Typical example of college writing I see

[Coventina]

Last edited Wed May 7, 2025, 09:28 PM - Edit history (2)

Students are not being taught how to write.

This is from an "open book" final exam I gave.

I asked the student to define / explain the Cluniac Order (this was covering the Middle Ages):
I have not altered the student's response in any way.

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TEXT DELETED DUE TO THREAT OF LAWSUIT

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See thread below for details.

[Demovictory9]

1. Writes like Trump speaks

[sop]

2. "You shouldn't write if you can't write." - Hemingway

[Demovictory9]

30. you have to write and write and write to develop good writing skills

[Shipwack]

48. I agree, however...

In my not so humble opinion, you don't have to graduate high school with good writing skills, but with adequate writing skills, at the very least.

For starters, not writing a 5+ line paragraph as one long run-on sentence.

[Now watch, after criticizing someone's writing I have probably made at least four egregious errors in my reply. I know that my paragraphs are technically too short, but that is a stylistic choice I made.]

[Orrex]

135. Hands down, the writing problem I have seen most over the decades...

Last edited Fri May 9, 2025, 06:58 AM - Edit history (1)

is that people simply aren't conscious of what they're writing or what it's saying. This is true of formal writing students, of fan fic authors, and certainly of dear old Orrex himself.

Too often people write the thing and then move on to the next thing, which can be fine in brief formats and is definitely fine in casual discourse, but in explanatory or technical writing, and in prose fiction & non-fiction, consciousness of one's text makes all the difference between conveying a coherent thought/instruction/narrative and helping your uncle jack off a horse.

But you're correct: "good" writing skills (especially long-form) aren't necessary to graduate from high school and are seldom needed in the world beyond. But knowing how to express oneself with clarity is a skill worth honing.

[Norrrm]

121. write and write and write

[sop]

132. Writing is like playing a musical instrument: first learn the basics, then practice, practice, practice.

To become better writers (or better musicians) students have to WANT to write, but most of them hate writing. Forcing students to write and write and write is a real challenge.

[woodsprite]

6. Exactly what I was thinking. I will say that

I work at a university (IT support) and have a daughter who finished college a few years ago (before COVID hit), and a son graduating in a couple of weeks. They received much more feedback during high school on their writing than they ever did in college, even during the two required writing courses that all university students need to take. Most professors provided no feedback at all, some didn't even return assignments so students could learn what they did right/wrong. They just graded the assignments, sometimes barely getting that done in time to submit end-of-semester grades. Many were difficult to schedule an office appointment with even if the student wanted their assignment reviewed. They gave no guidance into how to improve their writing or, for non-writing courses, how to improve/correct their responses, calculations, etc. IMO, feedback is the most important part of learning at all levels.

[Coventina]

10. I can only speak for myself, of course, but as a college professor

I always try to provide some feedback on written assignments.
I used to provide copious feedback, but I've scaled way down because I was spending a lot of time, and students seemed to rarely utilize it.

I have standard office hours every day (a requirement of my institution). Students rarely take advantage of them.
I also have in my syllabus, and announce in class, that I am happy to make an appointment if my office hours conflict with anything they have (another class, jobs, etc.) I am in my office all day every day, except when I'm in the classroom or in a meeting. I have a phone on my desk, which I give the number to every student. It rarely rings. Voicemails are forwarded to my email. I have received zero voicemails from students this semester.

When I give essays as assignments, I also offer the option of turning in a rough draft before the due date for me to edit. This semester, out of 5 classes, I had exactly 1 student take advantage of that.

In my particular case, I don't teach English / Writing. I teach Art History, so I also don't have the time and resources to teach writing alongside my actual curriculum.

It's a very depressing situation.

[tishaLA]

125. I require drafts

because it allows me to catch students who are way off base (many of them) -- and I don't call it a "rough" draft; it's a first draft and if they refer to it as a rough draft, I quickly correct them and remind them that the energy they put into the draft constitutes a portion of their grade on the paper. . But I teach English, so I feel like it's a duty to lean into the matter

[JHB]

13. Don't know the actual situation, but that pings a question for me: Overloaded, poorly-paid adjuncts?

From 2020:
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/04/20/new-report-says-many-adjuncts-make-less-3500-course-and-25000-year

Nearly 25 percent of adjunct faculty members rely on public assistance, and 40 percent struggle to cover basic household expenses, according to a new report from the American Federation of Teachers.

Nearly a third of the 3,000 adjuncts surveyed for the report earn less than $25,000 a year. That puts them below the federal poverty guideline for a family of four. Another third of respondents make less than $50,000.

Per-course pay varies from less than $2,000 to more than $7,000. About 53 percent of respondents make less than $3,500 per course. Asked about equitable compensation, more than half said they should be paid at least $5,000 per course.

“An increase in the per-course minimum to this range would immediately benefit the vast majority of contingent faculty today,” states the report, "An Army of Temps," released today.

[LudwigPastorius]

120. My teacher friend jokingly says that "adjunct" is Latin for "no benefits".

[LearnedHand]

39. I taught writing as an adjunct for a long time

I cared WAY more about their thought processes than their grammar. I circled grammar issues and told them to correct them, but by far my comments were about the reasoning in their essays. That is, I was there to introduce critical thinking and reasoning, not to belabor the mechanics of writing. One is a fixable issue (grammar) but the other (clear thinking on paper) is not if you don't get them early enough.

Believe me, they had plenty of ineffectual grammar-focused instruction by teachers who scared them into thinking proper mechanics equaled good writing.

[LisaM]

69. Curious whether these were professors or adjuncts.

I think we are all fairly familiar with the plight of adjunct professors, who get low pay, last-minute teaching assignments, and heavy workloads.

[woodsprite]

109. It has been a mix of full tenured profs, associate profs, and adjuncts.

Some of my kid's best profs have been adjuncts and their department chair or advisor. We did notice a huge difference when COVID hit and teaching moved to online. That caused many to change their interaction with their students and it hasn't returned to pre-COVID levels yet. A good number of my son's profs are still working from home and have moved their classes to asynchronous teaching without much face-to-face interaction with the students at all. It's not large classes like 300-seat Chem or Engineering - it's fashion merchandising and marketing (so about 20-30 students).

Glad he's graduating!

I will say that I think their high school English teacher went above and beyond in teaching them college-level writing and critical thinking. There are things that she drilled into their heads that has even stuck with me to this day! She has since left teaching high school for a tenure track position in PA.

[JoseBalow]

96. Really? What about it makes it "clearly" so?

The clinic order was found in 910 was a powerful tradition the way they had everything in order still to this day surprise me the history that you keep reading about ancient things gives you a good idea of what things really were and still go to this day and it's up to restore stricter rule that the culture life across europe but this is reforming in 529 AD the monks lived by the rule of st bernadette

[Bernardo de La Paz]

107. Your use is fair use, per USA copyright law. See post 103. . . . nt

[JoseBalow]

115. Ya, I'm not worried about it

Some people need better hobbies.

[snowybirdie]

3. I used to read

Hubby's essay questions he gave his students 30 years ago. It certainly hasn't improved. We're losing writing ability everywhere.

[calimary]

62. Such a shame!

I don’t know what I’d do if I couldn’t write. It sure was KEY #1 to the work I wound up doing.

But writing is one thing, and penmanship is quite another. And my penmanship absolutely sucks. Hey, can’t win ‘em all…

[Torchlight]

4. Courses so long ago I can't remember:

I'm assuming all written course work is generally graded not only on content and format, but spelling, grammar, clarity, etc. No?

I don't think I could (in good conscience) hold my tongue when returning the paper to that student. (I was so close to taking a teaching position way back when, and I'm guessing given my lack of patience for people to meet the minimum requirements, it's better I never did)

[hlthe2b]

5. I could not agree with you more. I stopped mentoring Master's Degree candidates for that very reason...

I did not mind the shadowing when I was intensely busy or the questions (inquisitiveness being a positive in my book). But, while I make my share of typos and mistakes online with rapid posts, I am quite capable of writing and self-editing my own work. These students are so incapable of writing proper English--even at a grade school level-- that I ended up spending countless hours editing their work only to receive a "rewrite" back--almost as bad as the first.

Those MCAT, LSAT, and GRE-primer courses that parents of these students pay so much for would be far better spent on remedial writing and English classes, IMO.

[viva la]

14. Very true.

They should realize that in the future, they'll have to send emails to their boss and potential bosses.
I did just have a great class where the students (all non-traditional at a tier-3 school) just worked so hard and revised everything three times and did their level best. I might even put off retirement for another year because they made me hope again.

[Skittles]

7. an attempt to expand text-speak into an analysis

I cannot even imagine how that kind of word salad would be received on the job.

[rubbersole]

25. u wite? Hired.

tsf's DEI dream.

[highplainsdem]

38. Text-speak has something to do with it, as does seeing so much bad writing in social media posts.

As I mentioned in the thread on AI and cheating, several decades ago almost everything the average person read would have been professionally written, proofread and edited. These days that's probably a much smaller fraction of what young people read.

[LoisB]

8. Every teacher this kid came into contact with, from parents through 12th grade, failed him/her.

This is so sad.

[Tarzanrock]

9. This clown was probably an "honors student" as his/her high school

You can just imagine what the writing is like from those students who dropped out of high school or those students who could not pass the college entrance examinations. That's writing -- reading comprehension is about at the 6th grade level or lower and this is after they significantly "dumbed down" the junior high school and high school curricula.

[Demovictory9]

27. seen 1st hand. entering college student placed remedial level. "but I was my high school valedictorian!"

[markie]

11. yes

my partner teaches(college) sociology and psychology and claims the same.... students, for the most part, can't write... he shared a paper as he was concerned about a certain student (I taught HS history). I straight out said I would not accept the paper and I would allow the student to try again... if nothing else, there are labs and tutors available to most students. If they would merely read it aloud or have someone read it to them, they could improve a bit... Yes, we are failing our students....

[viva la]

12. At this point, if I see a perfectly punctuated paper...

I suspect AI.

Now, that's not fair... I just finished a class where 10 students worked really hard, followed the instructions, and used my feedback to improve.

But then there was the one who had bullet points and bold headings in every discussion post (sure signs of AI).

Oh, well. My paycheck is perfectly punctuated.

[greatauntoftriplets]

15. That's painful to read.

I'm a graduate of a top journalism school (long ago), and still mentally edit pretty much everything I read. Those two paragraphs had me itching for a red pencil and the rest of the essay.

Sorry that you have to deal with that kind of thing.

[Bettie]

16. No punctuation?

Holy run-on sentence Batman!

I hope that some of the others were better?

[allegorical oracle]

28. Yeah, that was remarkable. Someone doesn't start omitting all punctuation suddenly one

day. The student apparently got away with such papers in the past and no one corrected it.
Or, the student thinks it's cute.

[Coventina]

31. Yes. Some were better.

Some just left stuff blank.

[Bettie]

47. I will admit to at least once

leaving a question blank in college...I recall it well, because I just blanked on the whole thing. I had been doing well, but on one part, I just couldn't remember a single thing.

But that was staring at a blue book page....do they still use those? AND it was open book?

[mahina]

17. Holy cats.

I thought Hawaii was bad.

[yardwork]

18. As an editor, I am lenient on grammar and syntax.

My job is to elicit the thoughts of the writer and help them persuade readers.

Reading your student's essay, I'm sad to say that they don't seem to have any thoughts. They haven't learned anything about the topic. (Especially pathetic because it's open book. We know they know how to use the internet.) They don't even use the correct name for the topic. (Maybe that's autocorrect that they didn't correct, which would be wincingly embarrassing if the rest of the paragraph demonstrated any knowledge of the topic. It does not.)

It's a word salad of dates and key words, vomited onto the keyboard without a thought or care.

This is far worse than illiteracy. It is indifference.

This is how democracies die. Indifference to facts, indifference to doing a good job, indifference to how one will be perceived.

I'm very sorry you are experiencing this. I can't imagine how dispiriting it must be.

[peacebuzzard]

19. by typical example, what percentage of say, 30 students

would be at this level? I hope that no one in a regular college class will be worse. As far as good to excellent, what percentage?
This is eyebrow-raising writing. (And, sad.....) Thanks for being there for these students. I hope they can absorb something to improve.

[Demovictory9]

29. most unfortunately, then some international students, with English as 2nd language, write very well..

Africa and Europe in particular

[peacebuzzard]

83. I have taught English as a foreign language

to adults, and the pronunciation was the toughest part. Reading comprehension was usually a breeze. The pronunciation was always challenging.

[highplainsdem]

86. I found an OED website article with a detailed explanation of the weirdness of English

pronunciation a few years ago and linked to it in a Lounge reply I was able to find...but the link to the article was changed. Found the new one.

Old link in this post: https://www.democraticunderground.com/10181620288#post3

Current link: https://www.oed.com/discover/early-modern-english-spelling-grammar-and-pronunciation/

That includes grammar, and I can't recall if the earlier version did.

Crucial paragraph:

By the sixteenth century English spelling was becoming increasingly out of step with pronunciation owing mainly to the fact that printing was fixing it in its late Middle English form just when various sound changes were having a far-reaching effect on pronunciation.

[peacebuzzard]

131. thanks for this I bookmarked.

Although I do not have plans to tutor again, I am always surrounded by bi-linguals where I work and when I travel. So subjects like this have always been exciting to learn and share.

[Coventina]

32. A good 70% of them woulld be at or around this level.

25% would be better.

The rest just wouldn't bother to do it at all.

[SheltieLover]

65. ...

[peacebuzzard]

84. those are not good percentages.

You are a warrior in your efforts to help the pupils.

[no_hypocrisy]

20. OMG

[ms liberty]

21. That is heartbreakingly awful. Wow.

[Ms. Toad]

22. What I got in law school was better . . . marginally.

A couple of thoughts:

First - I am currently working on a BFA. This semester was extremely rough on everyone. My school is being impacted by both state and federal changes to schools - and the faculty is in emotional upheaval (both politics, and we are losing approximately 50% of our faculty) - AND - rewriting the entire art school curriculum to accommodate the decrease in faculty). I think the students are more oblivious - to both politics and changes in the schools - but instruction this semester was certainly a lot rougher than I've seen it. About half of my advanced photography class was just barely making it through the semester - and any time unlimited project was effectively limited by the crunch of everything else. In my Fundamentals Review class, attendance had dropped to around 50% by last week.

So - it is worse than the writing I received as a law faculty member, but I'm guessing that it was rough everywhere as Universities were more impacted by the Trump administration than many other places (funding, academic freedom, and international students all being threatened).

Second - I suspect many art students have a harder time expressing themselves verbally. I know my daughter (valedictorian of her class, but her passion was art) struggles with writing - her take (as to school papers) is that the professor knows all of this stuff so she doesn't need to explain it. I don't get to read my peer's work - but some of them are clearly struggling during critique to describe their work. We're being asked for artist statements which describe process and meaning in 250 words. By 250 words I'm barely started - but when I asked if I could write more, my professor was really grateful someone wanted to write more. He says he usually gets 251 words. After doing a quick check on portfolios - literally just a glance - he told one student to make sure and use spellcheck. After the grades were back, and (from the discussion) one student had failed - in part because of the two required written descriptions - he told her that although he wasn't suggesting it (and no one heard him wink-wink-nod-nod) that she might run it through chatGPT to see if it could smooth out the spelling and grammar.

I'm taking my second art history class in the fall, BTW. In theory I'm an art history minor, although I just learned that I have to take 6 more hours than I had expected to because photography requires more art history hours than other art majors, and I have to have 9 non-overlapping hours. Bummer.

[yardwork]

24. Good for you for going back to school!

I can't imagine doing that now.

Your post makes me sad but also gives me a little hope. Maybe the kids are just overwhelmed right now.

[Ms. Toad]

34. Overwhelmed probably isn't the only thing -

But out of the 6 semesters I've been back in school, this is by far the worst.

I'm lucky that I get two courses a semester for free for credit as part of my retirement. But most states have some sort of senior education which allows people 60-ish or older to audit courses for free. Not a lot of folks take advantage of it - but it is a lot of fun!

I retired 3 years ago - and have always said that I'd be a perpetual student if someone would pay me to be one. They aren't paying me - but the tuition and course fees are free. My life has always been lived fully in the present, but because of how fully I live in the present (I've never worked less than 60 hours a week, and more often 80), there are all of these other things I've been tucking away for when I had time. Now I have time.

[DFW]

45. A late friend of mine decided to go to law school at age 50.

He just decided it was something he wanted to do. I don't think he ever practiced law, it was pure intellectual curiosity, and he could afford it, due to Hollywood deciding that one part of his military career was worth completely distorting and making into a film, which truned out to be a blockbuster hit.

Another bit of law trivia I didn't know--a son of one of my great-grandfathers once worked at the same New York law firm for which my younger daughter is a star partner in Germany. This was before he was named to the Appellate Division of the NY State Supreme Court. It was written about him that he "had an intellect clear, formidable and with a fine cutting edge that left no one in doubt of its elegance and power." It would appear that those genes wandered about for a couple of generations and resurfaced with my daughter.

[Ms. Toad]

85. I've had lots of students in their 40s.

A handful in their 50s, and even a few in their 60s.

I graduated at 41. Since 40 is the age at which age discrimination begins (it's a one-way law designed to protect individuals over 40 from age-based discrimination), my goal was to be in the top 10% of the class and be on law review in order to make sure I was likely to get a job when I graduated. I exceeded my goals. In the end, because of age and a 5-year mommy gap, interviews were few and far between. The only thing that really made a difference in getting interviews was explaining the mommy gap in the cover letter - and the only thing that made a difference in getting offers was having a physics degree which made me eligible for the patent bar.

But it served me well. It was the key to having pocket money to pay for college for my daughter - when the college discriminated against our family by requiring my spouse's resources to be include when seeking scholarships (even though we were legally prohibited from being married, my daughter was a legal stranger to my spouse, and the unmarried status in taxes cost us close to 10,000 every year). And, when my firm lost our largest customer and work was less plentiful, it allowed me to go back and teach at the law school - less lucrative - but it nearly doubled my defined benefit payout by 100%.

[DENVERPOPS]

23. I am flabbergasted at all the stuff

I see" journalists" writing, and displayed on TV screens. Mis-spellings, Misplaced modifiers especially......stuff that we learned forwards and backwards in Junior High......And these so called "Journalists" have high school and often college degrees......

[allegorical oracle]

35. Some can't read well. There's a morning show host who constantly mispronounces

words as she introduces guests. She stumbles over any words that are unfamiliar to her -- and then struggles to correct herself. Drives me crazy. Every time she introduces an author's book, she says the book's "entitled" and I scream "titled!" at the TV.

[BadgerKid]

26. It is dismaying, though not suprising (n1):

Friends of mine noticed how their kids' (private, non-college-prep) school wasn't teaching how to formulate an essay. They transferred them to a different school the following year.

I don't understand why the student here is responding with personal reaction.

[damifino10]

33. Game show

This is not a Jeopardy qualified contestant and never will be.

[sleroy49]

36. It's pretty bad these days

I will occasionally teach a class at a local state university, usually a 400 level civil law class, and the number of students that are functionally illiterate is alarming.

[DFW]

37. That is nothing short of appalling

My daughters wrote far more coherently than that in English in high school, and their native language isn't even English. The elder one even spelled and pronounced the word "valedictorian" correctly when she first saw it, although she hadn't the faintest idea what the word meant, never having seen or heard it before,

[ancianita]

40. Given that we know it's a test, and given that first drafts are always full of errors that only editing time can help,

Given that even the best published writers need editors for real reasons, I wouldn't say that any timed test is a representative or fair assessment of these students' writing.

This is my professional opinion as a past English teacher (college major concentration in writing and rhetoric) of a) college bonehead writing 101 and level 300 English Dept World Literature, and
b) high school juniors, seniors, who were taught the
-- logic in sentence structure,
-- paragraph development and definition,
-- first draft essay organizing methods,
-- rewriting/crafting their essays for an audience assumed as a) their class peers, and b) the adult teacher
-- research standards for authoritative sources,
-- organizing what they researched with what they learned,
-- research paper writing
-- creative writing

and all the relevant published English readings that helped give them good examples.

Perhaps examine their other formative writing assignments rather than one summative assignment.
Don't forget, you were asking for CONTENT; you were not asking for their best writing.

[Coventina]

42. This was not a timed test.

They had a week to complete it.

But aside from all that, the content is also lacking.

[ancianita]

93. Then any assignment that takes a week isn't an exam. You just called a summative content test an exam.

So whether you think such writing is "typical" is questionable if not arguable.

[Coventina]

94. Not sure why that's what's important but ok.

I don’t give cumulative finals. It was the “final” assignment for the course covering the final module we covered,

[madamesilverspurs]

41. After a 30-year break I went back to school in '93.

One of my work-study jobs was in the office of one of the professors, where I helped with research and pre-reading some of the tests and essays. I was astounded at the number of students with, shall we say, minimal grammar, spelling and writing skills. One memorable essay required that I read it out loud in order to make any sense of it; it was rife with homophones (war/wore, our/are) and pretty much devoid of punctuation. The interview with the student revealed that she really did have a grasp of the subject, and it fell to me to explain that students are required to pass a written essay exam in order to graduate. The prof and I convinced her to take the free course that was designed to help students like her overcome the failures of a system that passed students out of high school without such basic skills. She worked hard, sometimes dropping into the office to show us her improving work, and she sent us a beautifully written thank-you note just before she graduated on schedule. She was a shining moment in that experience, a welcome contrast to the couple of athletes who accused us of ruining their careers because we wouldn't fake their academic records.


.

[Rebl2]

43. What gets

me is this was an open book exam. I never had open book exams in college. Find that very strange.

[Ms. Toad]

117. It is much more prevalent, starting when schools went online during COVID.

My own practices changed as a teacher, because I believe online closed book testing is inherently unfair. Even when test monitoring is available, the tools each student has for taking the test (quality/reliability of computer, compatibility of the computer with the monitoring equipment, space conducive for test taking (e.g. rich child with a private room v. a poor child from a large family where several children are sharing the bedroom as a few examples) means that some people will have an advantage over others - before even taking cheating into account.

And, as an undergrad student (as I have been for the past 3 years), I've had one class which used closed book exams. All of the others were either completely untimed, open book - OR - timed, and relied on the time crunch to sort those who knew the content from those who didn't.

There are very few professions where one is expected to perform without being able to access resources - so the open book test models what students will encounter once they graduate - and don't end up being a sorting tool for who is better at rote memorization than their peers. (A pet peeve of mine, since I've always had to figure out work-arounds to get through exams because logic, rather than memory, is how my brain works.)

[MichMan]

129. I graduated with an Engineering degree nearly 35 years ago

All my exams were open book. The ability to understand concepts bolstered by reference materials was deemed to be of much greater value than rote memorization. You really didn't have time to rely on references for every exam problem, but it was there as needed.

[littlemissmartypants]

44. So sad.

[Hornedfrog2000]

46. I was in college around 5 years ago

I would routinely see writing like this on our online posts. I wondered how they even graduated highschool, and now theyre in college.... wow

[CrispyQ]

49. This is not by accident.

When you lose language skills you lose thinking skills.

"As people do better, they start voting like Republicans - unless they have too much education and vote Democratic, which proves there can be too much of a good thing." -Karl Rove

[Traildogbob]

50. I retired 12

Years ago. I got sick of having to write more addressing this stupid with corrections than they write for the whole damn paper.
And spelling scientific names. Forget about it.
Had to tell em this is not a damn English class. I am teaching a damn second year college science class.
Writing a scientific review with the Scientific Research Method, and tell them no pronouns allowed. And then get a paper with 30-40 pronouns!
I can not tell you how many Red pens I burned through. And late in my career, state reps told us not to mark papers in red, it’s too harsh on their Fee Fee’s, too dramatic.
Math…..some took 3 years to get through Math 070.
While getting Pell Grant Payments.
I had to chase down students I had rarely seen in class in the line to Student Services to get the Pell Checks at the month’s beginning.
I am not at all surprised there are so many stupid people, plenty enough to put republicans in full control. They would repeat developmental classes, 070, 080, classes over and over until Pell finally said no more, then vanish and became MAGA Pros I guess.

[JCMach1]

51. I hate to be that person, but this post is a FERPA violation

You dont have permission to post this.

[Coventina]

59. I am well aware of FERPA laws.

I am not releasing any student information.

[Coventina]

66. There is nothing in what I posted that can identify who the student is.

I did not specify age, gender, or ethnicity either.

[Coventina]

68. Assignments are not college records. n/t

[Coventina]

76. Not according to the FERPA website.

But by your standard, teachers could never use work (anonymously) as examples for other students.

This is something that has been done my entire academic career as both student and teacher.

What about peer grading?

Peer grading is not considered a violation of FERPA either.

[Coventina]

91. It is not.

The student's writing will not be a college record.

It will be destroyed by me after the class ends.

That, by definition of FERPA law, is not a college record.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

114. You continue to make wild claims w no evidence (specifics fr a citation). You were flat out wrong on Copyright

See post 103 for actual citation.

[Ms. Toad]

112. Both educator and lawyer here -

While I would never directly quote student's work online, that is my own personal policy - not FERPA. Even when I am using peer grading (permitted under FERPA), I anonymize the work before trading papers. Your institution may well have rules which are more strict than FERPA.

But to be a record under FERPA, the item must directly relate to a student, and be maintained by the institution. The Supreme Court has interpreted "maintained by the institution" to mean maintained by a single, central custodian. (Owasso Independent School District v. Falvo, 534 U.S. 426 (2002))In my two decades in education, I can recall only one instance in which exams I have given would arguably qualify. The high school I taught in, in the 70s, required the administration of a single exam to all students in every section of a particular class. I was required to collect and submit those exams to the math department at the end of each semester. Assuming they kept them on file, it is possible that those would qualify as records (although they were stored in a single department, not in a single repository for the school). In all other instances (including all of the other classes I taught at the same high school), all exams except the final exam were returned to the students - and even the final exam was something I, personally, maintained - not a central custodian at the school.

Violation of copyright? Possibly. But the answer is largely factual - and a simple recitation of facts is not protected by copyright. Any copyright would be thin, because of the minimal creativity involved. It is also likely fair use, because the use is transformative - it is not being used for its content or or the purpose for which it was created - but for a different purpose of demonstrating quality of college writing. (Copyright is one of the areas of law I practiced for 13 years - and I am much more likely to reject an argument of fair use than to suggest it. You can probably find a few examples of me doing just that on DU.)

[Ron Green]

98. Did you mean "As an administrator I would have you in my office..."

?? There needs to be agreement within the sentence.

[Orrex]

108. Do you have permission to post that?

Hate for you to run afoul of FERPA.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

110. I took quick look at the wiki FERPA page. Pretty sure you'd have to identify the student, which did not happen. . . nt

[Orrex]

118. I'm very confident that you're correct

And I swear that my joke was funny when I posted it. Honest!

[ShazzieB]

134. I thought it was very funny!

[JoseBalow]

116. Class is in session

[Meowmee]

128. 😹 Thanks, this had me in tears...

I needed a good laugh.

[hatrack]

52. Sadly, I think the problem is even more fundamental than not learning how to write . . .

It's never learning how to read.

I read constantly growing up. I probably spent 20% of my life from age five to HS graduation at the library. I mean, I did other stuff - messed around with my brother and friends, and rode bikes and built dams in the creek down the hill and caught snakes and shot off bottle rockets and all that stuff.

But summer, winter, school, vacation, it didn't matter what time of year, there was a book nearby or in my hand almost every day. History, science, pulp horror, fantasy, biographies, adventure stories, science fiction, Greek myths, the Brothers Grimm and the Brothers Karamazov (eventually).

I couldn't have told you what a dangling participle or a gerund were with a gun to my head. However, I knew how to write because I knew (more or less) what good writing and bad writing looked like, and had at least a decent idea of how to express myself.

More to the point, I fell in love with reading, and with words, and unless you love words, you'll never learn to love to write.

[Demobrat]

57. I am a high school graduate. I am also a veteran of a 40 year career as an advertising copywriter.

A lucrative career that has set me up for a comfortable retirement. I couldn’t diagram a sentence to save my life. But a day has never gone by that I didn’t have a book in my hand.

[lastlib]

53. This student has a bright future in the republikan party......

Give him an 'A' for verbal vomit. He/she could be a future White House press secretary in the event the GOPee rises from the post-tRump grave.

Jeeezus, that was COSMICALLY bad!!
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

[senseandsensibility]

54. I have to say that as a teacher of ELLs

or English Language Learners, this surprises me. Of course all students come to a task with their unique experiences and knowledge, but the children I taught faced many challenges and difficulties. One of the major ones was not speaking English as a first language and being expected by the state to achieve at the same level as native English speakers. Nevertheless, I can say without reservation that the second graders I taught (the majority of whom fell into the ELL category) could write better than the example you gave.

[Demobrat]

55. I had a friend ask me to look over her son's resume.

He just graduated with a Masters degree in history from San Francisco state. I was shocked. It was barely literate.

[bucolic_frolic]

56. The skeleton is there but the connections have wasted away /nt

[Chicagogrl1]

58. OMG!!! One run on incomprehensible sentence

I feel for you having to read these “essays”
😱😱😱

[Meowmee]

60. Yes but it has been going on for as long as I have been teaching

Over 30 years. Now I do presentations since we went digital a long time ago … no more rewriting everyone’s papers for them and telling them to go to the writing center, tg.

[Midnight Writer]

71. I used to type up papers for college kids around 1970-1972 for cash.

I only graduated from High School, myself.

They would give me something along the lines of the original example. Run-on sentences, misspellings, bad grammar and punctuation, incomprehensible gibberish. These were not papers I would ever turn into a High School English class, let alone college level work.

I, being the conscientious guy I am, started out trying to fix these papers so my customers would not flunk. To my surprise, my clients were upset that I would change their paper. They knew what they wanted, and my role was to simply type it up. So I did.

The surprise came when these papers came back with As and Bs. Most of these papers were from engineering classes, and I assumed that the writing aspect was not given much weight in the grading.

I also worked many years in an office staffed by business school graduates. I would get their memos and notes, and they were written as if by a child. It did not seem to slow their advancement up the corporate ladder. Posting their degree in their office seemed sufficient to pave their way to the top.

I don't think this is a new phenomenon.

[Meowmee]

113. Thank you for trying to improve people's writing, it is not an easy job. 😁

In many cases it was also a matter of helping not just with punctuation/spelling/grammar etc. but also with how to put forth a coherent, clear, idea/thesis that made some sense etc. I hope I helped some of these people, but as you said it seems in many fields no one really seems to care that much. My students have often asked me if spelling etc.counts and I say no, for the exam, as long as I can figure out what their answer is, and for papers / presentations etc. I prefer it to be in their own voice, and to be imperfect vs taken from a source.

But I gave up long ago spending numerous hours rewriting their papers etc. 😹 I don't know how some of these people graduated from high school. I'm glad you were taught how to write etc. Everyone should take at least one composition course in college.

[Trueblue Texan]

61. I couldn't understand a single concept.

Really tragic.

[Ponietz]

64. Do any colleges or schools give Fs anymore?

In the ‘90s a department head criticized me for failing a student. The college preferred having another warm body paying tuition.

[cayugafalls]

70. How? Is entrance to college that easy nowadays?

Back when I had to put myself through, first community college and then later a real college for my bachelor.

In both instances if I had written a paragraph like that in the entrance exam for both, I’d have had to take remedial courses in order to get in…

It happened to my friend applying at the same time, had to take pre-English and math class in his first semester.

That piece read like it was written by someone with a head injury.

[LisaM]

73. What did you do with this?

I don't understand why the student is even taking this class. They don't seem to want to know that it's Cluniac, not "clinic".

[Coventina]

78. How is it a violation of copyright?

I am not trying to earn any money from the student's work.

But, if I am missing something, I will certainly consider editing.

I've made my case on the FERPA aspect.

[Coventina]

90. Since I feel you are threatening me, I will delete the text.

However, you have provided NO PROOF that I have violated either FERPA or Copyright.

I am really glad I do not work under such an uninformed, bullying administrator

[Bernardo de La Paz]

101. Please don't.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

102. Not applicable here. It is being published to educate DU members as to the level of education in the US

That is allowed.

It does not identify the student and it is not being used for shaming.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

100. Not making money is NOT an excuse. Publishing excerpts for educational purposes is very definitely allowed

You are fine.

[Coventina]

119. Thank you! I appreciate the clarification!

Fair use can be pretty tricky!

So, I would be open to learning I was in error and then take any needed action.

I'm required to take FERPA training every year, so I was very skeptical of that claim

[Bernardo de La Paz]

105. You have made fair use of it without using it to libel or mock or identify

Please see my post 103 for Fair Use under United States of America Copyright law.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

106. Wrong. See post 103 for the ACTUAL law, not your alarmist post. . . . nt

[NNadir]

75. Maybe the student is the reincarnation of William Faulkner, or at least you know, the character Benji.

[ThreeNoSeep]

77. "Students are not being taught how to write."

Excuse me?

Teachers teach students to write, just as they have done since teachers have been teaching. That you, as a university professor, would say such a thing - actually blame teachers! - is worth noting.

Let me clue you into something, professor. The key word here is not "teaching". It's learning. No one gives you learning, and learning is not something someone does to you.

I cannot believe I read this nonsense on DU.

[Coventina]

79. OK then "Students are not learning how to write"

I didn't mean to insult anyone personally or collectively.

I am a teacher, after all.

[ScoutHikerDad]

80. As an AP Exam Essay Reader/Scorer

For years, I saw even worse than this, far worse even on Advanced Placement essays. The week-long summer job paid well, but it was mental torture for me, though it made me feel much better about my own students' writing. They got regular feedback and conferencing from me.

[OilemFirchen]

81. I have been told that some, perhaps many, youngsters are being hectored for writing in a traditional style.

It's apparently a social media trend. Capital letters and punctuation can lead to a pile on of harassment. It's unsurprising, then, that these kids write academically in a similar manner.

When challenged, a common retort is "yabbut did you understand it?"

I also graduated from a prestige journalism school. One class early on was devoted to headline writing. It toughens one's writing skills to learn how to express the gist of an article given a certain number of column inches, justified left and right, with each letter of type a fixed width, and the entirety of the headline weighted by kerning. There's obviously no need for that these days, but if J-schools still required it we'd likely, at the very least, be able to understand a published article without having to dig deep into our crania to make sense of it.

[róisín_dubh]

82. I'm so glad I left the US academy

So glad.

[highplainsdem]

87. I always felt that reading a lot helped people understand how to write well. But my impression is

that most kids have been reading less and less for decades. Cable TV instead of the few networks we Baby Boomers grew up with probably meant they watched more TV. Video games would have taken more time away from leisure reading. The internet was another distraction, and also gave them a lot of not-very-literate reading material with social media. And texting added to bad writing habits. Until people got online, most of their reading would have been professionally written, proofread and edited books, magazines and newspapers.

[Jit423]

95. Kids are being taught today to night care about anything. They are taught by parents to not give a shit.

If they come from poor families they are told no matter how educated you are, it doesn't matter, you need to find a job and work.

If they come from wealthy families they are told no matter how uneducated or dumb you are, your money will take you wherever you want to go.

Both rich and poor are taught that there are too many rules, too much "political correctness" (whatever that is), they don't have to respect tradition (theirs or anyone else's), they don't have to obey the law (unless you are black) you don't have to respect other people's rights, you can be as cruel as you want to be and it makes you a hit like Trump, lies are as good as truth, if it helps you, history is bad, fake and unnecessary, up is down, wrong is right, hate is good, love is evil.

The tone is set at the top.

[Warpy]

97. I tutored byth college level English and math

and believe me, it's almost worse when it's numbers.

No, it is worse, numbers are scarier. People talk in words. They don't talk in numbers.

Some of these poor kids weren't socially promoted, they'd skated through on classwork and multiple choice questions. I don't know how they passed any math classes, most of them couldn't multiply or divide.

I don't know what to tell you except to make that example you used look like it bled to death and sending its creator to somebody like me via college learning lab or list of available tutors. Maybe the poor kid will even go. Then some poor slob like me will get him/her.

[Lulu KC]

99. Regarding text deleted

Coventina, I hate to tell you this, but the original version of your post is still visible if you "view edits."

[Bernardo de La Paz]

103. Good. They are protected under the "fair use" provision of US copyright. I'm tempted to quote the exerpt here.

(emphasis added)

Examples of fair use in United States copyright law include commentary, search engines, criticism, parody, news reporting, research, and scholarship.[7] Fair use provides for the legal, unlicensed citation or incorporation of copyrighted material in another author's work under a four-factor test.

17 U.S.C. § 107

Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 17 U.S.C. § 106 and 17 U.S.C. § 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include:

* the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
* the nature of the copyrighted work;
* the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
* the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.[9]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use#U.S._fair_use_factors

[Lulu KC]

104. Okay, good

It seems that Coventina was worried, so now she doesn't have to be. That's good news.

[RandySF]

111. Trashing this.

Not an appropriate venue to attack a student's work.

[DFW]

127. I didn't get the impression that an attack was what the OP was about.

It seemed more to me that the OP was upset in general that a member of a supposedly educated generation turned in an excerpt so incredibly incoherent, and thought that someone else would be able to decipher it. I saw it as more of a wake-up call about what some of our schools are accepting as written English. I have heard clips from Trump speeches that were more coherent than this, and that should frighten any Anglo-American whose native language is not Republicanese.

If either of my daughters, whose native language is German, had turned in an English text similar to the one cited in the OP, I would have complained to their school in Düsseldorf, and demanded their transfer to a class taught by another teacher.

[no_hypocrisy]

126. I hate to admit it, but 50 years ago,

I entered college not being able to draft a cogent paragraph.

Consistently throughout high school, all my English papers were critiqued with "A"s. No problem with essays in other classes. A prestigious college admitted me. I though I was flying high.

And yet, my first paper in English 101 had a D-minus. I was so deluded, that I actually asked my professor is if he were grading the papers sideways (and that it was really an "A" ). He wasn't. I worked hard and was excited when I received my first "C".

I even wrote a 67-page thesis with poor writing skills for my senior project. And got away with it.

I went on to get a masters degree in elementary education. And I still couldn't write. I was allowed to become a teacher who couldn't write.

Finally, I was admitted to law school where writing is king. After my first semester of exams, my grades were so abysmal that I was hanging by a thread to be allowed to continue. I promised to take every and all available writing courses and I did. Organization and form. Composition. And more. I was lucky to graduate with a C-plus average.

While I don't claim to be Hemingway, my writing is much better. It hurts to re-read the stuff I handed in decades ago. It's like ADD on paper.

My point: I don't know how I fell through the cracks, but I wholly promote writing as early as possible in schools. It's more than communication. It allows you advocate for your causes, for yourself, to propel your thinking.

[ecstatic]

133. In my opinion, good writing requires at least one teacher who cares.

First, I truly believe that reading and writing go hand in hand. The less you read, the worse your writing will be. I was an avid reader as a child--but now, not so much. Unfortunately. There are too many other sources of entertainment and I work around the clock.

My ex wanted to get his degree but he had to pass some sort of standardized test or writing course. I can't remember which one it was. Anyway, his writing was absolutely horrific and his professor let him know. So I helped him. I explained the concept of essay writing and each component that was necessary to have a coherent essay. And then we did drills. I also stressed the importance of proof reading before submitting papers. We repeated those drills until he got it right. He passed and eventually graduated.

He wasn't transformed into Stephen King but he learned the basics. If just one teacher had introduced interesting books and held his feet to the fire, he wouldn't have experienced that humiliation in college and he would not have needed my help.