A Finality
Dec. 18th, 2009 03:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kyrasantae
(As expected,) I didn't get anything in the mail today, but I did get my grade for FAILCLASS. So I guess I have to hunker down and write this, no matter how long it takes me :P
Kris was not amused last week. He got a terrible grade on his essay, and because he cited sources for his research, but didn't cite any class readings. In the wording on the course syllabus, this is only ONE thing -- and not unambiguously stated -- out of ~nine things that the essays are supposed to be graded on. I don't have the marking scheme next to me right now, but the usage of external sources was actually a big part of the grade.
In my experience, whenever an assignment or essay test is to be graded on a rubric with specific criteria, a copy of said rubric has always been distributed to us in advance, so we know from what categories the points are going to come so that we can focus our attention on meeting all of those objectives. We got them even for high school graduation exams (though they were from nice teachers who wanted to better prepare us for the exams). But nope, we were in the dark here.
Kris was prepared to escalate the issue to the higher authorities if necessary, but he talked to the teacher after the exam and she said that if he could revise the essay to include class readings, then she'd reevaluate it. No big deal.
I'm fortunate to not have needed to go through that kind of disappointment and process. In fact, she quite liked my essay (GEE I WONDER WHY... -- IT WAS ON CHINESE PARENTS). But one remark that she gave both my and Kris' essays was that we didn't include something about our own experiences. Now, if it were supposed to be a reflection essay, I can understand. But this is (explicitly on the syllabus, I believe) a research essay, where such reflections are totally inappropriate.
This confuses me.
The day before the exam, I decided to write out definitions of all of the terminology listed on the review sheets. The other stuff on those sheets were questions that were either really-short-answer material or you-can-write-a-book-on-it material, so I didn't really want to look at it just yet. But even the terminologies were sometimes listed multiple times or were relatively self-explanatory, so after doing most of that, I kinda gave up on it. And then I stared at the review sheets for the next eight hours or something. I skimmed the readings that were on the review sheets if I hadn't read them already (I'd pretty much stopped reading after doing my presentation), if not before that. By the time I finished staring, I think I only had time to sleep for a little more than an hour. Staring at the sheets was all I could do, because I was just SO TIRED of it all.
Before the exam, our teacher goes up to the whiteboard and meticulously copies the exam instructions off of a piece of paper: "1. Do not speak during the exam. 2. The unauthorized use of communications, listening, [...] and computational devices are [sic] prohibited."
Kris wasn't anxious at all. He walked in proclaiming "I feel GREAT!!!" in his usual energetic manner. He had a full nights' sleep and only looked at the stuff in the morning. I was so tired that I left out a syllable on my first attempt to sign my name on the exam booklet.
There were five definition questions, eleven (?) short-answer questions, and a choice between two "essay" questions. More accurately, they were long-answer questions. One of them was a compare/contrast question, and the other asked about what you "took home" about the theme of the course: the "intersection of race, class, and gender in the educational experience" (don't people theorize and write books about that?). I think a lot of people wrote on the second question. They were writing pages upon pages in their booklets, when the whole question was only worth seven points. (To compare, the definitions were one point each and the short answers were between 1 -3 points each.) It was kind of funny that you were asked to use (and label) "concepts" (read: terminologies) from class in the long-answers.
So of course I wrote on the compare/contrast question. But it was a little bit challenging because it asked to compare/contrast between structural functionalist and critical perspectives on one issue and, to be honest, I don't think we really spent any time on functionalist perspectives in class. If it had been present, it would have been in the readings. In class it was always the critical viewpoint -- "how/why is it broken/unfair/discriminatory? How can we bring about EQUALITY/JUSTICE/FREEDOM?" A functionalist view, I think, tries to explain how things are the way they are and why it's working fine that way, so there's a little less to talk about. But certainly there was no shortage of critical perspectives in the readings -- they were chosen for that purpose!
In any case, seeing that I didn't mention AZN PPL at all in my exam, I went ahead and signed my name in Chinese on the front of the booklet next to my English signature. Maybe it got me brownie points, but given how much we harped on in class about how it's unfair/unjust/racist to treat an Aboriginal student in a classroom as though they're an expert on all Aboriginal culture, it seems ironic that I, as the only Asian student in the class, have been treated throughout the course as though I represent the Asian viewpoint. Especially when I try so hard to identify as Finnish, because then there's that pressure on me to "be Chinese" and I'm just really really uncomfortable with bringing up my Chineseness all the time.
And then I picked up my red pen and corrected all of the grammatical/spelling mistakes on the question booklet before tucking the question booklet into my answer booklet and turning in my papers ;-)
Well, at least it's all over now. I'd said at the beginning of term that even if I were to drop the course, I'd keep the textbook because I like sociology. But nope, I sold it (I didn't finish reading the whole thing, either). Good riddance.
Kris was not amused last week. He got a terrible grade on his essay, and because he cited sources for his research, but didn't cite any class readings. In the wording on the course syllabus, this is only ONE thing -- and not unambiguously stated -- out of ~nine things that the essays are supposed to be graded on. I don't have the marking scheme next to me right now, but the usage of external sources was actually a big part of the grade.
In my experience, whenever an assignment or essay test is to be graded on a rubric with specific criteria, a copy of said rubric has always been distributed to us in advance, so we know from what categories the points are going to come so that we can focus our attention on meeting all of those objectives. We got them even for high school graduation exams (though they were from nice teachers who wanted to better prepare us for the exams). But nope, we were in the dark here.
Kris was prepared to escalate the issue to the higher authorities if necessary, but he talked to the teacher after the exam and she said that if he could revise the essay to include class readings, then she'd reevaluate it. No big deal.
I'm fortunate to not have needed to go through that kind of disappointment and process. In fact, she quite liked my essay (GEE I WONDER WHY... -- IT WAS ON CHINESE PARENTS). But one remark that she gave both my and Kris' essays was that we didn't include something about our own experiences. Now, if it were supposed to be a reflection essay, I can understand. But this is (explicitly on the syllabus, I believe) a research essay, where such reflections are totally inappropriate.
This confuses me.
The day before the exam, I decided to write out definitions of all of the terminology listed on the review sheets. The other stuff on those sheets were questions that were either really-short-answer material or you-can-write-a-book-on-it material, so I didn't really want to look at it just yet. But even the terminologies were sometimes listed multiple times or were relatively self-explanatory, so after doing most of that, I kinda gave up on it. And then I stared at the review sheets for the next eight hours or something. I skimmed the readings that were on the review sheets if I hadn't read them already (I'd pretty much stopped reading after doing my presentation), if not before that. By the time I finished staring, I think I only had time to sleep for a little more than an hour. Staring at the sheets was all I could do, because I was just SO TIRED of it all.
Before the exam, our teacher goes up to the whiteboard and meticulously copies the exam instructions off of a piece of paper: "1. Do not speak during the exam. 2. The unauthorized use of communications, listening, [...] and computational devices are [sic] prohibited."
Kris wasn't anxious at all. He walked in proclaiming "I feel GREAT!!!" in his usual energetic manner. He had a full nights' sleep and only looked at the stuff in the morning. I was so tired that I left out a syllable on my first attempt to sign my name on the exam booklet.
There were five definition questions, eleven (?) short-answer questions, and a choice between two "essay" questions. More accurately, they were long-answer questions. One of them was a compare/contrast question, and the other asked about what you "took home" about the theme of the course: the "intersection of race, class, and gender in the educational experience" (don't people theorize and write books about that?). I think a lot of people wrote on the second question. They were writing pages upon pages in their booklets, when the whole question was only worth seven points. (To compare, the definitions were one point each and the short answers were between 1 -3 points each.) It was kind of funny that you were asked to use (and label) "concepts" (read: terminologies) from class in the long-answers.
So of course I wrote on the compare/contrast question. But it was a little bit challenging because it asked to compare/contrast between structural functionalist and critical perspectives on one issue and, to be honest, I don't think we really spent any time on functionalist perspectives in class. If it had been present, it would have been in the readings. In class it was always the critical viewpoint -- "how/why is it broken/unfair/discriminatory? How can we bring about EQUALITY/JUSTICE/FREEDOM?" A functionalist view, I think, tries to explain how things are the way they are and why it's working fine that way, so there's a little less to talk about. But certainly there was no shortage of critical perspectives in the readings -- they were chosen for that purpose!
In any case, seeing that I didn't mention AZN PPL at all in my exam, I went ahead and signed my name in Chinese on the front of the booklet next to my English signature. Maybe it got me brownie points, but given how much we harped on in class about how it's unfair/unjust/racist to treat an Aboriginal student in a classroom as though they're an expert on all Aboriginal culture, it seems ironic that I, as the only Asian student in the class, have been treated throughout the course as though I represent the Asian viewpoint. Especially when I try so hard to identify as Finnish, because then there's that pressure on me to "be Chinese" and I'm just really really uncomfortable with bringing up my Chineseness all the time.
And then I picked up my red pen and corrected all of the grammatical/spelling mistakes on the question booklet before tucking the question booklet into my answer booklet and turning in my papers ;-)
Well, at least it's all over now. I'd said at the beginning of term that even if I were to drop the course, I'd keep the textbook because I like sociology. But nope, I sold it (I didn't finish reading the whole thing, either). Good riddance.
