March 2012
7 posts
Mockingbirds and Trifles
A fellow English instructor is working in the writing center this morning and posted on Facebook a few moments ago:
A student just came to the writing center and asked me to read a paper on “How to Kill a Mockingbird.” If that isn’t cad enough, the paper was actually about Glaspell’s “Trifles.”
In “Trifles,” a woman named Minnie is accused of...
Emoticons?!?
Overheard in the writing center:
Wendy (my fellow writing center worker) to a student: “You might want to remove the emoticon from your essay.”
REALLY?
Ludacris
Yet another freshmen argumentative essay brought in. The writer argued that smoking should be considered illegal. He was trying to say that arguments that smoking are good should be “ludicrous.” Thanks to autocorrect, Word changed (and capitalized) his attempt at spelling the word to “Ludacris.”
His word processor recognizes the rap star before the actual adjective? (Also...
Homeschooling & Woks
I just read a short argumentative research essay for one of the freshman English classes. And, now, a rant:
A) Why does everyone argue that homeschooling is the best option? I came from a crappy public school background and have managed just swimmingly. (Granted, we could probably chalk that up to 90% self-motivation and 10% great teachers who identified and encouraged that self-motivation.)
B)...
