I have been grading essays all damn day. As per usual when I have been grading all day, I have Opinions on what one should and should not do when writing a paper.
You know, throughout history every now and again somebody asks me why I don't want to teach, since it is The Only Thing My Degree Is Good For. I usually say something about how I am shy and don't want to talk at people for a living. One of these days I am going to be honest and tell them it's because I know a few teachers on LJ and I've seen what it does to people.
Coincidentally, this is also why I am not going to grad school.
1) I actually truly love teaching, and secretly enjoy teaching these same things OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN. I know, right? Demented.
2) I fucking hate those people who claim a degree is "only good for" one thing or another. It's not socially acceptable to say, "Screw you, you capitalist middle-class Western pigdog, it's a fucking higher education degree, you make me want to shave my eyebrows, marry a goat, and move to a tiny hut on the fringes of American civilization," so why is it socially acceptable to say that? Ugh.
3) Grad school is definitely a selective process. By "selective" I mean "only the truly batshit obsessives survive." And even then some people who actually hate their students and the profession get through. :( It's better not to go, if you don't like to read the phrase "throughout history" over and over again.
I read a legitimate academic essay this year, written by a legitimate academic person, which began with some crap line similar to "throughout history...." I was SO MAD.
i hold a little dream that one day i'll get around to doing some uni. (school drop out here. um..? still love me?) and one of the things that holds me back is my terror at writing an essay and it being such complete crap.
so i actually obsessively read all of your posts on this stuff. it also gives me stuff to watch for with my daughter's writing.
I have nothing but respect for school drop-outs, actually. Usually dropping out happens for a damn good reason. I think, though, that your terror is unfounded. I think what you should take from this for yourself is that there are a lot of bad papers out there, and at worst, you'll just be adding to it. At best, you'll be a shining gem among them. I suspect you'll tend more toward the gem end of the scale, especially since you've got some life experience to back up your ideas. I'd love to have someone like you in a class I taught, for real. ♥
That "I must be bullshitting" feeling is your creative faculty making out with your analytical faculty.
I love that feeling!
...however, if I ever do end up teaching, it will be high school agricultural science or something. Grading worksheets and teaching kids how to show a cow >>>> grading papers, imo, because I would be the bitchiest grader ever after a few papers.
(Trufax: I used to help my dad grade his kids' worksheets, even when I was younger than them, and he would have to tell me to ease off and give more partial credit. Even as a bb!grader I was a bitch. >.>)
Me too! It is the best feeling! It's like creative writing, but analytically based. Crazy.
One of the more difficult problems I've faced as a grader is the question of too much versus too few. If I grade more than ten papers in one go, I start to get too cranky. If I grade fewer than four at a time, I get a skewed perspective on what constitutes a good argument versus a bad argument. The sweet spot moves around on me, though.
My fellow TA is the bitchiest grader of all time. We're constantly nagging him to give partial credit. It's kind of awesome; it makes me feel like I'm actually a nice grader. :D
The one thing I got REALLY good at after a year in grad school was writing a really (stylistically) good papers. I make no claims about the content. But I could write an introduction and connect paragraphs like no motherfucker could touch. One of my favourite things my supervisor ever said to me was, "What I love about your writing is that when you use words like 'whereby', it's because you actually mean 'whereby'."
Dude, I bet your supervisor was SO INTO you, for exactly that reason. There's something so nice about encountering a paper where the student uses exactly the words that they mean, and put together their paragraphs in a thoughtful way. It's coherent! I think I love you!
It makes them so hard to judge, though. I had one student who was about a 2.1 on content, but just wrote like a dream. I kept being seduced into giving her Firsts and then having to stop and think about whether I actually meant that.
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Coincidentally, this is also why I am not going to grad school.
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2) I fucking hate those people who claim a degree is "only good for" one thing or another. It's not socially acceptable to say, "Screw you, you capitalist middle-class Western pigdog, it's a fucking higher education degree, you make me want to shave my eyebrows, marry a goat, and move to a tiny hut on the fringes of American civilization," so why is it socially acceptable to say that? Ugh.
3) Grad school is definitely a selective process. By "selective" I mean "only the truly batshit obsessives survive." And even then some people who actually hate their students and the profession get through. :( It's better not to go, if you don't like to read the phrase "throughout history" over and over again.
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(sorry, sinsense, I talk about that story too much!)
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so i actually obsessively read all of your posts on this stuff. it also gives me stuff to watch for with my daughter's writing.
♥
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I love that feeling!
...however, if I ever do end up teaching, it will be high school agricultural science or something. Grading worksheets and teaching kids how to show a cow >>>> grading papers, imo, because I would be the bitchiest grader ever after a few papers.
(Trufax: I used to help my dad grade his kids' worksheets, even when I was younger than them, and he would have to tell me to ease off and give more partial credit. Even as a bb!grader I was a bitch. >.>)
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One of the more difficult problems I've faced as a grader is the question of too much versus too few. If I grade more than ten papers in one go, I start to get too cranky. If I grade fewer than four at a time, I get a skewed perspective on what constitutes a good argument versus a bad argument. The sweet spot moves around on me, though.
My fellow TA is the bitchiest grader of all time. We're constantly nagging him to give partial credit. It's kind of awesome; it makes me feel like I'm actually a nice grader. :D
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