Re: The state of State

Subject: Re: The state of State
From: oudeis <oudeis -at- tampabay -dot- rr -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 10:47:57 -0500


At 07:29 AM 11/28/2004, Dick Margulis wrote:

I don't mind making the corrections--that's part of what the author is paying me for. I mind that the Major State University (and please don't think I'm coyly identifying a school whose initials are MSU, because that is not the case) has people on its English faculty whose standards are so low for the writing of graduate students that they don't bother to correct the most obvious solecisms. No wonder we have such a glut of people with advanced degrees who can't string seven English words together to make a well formed utterance.
</rant>


As grad studs in a social science program at a major PRIVATE uni, my pals and I got the bright idea to get some funding for a 'writing lab' for our department so we had help with the task of teaching our students to read and write. Yes, at a major PRIVATE uni, where 25% of the students came from PRIVATE schools, the bulk of the students couldn't read or write. (I recall Robert Bellah of Berkley claiming that 25% of the students at Berkley were illiterate....).

Anyway, we got the grants, set up the lab, and invited folks from the English Department (I think it was changed to the Department of Textual Studies) to lead seminars on teaching reading and writing across the curriculum. It was very helpful for the most part. We brought in student papers and the folks from the English Dept. showed us how to grade more efficiently, etc. Yet, I'll ever forget one night when one English Dept. representative said, in response to a discussion about marking, "the student text is sacred" and we should think twice about marking it up. Or something to that effect. Sacred?

This may have something to do with the fact that English dept TAs and adjuncts are very poorly paid and they are assigned the bulk of the composition classes. At the time, TAs weree paid around 8k/yr to teach one course each semester as a TA (20 hrs. a week) and about $2000/semester as an adjunct. That was in the social sciences. It was far lower in the English Dept., though I can't recall the numbers at the moment. IOW, not marking up the student text might be what JAne English calls "pedagogy of the distressed."

Now, don't get me wrong. I worked with wonderful folks from that Dept. I took a few courses in the dept. as part of my grad work. My instructors were marvelous, developmental editors who mentored us, even if we weren't from the English Dept. I'm saying only that, for all the noble intentions behind the sentiment that the student text is sacred, I suspect it's enticing because it makes marking papers a bit less time consuming and stressful for people who are supposed to be killing a dissertation. :)
Still, I would get steamed about the issue because, as an overworked, underpaid TA in another department altogether, we were seriously trying to teach students to read and write. My life would be a lot simpler if the people who were paid to primarily do just that were also doing their jobs!

A student accidentally turned in his Comp class portfolio once instead of his portfolio for my class. So, I'm glancing through it and notice that he's turned in a series of assignments, the same essay, and the instructor graded it and gave feedback so s/he could rework it and turn it in again. Problem was, the entire set of papers contained the word "senses" mispelled in numerous ways (the paper was supposed to be about a favorite sense). Not once was the sacred text marked for the spelling error.

It's pretty frustrating. I understand how overworked and underpaid most of the instructional staff (TAs and adjuncts are). I completely understand that the pressure on the university is to publish, publish, publish (even at the lowliest schools, even at the schools that sell themselves as small, teaching-oriented liberal arts campuses). With the pressure on publishing, even the better paid faculty members are not motivated to put energy into teaching. Indeed, in some universities (many?), being a good teacher or spending any amount of time on it will get you billed as a poor scholar. You will, largely, be seen as the laughing stock among your peers. Some places are different. Some people manage to teach and do research and do both well (and, in my experience, in my discipline) it's not that hard. But, many folks just don't bother since the entire thrust of your training is to view teaching as something to be gotten through, given as little attention as possible, and even laugh at people who bother to talk about teaching as if they care.

I try to understand all this, but it still peeves me!

Now, my rant is over. Caution: It's Sunday morning. YMMV. Close cover before strking. Typos may appear larger than they are. We welcome your comments. Please use the complaint box below:

|----|
|____|


^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

ROBOHELP X5 - SEE THE ALL NEW ROBOHELP X5 IN ACTION!

RoboHelp X5 is a giant leap forward in Help authoring technology, featuring all new Word 2003 support, Content Management, Multi-Author support, PDF and XML support and much more! View an online demo: http://www.macromedia.com/go/techwrldemo

---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as:
archiver -at- techwr-l -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Send administrative questions to lisa -at- techwr-l -dot- com -dot- Visit
http://www.techwr-l.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.



Follow-Ups:

References:
The state of State: From: Dick Margulis

Previous by Author: RE: Research Questionnaire
Next by Author: Re: Going wildly OT (Re: This year's salary survey-same old same old.. HERE WE GO!)
Previous by Thread: The state of State
Next by Thread: Re: The state of State


What this post helpful? Share it with friends and colleagues:


Sponsored Ads