Smart student who missed the plot

[Hegemony]

I'm feeling unhappy about a student who wrote an essay that's smart and insightful — and utterly blockheaded.

Let's say we're dealing with Jane Eyre.  So the students have read Jane Eyre (1847) and The Wide Sargasso Sea (1966, the back story of the mad wife in the attic in Jane Eyre). And Student does an analysis of the relation of the characters in the two books — and on how Jane didn't realize that the wife in the attic was from Jamaica, and that if she had only done this or that, etc. All of this is fair game for The Wide Sargasso Sea. But what became clear as I read the paper is that the student thinks that Jane Eyre was written after The Wide Sargasso Sea. The student thinks all the information in The Wide Sargasso Sea was available to Jane in the original novel, and that she was at fault for not responding to it, and that Bronte is saying something about Jane ignoring Jamaica, and so on. She has it completely the wrong way around. It's a good analysis, except that it's utterly wrong. It also does ignore a lot of what's gone on in the course, as we've talked at length about how The Wide Sargasso Sea is a response to the original novel. I gather she was napping for those parts.

What kind of a grade do you give a paper like that?  This is a student who's done very well up till now — but I am kind of irritated at her failure to pay attention to the basics here.

[Parasaurolophus]

I'd say somewhere in the Bs. Probably a B+ for a paper that's really good but fatally flawed like that, but I could imagine myself going as high as A-, depending on the paper.

[downer]

I don't really think there is a right answer to what grade the work deserves. You could go several ways.

These days, when my time is a premium, I just give a middling grade given the options that make sense.

If I am feeling especially generous, I give the student the chance to redo the paper.

[traductio]

That's the type of paper where I try to do two things -- find a way to account for the basic screw-up, but then also find a way to take the paper as much at face value as possible. Sounds like a B to me -- an excellent job if the premise (about which book came first) were right, except that it's not.

[downer]

I've got a case with another student major misunderstanding.

In a course about the ancient world, I assign a paper topic about X.

Student writes a paper about X in the 19th century. And then points out that I didn't explicitly say that the paper had to be about X in the ancient world.

Here I gave a 0 with the opportunity to rewrite.

[Katrina Gulliver]

Are you sure this student actually read Jane Eyre?

[fishbrains]

Are you sure this student actually read Jane Eyre?

This would be my question. Students can often become quite confused when processing plot summaries of books they haven't read.

[spork]

[. . . ]

it's utterly wrong. It also does ignore a lot of what's gone on in the course, as we've talked at length about how The Wide Sargasso Sea is a response to the original novel. I gather she was napping for those parts.

[. . . ]

Wrong is wrong. Napping is napping. F.

[Hegemony]

As to whether the student read Jane Eyre, we covered Jane Eyre before we got to The Wide Saragasso Sea, and the student was at least familiar enough with it to fake being able to discuss it and pass a test on it with a good grade. And she was insightful enough that I was quite surprised at this lapse of basic knowledge. Even if you just read an online summary of the book, I think you'd pick up on the fact that it was written well before The Wide Saragasso Sea. Sometimes students just get something into their heads and that's that.

It reminds me, in an oblique way, of a student of mine who once wrote a paper that culminated in the observation, "And the most amazing thing about this novel is that none of it actually happened, it was just all made up, even what people said." The idea of fiction was apparently rather new to that student.

[Katrina Gulliver]

Given the number of undergrads I've seen use the term "novel" to refer to any book (including non-fiction), that could explain the confusion.

[spork]

I'm going to change my recommendation. If you think that the student actually read both novels, grade the paper as a zero and give the student a chance to rewrite it within a limited time window.

[backatit]

I'm going to change my recommendation. If you think that the student actually read both novels, grade the paper as a zero and give the student a chance to rewrite it within a limited time window.

This would be my recommendation. I'd point out the error in reasoning, and talk to the student about the difficulty giving the paper "the grade it deserves" given that issue. Most good students want to do well, and will do the rewrite. If she refuses, then I would probably grade the paper in the low B area (because that's a pretty major issue, and no matter how good the argument, it arises from a false premise).

[quasihumanist]

(This is not a serious post.)

What if the student has read too much Borges and did this on purpose?

[secundem_artem]

Unless you want to grade the paper twice, give student a B and an explanation as to what they have done and why the grade is lower for what would otherwise be a good paper.  Why go making more work for yourself? 

[traductio]

(This is not a serious post.)

What if the student has read too much Borges and did this on purpose?

I dream of this student.