months (two section duty in port) you don’t have time for underway classes. Or much of anything else. So the Nukes were pretty much excluded from that program.