Ranting about grammar...

Hello, Monday. 

This week ought to be a little more sane than the last few. That would be good; my students' work shows the effects of so much disruption-- poor execution, flat thinking, and overall sloppy not-even-essays in most cases. I spent a lot of time moaning about it yesterday, wondering if the fault is mine or their lack of a cohesive background in such things as commas and so on. Either way, the repairing falls to me, or at least on my watch, and that is what we will be working on. These kids are not freshly stunned by remote learning, they are not overworked outside of school, they are not past exhausted by sports or child care. They are just poorly trained, most of them. The ones I had last year are pretty good, but the errors and omissions must be remediated-- those are just sloppy. The kids I have not had before are a mess, almost every one of them. They are smart enough, but I'm not impressed by the lack of caring combined by the lack of essentially basic skills-- or what I think are basic skills.

This all got me thinking about when I learned some of these writing rules, things like not using personal pronouns in academic writing, italicizing book titles, making sure names of characters are spelled correctly... I swear, it was a lot earlier than sophomore year. I looked this stuff up on the Common Core of State Standards, and found I was not really wrong-- there should be mastery or darn close for many of the things I am seeing. Now, these errors are not new ones-- for years, this has been an issue. I blame computers/ word processing programs that "fix" things for them. But these kids don't even have that safeguard turned on when they are working-- they just blurt and hand things in. Well, today, they'll be getting them back. 

Let's start with reading the assignment, and highlighting what needs to be addressed. Then, at the end, let's talk about the Works Cited page: you actually have to have cited something in the text of your essay in order to have a WC. I received more than one paper that was a hot mess; in fact, more than one included such things as:

 Macbeth, written by Shakespeare, 1599. 

OK, that does not follow any of the rules of MLA9. And what the hell? They are not using the first folio in my class. Honestly, if I had a first folio, I wouldn't be teaching. I'd likely be sitting pretty with a pile of cash from a museum. And those texts are in museums... not in room 201.

So, I'm griping about this. But I'm not sure if I should be angry with the kids, their former teachers, or with the system as a whole-- one that allows for computer-assisted work, and focuses instead on students sharing what they think they see. I'll tell you this, the text of the essays is as fragmented as their execution. That may have something to do with the unsettled schedule they've been going through lately-- actually, for almost a month. But maybe not. An essay on leadership in three Shakespeare plays ought not to have an introductory paragraph that focuses on how Hitler was a bad person, but an effective leader. GAHHHH. 

I have my work cut out for me, but I have to hold back a bit, too-- after all, their work is theirs, not mine. We will spend time on it today, but after that, they have to produce something worth grading. I spent hours on this yesterday, and I would appreciate it if they would spent a little time as well. 

I am going to stick to my guns, too; no whining, no excuses, get them fixed. I'll help them sort it out, but ultimately, they have to do the work. And, concurrently, I want to meet with other teachers to figure out why and where these huge gaps are happening. By the time I get the kids, it's almost too late to fix things. We have to do better. 

Have a good one,

C