Topic: Bang Your Head on Your Desk - the thread of teaching despair!

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

In one three-page paper, thirteen run-on sentences and fragments. This is two weeks after an extensive grammar lesson, a low-stakes practice worksheet, and having the PowerPoint I used uploaded on the LMS.

I believe Gandalf's most famous line from The Lord of the Rings applies here.

How do students like this graduate from high school?


Larimar

Exactly.

[Langue_doc]

In one three-page paper, thirteen run-on sentences and fragments. This is two weeks after an extensive grammar lesson, a low-stakes practice worksheet, and having the PowerPoint I used uploaded on the LMS.

I believe Gandalf's most famous line from The Lord of the Rings applies here.

How do students like this graduate from high school?


Larimar

I once had a student whose essay consisted of run-ons and fragments, but not a single correct sentence. I sat down with the student and the tutor in the Writing Center and had the student write down each incorrect sentence and then the corresponding correct sentence with the help of the tutor. After about three sessions, the student's writing improved somewhat.

Schools stopped teaching grammar a long time ago because it was considered "prescriptive".

[downer]

No cursive writing either in the schools. I have heard some teachers smuggle in grammar to their classes even if it is officially verboten. Of course, it is also partly due to the fact that a of students don't read anything beyond a couple of assigned books a year, and even then they will try to watch the movie instead.

[Larimar]

In one three-page paper, thirteen run-on sentences and fragments. This is two weeks after an extensive grammar lesson, a low-stakes practice worksheet, and having the PowerPoint I used uploaded on the LMS.

I believe Gandalf's most famous line from The Lord of the Rings applies here.

How do students like this graduate from high school?


Larimar

I once had a student whose essay consisted of run-ons and fragments, but not a single correct sentence. I sat down with the student and the tutor in the Writing Center and had the student write down each incorrect sentence and then the corresponding correct sentence with the help of the tutor. After about three sessions, the student's writing improved somewhat.

Schools stopped teaching grammar a long time ago because it was considered "prescriptive".

Yipes. Glad you were able to help the student and that he or she listened at least somewhat. On my student's grade sheet I did say that she should come see me for help with sentence structure.

Grammar is prescriptive? As a serious question, what does that mean in context?

I thought they stopped teaching grammar because it's not on the standardized tests. Sounds like the problem might be more insidious than I thought.

No cursive writing either in the schools. I have heard some teachers smuggle in grammar to their classes even if it is officially verboten. Of course, it is also partly due to the fact that a of students don't read anything beyond a couple of assigned books a year, and even then they will try to watch the movie instead.

Grammar is contraband to be smuggled now?

Well, then, heh, heh, heh, let me get my pirate queen hat and practice some evil laughter. This could be fun! Yo ho ho and to the survival of comprehensible writing!


Larimar

[mamselle]

Yes, diagramming sentences went out with memorizing the multiplication tables.

Rote learning has had a bad rap in some situations--don't know how one learns Latin (or other languages') verb parts without it, though....

M.

[Langue_doc]

In one three-page paper, thirteen run-on sentences and fragments. This is two weeks after an extensive grammar lesson, a low-stakes practice worksheet, and having the PowerPoint I used uploaded on the LMS.

I believe Gandalf's most famous line from The Lord of the Rings applies here.

How do students like this graduate from high school?


Larimar

I once had a student whose essay consisted of run-ons and fragments, but not a single correct sentence. I sat down with the student and the tutor in the Writing Center and had the student write down each incorrect sentence and then the corresponding correct sentence with the help of the tutor. After about three sessions, the student's writing improved somewhat.

Schools stopped teaching grammar a long time ago because it was considered "prescriptive".

Yipes. Glad you were able to help the student and that he or she listened at least somewhat. On my student's grade sheet I did say that she should come see me for help with sentence structure.

Grammar is prescriptive? As a serious question, what does that mean in context?

I thought they stopped teaching grammar because it's not on the standardized tests. Sounds like the problem might be more insidious than I thought.

No cursive writing either in the schools. I have heard some teachers smuggle in grammar to their classes even if it is officially verboten. Of course, it is also partly due to the fact that a of students don't read anything beyond a couple of assigned books a year, and even then they will try to watch the movie instead.

Grammar is contraband to be smuggled now?

Well, then, heh, heh, heh, let me get my pirate queen hat and practice some evil laughter. This could be fun! Yo ho ho and to the survival of comprehensible writing!


Larimar

There were several so-called studies claiming that using red ink to correct students' writing resulted in the instructors actively looking for errors. Writing was considered to be "finding one's voice", whatever that means. I recall a friend calling me in desperation because when she sent her students to the Writing Center, she was told that the tutors couldn't help the students with their sentences or grammar, as their mission was to help students find their voice. Her student papers, as I recall, included woulda, shoulda, and other expressions that are not used in academic writing in addition to the run-ons and fragments.

Here is an article from the NYT on why kids can't write:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/02/education/edlife/writing-education-grammar-students-children.html

[Caracal]

There were several so-called studies claiming that using red ink to correct students' writing resulted in the instructors actively looking for errors.

I don't know about the red ink, but I think there's something to the idea that you can go too far in the direction of being fixated on grammar to the exclusion of content. I certainly see plenty of run on sentences and the like, but it isn't the biggest problem my students have with writing. What they really struggle with is making actual academic arguments. If I mark every grammatical mistake on papers, they think that's the main thing they need to work on.

[the_geneticist]

TAs, I know you think you "explained everything clearly and perfectly", but we have mountains of evidence that demonstrates that people do not learn well just by listening!

Yes, they will still ask questions.
Yes, they will still make mistakes.

No, it is NOT a better plan for you to "just do [thing] for them".
No, they will NOT learn "how to use [science equipment]" by watching a video.

I know that YOU could do it "perfectly", but you are not the students.  The point is that the students are learning.  Mistakes are part of learning.

They need to touch and use the equipment to learn how to use it. 
Let go of perfection and let the students TRY before you swoop in to save them.

My list of "never again, not even if you paid me more" TAs is getting longer.

[OneMoreYear]

TAs, I know you think you "explained everything clearly and perfectly", but we have mountains of evidence that demonstrates that people do not learn well just by listening!

Yes, they will still ask questions.
Yes, they will still make mistakes.

No, it is NOT a better plan for you to "just do [thing] for them".
No, they will NOT learn "how to use [science equipment]" by watching a video.

I know that YOU could do it "perfectly", but you are not the students.  The point is that the students are learning.  Mistakes are part of learning.

They need to touch and use the equipment to learn how to use it. 
Let go of perfection and let the students TRY before you swoop in to save them.

My list of "never again, not even if you paid me more" TAs is getting longer.

Did you try asking the TA how the TA learned how to use the equipment? Or does the TA have a complete lack of awareness?

[the_geneticist]

Utter and complete lack of awareness.

[mamselle]

That in itself would make an interesting Punnett chart...

M. 

[Liquidambar]

Stu missed a quiz today and asked for a makeup even though my syllabus says no makeups and even though we drop a couple quizzes.

On the other hand, he didn't turn in a major assignment last week, worth 20% of the grade, and I haven't heard a peep from him about that!

[RatGuy]

Today's honors seminar included a discussion of Harriet Jacobs's Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. We discussed the scene in which Mrs. Flint says she loves slave Nancy so much that she wants Nancy buried with her. Jacobs says that this illustrates the weird attachment and affection the owners have for their slaves. This exchange happened during the discussion:

Student: Of course Mrs. Flint feels attachment! If someone does favors for you her entire life, then you're going to feel affection for them.
Me: Not sure "favor" is the right word, because Nancy doesn't have any agency here.
Student: That's degrading! It's pretty racist for you to assume Nancy doesn't have agency.
Me: But that's one of the text's themes, of the perverse nature of having absolute control over someone else.
Student: It's not "absolute" control. There's always a choice.
Me: You're saying that Nancy chose to sleep outside of Flint's bedroom, and have a series of miscarriages over the course of her life?
Student: Yes.
Another student: Duuuuude
Student: She could have hidden or left, as Jacobs did. Slaves ran away all the time. Nancy chose to stay and help out Mrs. Flint, and you're racist if you think otherwise.

I mean, technically he's correct: there's no "absolute" control. But I don't know how to react to a "slaves chose to be slaves" rhetoric, especially when couched as "you're racist if you think slaves lacked agency." Anyone have experience diffusing such situations, or ways to avoid this kind of antagonism?

[mamselle]

It might help to examine the cost of exerting that agency, which had to always be factored in: death, serious violent treatment, being sold away from family, and other costs were exacted from those who tried to take agency and failed.

One might also discuss studies of the Stockholm Syndrome, which examines agency, empathy with one's jailers/enslavers, and mitigated decision-making capacities.

The student is correct, one always wants to uphold the idea that agency is possible--I'd still be in an abusive marriage if it weren't, or dead--but circumstances and structures were often so seriously stacked against the potential agent that their capacity to exert that agency was severely curtailed, to the point that it became miniscule in the worst cases--and there were many worst cases.

I uphold absolutely the inclusion of the discussion of agency since it is one of the elements omitted from the narrative of enslavement, most often in the depiction of white (or simply more powerful, in other settings) allies as doing all the heavy lifting, which tends to de-emphasize the strenuous efforts blacks (and other individuals who have been oppressed in other ways) made to extricate themselves from enslavement, and create a 'hero-making' narrative that deflects value from those who did actively work to bring themselves out of their situations despite their structural disempowerment.

Another approach might be the parallels (such as they exist) with the Russian war on Ukraine. Allies like the US, UK, et al. may give munitions to the defenders, but it's primarily the Ukrainians who will have liberated themselves, as things appear at this point, if they can.

If the US/UK, et al. were to then claim they'd done all the work, the Ukrainians might have serious reason for complaint, right?

So that might help ventilate and elucidate the situation further.     

M.

ETA: What Morden said, below, more succinctly.

[Morden]

Anyone have experience diffusing such situations, or ways to avoid this kind of antagonism?

I would probably try to reframe it as an example of the structure/agency debate in sociology.