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karriezaiSo work, school, Danny, and Stories have kept me too busy to think about posting. This summer session is almost over, and thank god because my junior english teacher is the worst teacher I've had in my entire life. At first I thought she was just annoying, but not the worst; recently I've decided that she is, in fact, the absolute worst, no doubts about it.
She graded all four of the assignments in my career dossier (resume, personal statement, request for a letter of recommendation, and application letter) as Cs. The resume was because it didn't fit her personal view of how a resume should look. The only thing I actually did wrong was listing my jobs with the most recent last instead of first, and I recognize that I just brainfarted on that one because I meant to fix it after workshopping and forgot. The other three were because I talked too much about reading and writing for her taste. I want to be an elementary school teacher, and I drew on my experience with and enthusiasm for reading and writing to explain how I especially wanted to improve children's reading and writing abilities and get them excited about stories rather than just reading for assignments. She said I talked too much about reading and writing and no one would hire me because of that. No, she didn't grade the professionalism of my writing (which is the purpose of the entire course) because she said my writing was good--she just personally wouldn't hire me as an elementary school teacher when I talked about reading and writing so much and other subjects so little. And she let the personal statement color her vision for the following assignments. The request for a recommendation letter was to my creative writing program coordinator, so I can talk about little else besides writing, but I did relate the workshopping skills we learned to skills I could use to teach kids. Still got a C. And as for the application letter? I accidentally gave her the original draft to review when I went back to try again, and she said it was "much better". It was THE SAME.
Beyond that, I might have had an idea I was on the wrong track if she'd reviewed my first draft when I turned it in along with everyone else, but she refused to because the resume was on the wrong side of the folder. YET. She read other people's drafts when they single-spaced against her instructions, and it's much harder to mark up a single spaced document than it is to move the resume to the right side. It was the only thing out of order.
Well, to be fair, she let me turn in a revised draft, and she averaged the grades of the two, so I ended up with two Bs and two B-s. So okay. I guess I can live with a B in the class.
But that's if she grades our group proposal fairly. She gave our introduction draft a C+, but I'm okay with that one because she said it was too broad, and she was right. Our proposal is to plant one organic garden on campus, but we were going into global warming, feeding the hungry, and all this other stuff that the one garden can't possibly accomplish. We needed to focus down on one goal.
So we did. We decided that the vegetables produced by 1,000 square feet of the garden would be sold to Dining Services, replacing a small amount of the commercial produce they buy. We'd sell it at a low price, which would help reduce their budget. It would improve student health by providing more food without additives and other preserving chemicals found in commercial food. And it's environmentally friendly--it takes a lot of fossil fuel to transport nonlocal vegetables, and they have to be packaged and preserved, which creates more waste. I wrote the body myself and sent it out to my classmates, who revised and otherwise poked-prodded it. I put a lot of effort in finding out what the exact costs would be and how much money's worth of vegetables a garden produces on average.
But she graded the body with a B+ because while the writing was good, she didn't think Dining Services would jump at our proposal.
HELLO. NOT YOUR DECISION. Dining Services would be the one to decide, thankyouverymuch. What the fuck woman. I plan to call Dining Services since they haven't responded to email and see if they can clarify the matter.
I can't believe her opinion on whether something would work goes into our grade. I CANNOTFUCKINGBELIEVEIT. It's not fair. It's professional writing. Not "how to make a proposal that will definitely be accepted."
So she wants us to change it when it's due TOMORROW. She just told us yesterday. Yet last week when I asked if we could direct the proposal toward a garden funding grant, she said it was "too late" to change the aim of the proposal. fuckyourface woman.
Regardless of grade outcome, I'm lodging a formal complaint. I'll try to get support from my classmates (it shouldn't be hard). If we don't get a fair grade, I'm also going to submit the final draft to the ENGL department for review. Hell, I might do that anyway, with all my stuff. I'd have to retype my dossier based on the original draft I have, of course (or maybe photocopy it, dunno) since I wrote over it when I did my revised drafts. But it'd be worth it if they would review it. If I get a B in the course I'll probably leave it alone. But if I get a B- or lower, I think I'll bitch.
Especially since we've put so much work in. Two personal interviews, four email correspondences with UMD organizational officials, all this research and calculating and whatever else. It's only a 6 week course. What does she expect? I did email Dining Services, over a week ago, I just haven't gotten a response. I can't help that. Everyone else has responded. GAH.
So that's incredibly frustrating. Enraging, really.
My other summer class is much nicer. More appropriate, I think. There's an appropriate amount of work--we've had two projects that require out-of-class work, plus normal class stuff (keep in mind these are only 6 week courses)--and she grades more normally, if not more relaxed than normal.
Stories has slowed down considerably but I haven't lost hope. I do wish I had more methods for speeding things up there, but it's difficult. I don't know what else I can add. I need to send out an activity check. I think I'll go do that.
And work stuff. I think I'll skip that for now.
She graded all four of the assignments in my career dossier (resume, personal statement, request for a letter of recommendation, and application letter) as Cs. The resume was because it didn't fit her personal view of how a resume should look. The only thing I actually did wrong was listing my jobs with the most recent last instead of first, and I recognize that I just brainfarted on that one because I meant to fix it after workshopping and forgot. The other three were because I talked too much about reading and writing for her taste. I want to be an elementary school teacher, and I drew on my experience with and enthusiasm for reading and writing to explain how I especially wanted to improve children's reading and writing abilities and get them excited about stories rather than just reading for assignments. She said I talked too much about reading and writing and no one would hire me because of that. No, she didn't grade the professionalism of my writing (which is the purpose of the entire course) because she said my writing was good--she just personally wouldn't hire me as an elementary school teacher when I talked about reading and writing so much and other subjects so little. And she let the personal statement color her vision for the following assignments. The request for a recommendation letter was to my creative writing program coordinator, so I can talk about little else besides writing, but I did relate the workshopping skills we learned to skills I could use to teach kids. Still got a C. And as for the application letter? I accidentally gave her the original draft to review when I went back to try again, and she said it was "much better". It was THE SAME.
Beyond that, I might have had an idea I was on the wrong track if she'd reviewed my first draft when I turned it in along with everyone else, but she refused to because the resume was on the wrong side of the folder. YET. She read other people's drafts when they single-spaced against her instructions, and it's much harder to mark up a single spaced document than it is to move the resume to the right side. It was the only thing out of order.
Well, to be fair, she let me turn in a revised draft, and she averaged the grades of the two, so I ended up with two Bs and two B-s. So okay. I guess I can live with a B in the class.
But that's if she grades our group proposal fairly. She gave our introduction draft a C+, but I'm okay with that one because she said it was too broad, and she was right. Our proposal is to plant one organic garden on campus, but we were going into global warming, feeding the hungry, and all this other stuff that the one garden can't possibly accomplish. We needed to focus down on one goal.
So we did. We decided that the vegetables produced by 1,000 square feet of the garden would be sold to Dining Services, replacing a small amount of the commercial produce they buy. We'd sell it at a low price, which would help reduce their budget. It would improve student health by providing more food without additives and other preserving chemicals found in commercial food. And it's environmentally friendly--it takes a lot of fossil fuel to transport nonlocal vegetables, and they have to be packaged and preserved, which creates more waste. I wrote the body myself and sent it out to my classmates, who revised and otherwise poked-prodded it. I put a lot of effort in finding out what the exact costs would be and how much money's worth of vegetables a garden produces on average.
But she graded the body with a B+ because while the writing was good, she didn't think Dining Services would jump at our proposal.
HELLO. NOT YOUR DECISION. Dining Services would be the one to decide, thankyouverymuch. What the fuck woman. I plan to call Dining Services since they haven't responded to email and see if they can clarify the matter.
I can't believe her opinion on whether something would work goes into our grade. I CANNOTFUCKINGBELIEVEIT. It's not fair. It's professional writing. Not "how to make a proposal that will definitely be accepted."
So she wants us to change it when it's due TOMORROW. She just told us yesterday. Yet last week when I asked if we could direct the proposal toward a garden funding grant, she said it was "too late" to change the aim of the proposal. fuckyourface woman.
Regardless of grade outcome, I'm lodging a formal complaint. I'll try to get support from my classmates (it shouldn't be hard). If we don't get a fair grade, I'm also going to submit the final draft to the ENGL department for review. Hell, I might do that anyway, with all my stuff. I'd have to retype my dossier based on the original draft I have, of course (or maybe photocopy it, dunno) since I wrote over it when I did my revised drafts. But it'd be worth it if they would review it. If I get a B in the course I'll probably leave it alone. But if I get a B- or lower, I think I'll bitch.
Especially since we've put so much work in. Two personal interviews, four email correspondences with UMD organizational officials, all this research and calculating and whatever else. It's only a 6 week course. What does she expect? I did email Dining Services, over a week ago, I just haven't gotten a response. I can't help that. Everyone else has responded. GAH.
So that's incredibly frustrating. Enraging, really.
My other summer class is much nicer. More appropriate, I think. There's an appropriate amount of work--we've had two projects that require out-of-class work, plus normal class stuff (keep in mind these are only 6 week courses)--and she grades more normally, if not more relaxed than normal.
Stories has slowed down considerably but I haven't lost hope. I do wish I had more methods for speeding things up there, but it's difficult. I don't know what else I can add. I need to send out an activity check. I think I'll go do that.
And work stuff. I think I'll skip that for now.