That’s weird. Any reason given?
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Dude wrote “According to Siri, Oppression means…” as the first line in his essay. It was a solid essay other wise…
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I put the animated gif behind a spoiler blur. My apologies.
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One possibility.
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You know, depending on where that student went to high school, and how long ago, it might have been considered a perfectly fine entry point for a research paper, as long as the writing became more serious as it went on. Kind of like starting with “the OED defines X as…” or “My Uncle Fred always said that oppression isn’t a big deal to the oppressors”. Do you see what I mean? Just a folksy way to start, 21st century version.
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Basically the request was to start another post for those specific gripes;
I never expected nor meant for one person to dominate the entire thread.
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I see. Well, I guess at least it was referenced, in a way.
Except that the OED is a recognised authoritative source, whereas Uncle Fred is not (unless he’s got a published thesis you’re about to cite). I would expect by the end of high school students know the difference between academically acceptable sources and those sources which are not. I know a lot of high school teachers who seem to think anything from the intertubes is okay, but I also know there are loads of prefab lesson plans out there to help you easily teach the difference.
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It did, which is why I didn’t fail him. I had students who really phoned it in… like one guy who answered two essay questions with a couple of sentences…
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But I think it also depends on the topic at hand. If Uncle Fred was at Selma or worked for a major leader of some variety or the like, then Uncle Fred would be an acceptable source to use (depending on the topic, of course).
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Sure, although really there would need to be a way to verify Uncle Fred really was that expert.
I’m cynical; I went to uni with guys who made up books and quotes from them, only to be shocked, shocked I tell you, when the prof turned out to actually be well read in the subject.
One guy cited a real book and the real author, but made up his quote. Turns out our prof had Easter dinner with the author every year.
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Small world.
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History of English? It probably kind of is. And she did her undergrad during WWII – she probably taught half the History of English profs in Canada.
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Some more literally than others.
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My interpretation of this thread, informed by the first post, was this was for minor grievances, “1st world problems.” Things you know aren’t really worth complaining about but doing so helps. Doing so here avoids the guilt associated with complaining about the tedious a-hole in front of you at the check-out line while others deal with situations with real life implications over in Fuck Today.
My favorite pen has been discontinued / My aunt has cancer.
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Ah. I’m not familiar with Fuck Today.
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High schools should teach that starting a paper or speech by quoting the dictionary definition of a word (or equivalent) is cliched beyond the pale (which coincidentally is not a racist statement - it refers to ‘pale’ in the same sense as ‘impale’ - stakes of a fence). But schools don’t go that deep before college. I remember a class where a ‘research paper’ was literally expected to be copying an article from an encyclopedia word-for-word. (Presumably because the teacher was brought up on pure rote-learning - both reading and writing it should make people learn about it.)
When I got to college, I had shelves of books about history. It was one of my favorite topics. After my experiences in middle and high school, I was a bit surprised to suddenly be getting Cs and Ds instead of A+s. So were several other people in the class. We started meeting before class as a kind of informal study group and figuring out together how to adjust to what the Prof wanted. Not only did our grades go way up, but the conversations that we had ended up carrying over into class and making the class a lot more fun (and interesting).
I don’t remember what grades I ended up with, (probably a B give or take a + or -), but I do remember that when I signed up for the second year with the same professor a bunch of people were talking about how hard it was to pass his class, but I wouldn’t consider any other. A D in his class would be worth more than an A+ in a class with a teacher like my high school history classes.
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That is absolutely awful.
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So does the Pale of Settlement. (Term in original language: Cherta Osedlosti)
Not sure why you think it’s racist to reference a time in Jewish history. It’s actually better to acknowledge that’s what you’re referencing rather than pretend “beyond the pale” doesn’t have historic significance. You probably even taught someone here something new!
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