proudly edited by lisa simpson
Feb. 18th, 2009 05:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mydarlingI hate my English class even more now. We took a quiz a few weeks ago on thesis statements and topics, to see if we could identify well-focused topics and correctly phrased thesis statements. We got them back today, and I got 16 wrong. SIXTEEN. I practically failed that thing, basically because the professor thinks his answers were perfectly correct, when a lot of them could be debateable, and I totally had my reasons why I thought one thesis statement was "good" instead of "poor", or a topic was well focused. I mean, can you even grade on someone's opinion? He should of just given us all credit for it, since he just sprung it on us in the first place.
We also had to edit other classmates rough drafts. I'll let you in on a secret: I hate editing other people's work. I can edit my own work with hardly any problems (though depending on the type of work, I'll beat myself up about how awful something sounds), but I absolutely struggle with others writing. A majority of the time, the writing is so bad that it's a struggle to read, let alone try and fix. That's what happened today. I edited one girl's paper that was absolutely awful - grammatical errors all over the place, stuff that didn't make any sense, no evidence that she had even researched the topic. I ended up only attempting to edit half the paper, the I just circled the rest and wrote "doesn't make any sense whatsoever - PLEASE FIX!". I was absolutely amazed that this girl had made it through English 101, let alone high school. And then afterward, I felt bad, since I had four years of English in high school and all my teachers really stressed the importance of correct grammar and to self-edit to make things easier on the other students (and the teacher) who would read it. As a result, I turned into a really harsh critic.
I had my paper edited by not only two other students (who made minimal corrections), but the professor himself. He totally ripped apart my paper from the very beginning - I did it on Jim Henson, which I did a speech on in first semester, since it was the only thing I could put together in such a short amount of time - commenting "THE ASSIGNMENT WAS NOT A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH - WHERE'S YOUR ISSUE?" Well thanks for telling me that was the topic, Professor. I thought we could choose our own topics. (Although we had been learning about "issues" and how to form a paper on them, so I guess I should have been the one to pick up on that? I would have liked some sort of a reminder, since it was a few weeks between learning how to put the paper together and actually writing it.) So now I have to write a whole new paper by next wednesday. I think I'm just going to take the research paper I wrote senior year, clean it up a bit, and turn that in. I don't care enough right now to go out and research a new topic. I'll save that for the next paper, whenever that is.
ALSO. We have essays to read and analyze. IN A CLASS OF WHICH THE FOCUS IS "RESEARCH PAPERS". I would've expected this kind of work in English 101, since we'd be writing shorter essays anyway, but not in this class. JUST STICK TO TEACHING US HOW TO WRITE A CORRECT RESEARCH PAPER. Better yet, he could actually get around to actually teaching instead of thinking we're going to do all the work on our own. We've got other more important things to worry about. Which is why I end up skipping the class, even though I shouldn't. Now that I'm headed to Grand Valley, I just don't care anyone. This class is really turning me off to the subject of English in general. Wonderful.
On top of that all writing, I have something essay related in nearly all of my other classes - two in American History (with thesis statements that are already half-done for me!), one on editing/the movie Traffic for Film, and an essay that's part of my take-home exam (and possibly the required project) for Anthropology. I just wish it was the end of April already so I could leave this stupid community college and move on to the next phase of college.
Oh, and the USB cable for my iPod is nowhere to be found, so I can't put new music on it right now.
We also had to edit other classmates rough drafts. I'll let you in on a secret: I hate editing other people's work. I can edit my own work with hardly any problems (though depending on the type of work, I'll beat myself up about how awful something sounds), but I absolutely struggle with others writing. A majority of the time, the writing is so bad that it's a struggle to read, let alone try and fix. That's what happened today. I edited one girl's paper that was absolutely awful - grammatical errors all over the place, stuff that didn't make any sense, no evidence that she had even researched the topic. I ended up only attempting to edit half the paper, the I just circled the rest and wrote "doesn't make any sense whatsoever - PLEASE FIX!". I was absolutely amazed that this girl had made it through English 101, let alone high school. And then afterward, I felt bad, since I had four years of English in high school and all my teachers really stressed the importance of correct grammar and to self-edit to make things easier on the other students (and the teacher) who would read it. As a result, I turned into a really harsh critic.
I had my paper edited by not only two other students (who made minimal corrections), but the professor himself. He totally ripped apart my paper from the very beginning - I did it on Jim Henson, which I did a speech on in first semester, since it was the only thing I could put together in such a short amount of time - commenting "THE ASSIGNMENT WAS NOT A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH - WHERE'S YOUR ISSUE?" Well thanks for telling me that was the topic, Professor. I thought we could choose our own topics. (Although we had been learning about "issues" and how to form a paper on them, so I guess I should have been the one to pick up on that? I would have liked some sort of a reminder, since it was a few weeks between learning how to put the paper together and actually writing it.) So now I have to write a whole new paper by next wednesday. I think I'm just going to take the research paper I wrote senior year, clean it up a bit, and turn that in. I don't care enough right now to go out and research a new topic. I'll save that for the next paper, whenever that is.
ALSO. We have essays to read and analyze. IN A CLASS OF WHICH THE FOCUS IS "RESEARCH PAPERS". I would've expected this kind of work in English 101, since we'd be writing shorter essays anyway, but not in this class. JUST STICK TO TEACHING US HOW TO WRITE A CORRECT RESEARCH PAPER. Better yet, he could actually get around to actually teaching instead of thinking we're going to do all the work on our own. We've got other more important things to worry about. Which is why I end up skipping the class, even though I shouldn't. Now that I'm headed to Grand Valley, I just don't care anyone. This class is really turning me off to the subject of English in general. Wonderful.
On top of that all writing, I have something essay related in nearly all of my other classes - two in American History (with thesis statements that are already half-done for me!), one on editing/the movie Traffic for Film, and an essay that's part of my take-home exam (and possibly the required project) for Anthropology. I just wish it was the end of April already so I could leave this stupid community college and move on to the next phase of college.
Oh, and the USB cable for my iPod is nowhere to be found, so I can't put new music on it right now.