OK--I'm feeling better about the way I grade again.
Thanks, DD. Great stuff!
Brian
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar on behalf of DD Farms
Sent: Thu 4/9/2009 9:53 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Comma splice = F
At 07:06 PM 4/9/2009, O'Sullivan, Brian P wrote:
>That's intriguing. Things have certainly changed--for good or bad,
>I'm not sure (though of course I have a bias towards the way I and
>the teachers I know do things). If I may ask, in the course you're
>describing, would a freshmen English paper--if it was supposed to
>have an argument--also have failed for not making a clear, focused
>and arguable claim; not supporting its claim effectively; not being
>organized intelligibly; or not using sources properly?
DD: Not an automatic F, but would be marked down. Plagiarizing got
the student booted from the University for at least a quarter,
according to the student handbook. That was sixty years ago, and I
was a believing docile student, making a 3.5 average. { Why
plagiarize? Use a citation in the proper form and get extra credit
for scholarly research. }
> Also, would a paper with many and various beautifully constructed
> sentences but one comma splice fail while a paper that consisted of
> a string of short, simple sentences--or a few grammatically correct
> yet interminable and convoluted sentences--passed?
DD: Comma splice F. To get a B or better required about two
complex/compound sentences. Faulty logic and lack of internal
consistency counted off. Style and eloquence unimportant. Might get a
note in red from the grader. "Great. Well put." Other than that,
safer to use simple and boring. Did I comma splice after that? Only
in non freshman English classes.
>I'm not presuming to know the answers to these questions, and I hope
>I don't sound combative; I just wrote a stern message to a group of
>students, so I may still be in the wrong rhetorical key!
>
>I'm interested because the lore and institutional history of writing
>teachers tells us that we realized, sometime in the last half
>century, that we'd been over-prioritizing correctness at the expense
>of clear, effective communication and argumentation. But, not having
>been there when "we" realized that, I don't want to close my mind to
>the possibility that we've actually only gotten lax.
DD: I irritated the instructors at Squadron Officer's School, since
we were mandated to avoid the passive. So, being naturally
cantankerous, I went ahead and used the passive where it was
appropriate and the instructors said, "Curse you, Red Baron, you use
it correctly. Don't tell the others, they can't." Maxwell AFB, 1960.
{I got an Outstanding Student Award.*}
* About 4% of us did. I think I got it for crippling a faculty member
in a soccer confrontation. I didn't back off, nor did he, and my shin
was stronger. Awarding cadre liked that aggression, but then we were
military officers.
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