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Kind of a weird question for the OP, but; can you tell if someone has not done the reading for a certain piece based on grading their essays? I wonder this because I got an English Lit major from a 1300 student liberal arts college a year ago and got about a B average without reading about 1/2 of the assigned works. I never got called out on this, including never being called out by fellow students, even when I did my senior seminar project on a book I never read one page of. This leads me to the next question of; what do you think is the most important thing to take out of getting an English major? Obviously the writing helps, but is it discussion skills? Applying literary analyzation to different fields (and everyday life)? BSing incredibly well, as I learned to do in my 4 years? I'm just wondering, as my own degree feels pretty worthless to me as of now, although I did enjoy discussing (almost) everything in class, which is why I stuck with the major.
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May 15, 2009 01:05
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Thanks for the reply. Just to clarify about not doing the reading; I read summaries (sparknotes/classic notes etc.), to get the general idea of what the story was about and go from there when we had discussions in class. This probably worked because we were never audited on our reading, we only wrote essays on our own ideas, which were discussed in class at length. Group discussions were also great in helping me refine ideas, especially when someone would bring up a particular part in a work that I had either forgotten or not read at all. As for the second question you answered, my writing improved dramatically throughout college and it is one of the things I value the most from my education. My school was on trimesters, so we typically wrote about 40 pages a term, although I had a Victorian Lit class where the sole grade was on one paper (25-30pp). And, finally, a new question I thought of; Do you grade males and females differently or, rather, read their essays differently? I ask this because the English Lit field at my school was overwhelmingly female and the topics of my papers tended to distance themselves from viewing a piece through some feminist-lens and/or quoting only feminist theorists (not to say every female did this). This especially applies to someone like yourself (liberal arts college professor) who should actually know his students, as the classes are small enough for productive discussions. Or, I guess, you might have preconstructed notions as to what so-and-so's topic/thesis will be.
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May 15, 2009 18:59
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Brainworm posted:I think what this splatter of a response points to is that gender difference doesn't directly play out in evaluation, except in whatever effects it has on individual students. Good enough for me. I was kind of rambling in my question anyway. The only thing I ever sensed from professors was the "you get a C/B because your paper is good but you are smarter than this. Apply yourself and you would get an A," which is true in my case, as I had 'too much fun' in college. Any students you have/have had that have this problem?
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May 15, 2009 23:20
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