School

[Alex Colter]

Having graduated about five years ago I cannot say I learned anything from
High School... maybe a thing or two about girls that I promptly forgot...
mostly I taught myself how to read...
how to keep my dogeared copy of Gravity's Rainbow from the (un)watchful
eyes of the teacher...

On Fri, Aug 10, 2012 at 1:08 AM, Brian Kempf <btkempf at gmail.com> wrote:

> Having just graduated high school I may have a different perspective on
> this, but here's my two bits...
>
> When having writing assignments, we were given a rubric. We were expected
> to include all aspects of the rubric in our paper to get the most points.
> From my memory, around 90% of possible points on most papers were about
> substance. How well did your paragraphs support your thesis statement? How
> many sources did you use? Many of my peers would hit high marks in these
> categories. Style (syntax, grammar, spelling), however, made up only
> about 5-10% of the possible amount of points. Occasionally my friends and I
> would proofread each other's papers. They would hit all of major items they
> need to cover and much more, but sentences would be run-on's, "then" and
> "than" were used interchangeably, and how the message was being
> communicated - as opposed to *what* the message was that was being
> communicated - was neglected.
>
> In my high school experience (and I would be interested in hearing other
> perspectives on this), we are not taught how to write. We are taught about
> having supporting paragraphs, vocabulary, similes and metaphors, etc. but
> not how to combine these elements into making good writing. That being
> said, I thought that my HS's English department was outstanding and
> inspired me to take English as a major in college. But for those who don't
> care about the subject, they only learn how to follow directions to get
> from point A to point B. But that is only half of the battle. As the cliche
> goes, "it's the journey, not the destination". This applies to writing,
> where what you say is equally, if not more important than how you say it.
>
> As an anecdote, when my mom went back to college to take classes in early
> childhood education, she was shocked that her professor had to specifically
> tell students that "texting language in papers" was not allowed.
>
> B.K.
>
> On Aug 9, 2012, at 11:08 PM, Keith Davis <kbob42 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Tomorrow is the final day of summer session at Furman, where I teach Jazz
> Piano.
> This summer I've been teaching Intro to Jazz, my first time teaching a
> class other than a workshop
> or Taiji class. It has been very gratifying, until time to read the
> research papers. These kids
> obviously did the research, but the writing, for the most part, is
> horrible. I found myself correcting
> grammar and syntax, until deciding that was not my job in this course.
>
> I'm obviously no Mr. P, but these kids, for the most part, don't even know
> how to write proper sentences
> or separate thoughts into paragraphs. It is a real eye-opener, and not in
> a good way.
>
> Anyway, I'll be finishing M & D tonight, and then treating myself to some
> Borges, so, onward...
>
>
> --
> www.innergroovemusic.com
>
>
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