Genius Toiling in Obscurity

Frequently Complained Complaints

I have just returned a set of essays to my students, and as a result am getting a lot of complaining e-mails. I wish I could post this to my course website, right next to the FAQ, but it would be unkind, so I will post it here.

Frequently Complained Complaints

I don't understand how you can say my essay won't pass. I worked really hard on it. I spent 40 hours on this class alone last week!

Unfortunately, I am not allowed to grade by the hour.

My mother/stepfather/cousin/friend is an English teacher/has a Master's degree in English/won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary last year, and s/he says my paper is just fine.

Here is a slightly modified version of what I actually wrote to a student in response to one of these today:

I'm sure your step-father's M.A. in English from the University of Michigan has served him well. However, he doesn't teach this class; he may or may not have any experience teaching argumentation, and he isn't familiar with the Departmental Writing Standards. He certainly hasn't had hundreds of students go through the portfolio process for Writing 122, which I have, and which gives me a pretty good sense of what will pass and what won't.

That was pretty harsh, I admit. But not nearly as harsh as what I wanted to write:

I can see that a Michigan M.A. in English isn't worth the paper it's written on, if, as you claimed, your stepfather looked at five drafts of your paper and didn't encourage you to correct or improve any of the following, which are typical of the writing in the paper as a whole:

• The topic of how much the dogs with cost the tax payers is a main and very large one. But what the people (tax payers) do not understand it that it doesn’t and will not cost you a red cent.
• So it obviously does not take to long to raise it.
• The owner, which it most likely a police force or individual police officer, raises the money.
• According to the NIDA, (National Institute of Drug Abuse), Ecstasy, Marijuana, Steroids, Cocaine, Crack, Alcohol, Heroin and Inhalants have recently had a dramatic incline in use in public schools (Trident).
• Put very simply, it wont end unless we get these dogs in our schools and make it end. Drug abuse, alcohol abuse and violence are major problems that mostly involve adults. Well now it has spread to teens, and these problems need to be dealt with right away. As said before, drug-sniffing dogs are there to HELP the students problems, not to HARM the students.

You are totally wrong about my paper.

If you think this is true, by all means turn it in for the portfolio as-is. And good luck with that.

Thank you for being so kind and helpful.

Yes, I really do get these as well. Half my students think I'm a dream to work with. The other half have their fingers hovering over the "send" button, wondering whether it will really sink their chances if they send the e-mail in which they've called me a "total bitch" as a warm-up to their really creative curses. Hint to students: Whether you think I'm an angel or a bitch has more to do with you and your attitude to the class than it does with me.

Posted by Su Penn at March 18, 2004 01:02 AM | TrackBack