Mark it Zero
So, as I've mentioned before, I tended to avoid blogging about teaching (because I think it's boring to write/read about, and also because there was some vague chance that my students could have looked me up on Facebook, and seen the link to the blog there, and then found themselves reading about my own reflections about teaching, which, while I appreciate the notion of transparency in ones methods, at the same time I don't want to be that transparent). That being said, I did wind up with one teacherly thing left at the very end of my semester that seems interesting enough to blog about.
I had one student who earned a 'D' for the class. She missed nearly 40% of the class and earned 'C's on all four of her major essays - that combination led to the 'D' final grade (though the very high number of absences qualified her for an automatic 'F' as well). I met with her one final time after classes had ended to return her final portfolio to her (an option that she and only 2 other students took me up on). Of course, she was dismayed at finding out that she had done so poorly, and proceeded to appeal to me to please give her a passing grade. Without getting into the details, she basically explained to me that my failing her (anything C- or lower is a failing grade for the class I taught) would ruin her life. I was flabbergasted, and after telling her that I was not going to make any decision right there and then, proceeded to embark upon discussions of her case with several trusted friends and family members.
The student initially thought I was blowing her off - accused me of telling her that I would think about it only in order to not think about it. Nothing could be farther from the truth. In fact, several of the discussions I had with my friends turned out to be really interesting in their own rights (hence the point of the blog, coming up now). Conversations diverged into more general discussions of the difference between ethics and morals (which got intense enough as to fall into another of my no-blog-zone categories: "just because Pete thinks theory is interesting doesn't mean that any readers of the blog do"), another about the overall legitimacy of treating grading schemas as concrete and translatable across venues, and a couple of practical solutions as well. In one conversation, with my good friend Brett, an amazing analogy was spun (and a reminder here that I come from a social background wherein references to The Big Lebowski are essential and always a great thing (I have gotten calls from other friends before just reporting to me some amazing utilization of an obscure Lebowski reference)):
There's a scene early on in The Big Lebowski, during the only league game that we see The Dude, Walter, and Donny participating in, where Walter, arriving late to the game (due to having to take care of his ex-wife's Pomeranian (it has fucking papers)), and embarking upon a conversation with the Dude about the recent injustice wrought upon the Dude's carpet, notices that one of their opponents, Smokey, steps over the line on one of his throws ("OVER THE LINE!"). Smokey appeals to The Dude that he wasn't over and that The Dude should mark his score as 8. Walter, a Vietnam veteran, is outraged, for a league game, in fact, is not Vietnam; there are rules [in league bowling games], and strongly encourages Dude to "mark it zero." The Dude wants to forgive Smoky - "so his toe slipped over a little, it's just a game." Walter reminds Dude that it's a league game, and when he still finds his argument falling on deaf ears, pulls out a gun, cocks it, and puts it to Smokey's head, forcing Smokey to mark it zero.
So, in my situation, my student is Smokey. She has, as it were, let her toe slip over the line by missing so many classes and bombing her homework and participation grades. I am in the role of the other two, caught between being both the Walter that believes in the rules that were established in my class, and a believer in the import of following those rules (an ethicist, as it were), and also The Dude, who (and this is important), although he also admits that Smokey's toe slipped over the line (there is never any question that my student did not initially earn her failing grade), feels that Smokey can be forgiven (The Dude, in this case, is a moralist). So when I hear my student's appeals to give her a passing grade (Smokey saying "Yeah, but I wasn't over."), do I go ahead and mark it 8, or pull my piece out on the lane (sending my student into the "world of pain" of failing ENC 1101)?
Of course the analogy, as perfect and apt as it is, fails to provide insight into a practical solution, but it is a tour de force (if I do say so myself) of Lebowski referencing. In the end, once my thinking stopped being so uptight about the situation (and with practical advice from other sources), I offered my student a chance to rewrite her final paper for a better grade, thus demonstrating to me that she learned what she needed to, which she accepted. (She just sent me her re-written paper, which is actually quite strong, so I'm very comfortable giving her a passing grade now).
I had one student who earned a 'D' for the class. She missed nearly 40% of the class and earned 'C's on all four of her major essays - that combination led to the 'D' final grade (though the very high number of absences qualified her for an automatic 'F' as well). I met with her one final time after classes had ended to return her final portfolio to her (an option that she and only 2 other students took me up on). Of course, she was dismayed at finding out that she had done so poorly, and proceeded to appeal to me to please give her a passing grade. Without getting into the details, she basically explained to me that my failing her (anything C- or lower is a failing grade for the class I taught) would ruin her life. I was flabbergasted, and after telling her that I was not going to make any decision right there and then, proceeded to embark upon discussions of her case with several trusted friends and family members.
The student initially thought I was blowing her off - accused me of telling her that I would think about it only in order to not think about it. Nothing could be farther from the truth. In fact, several of the discussions I had with my friends turned out to be really interesting in their own rights (hence the point of the blog, coming up now). Conversations diverged into more general discussions of the difference between ethics and morals (which got intense enough as to fall into another of my no-blog-zone categories: "just because Pete thinks theory is interesting doesn't mean that any readers of the blog do"), another about the overall legitimacy of treating grading schemas as concrete and translatable across venues, and a couple of practical solutions as well. In one conversation, with my good friend Brett, an amazing analogy was spun (and a reminder here that I come from a social background wherein references to The Big Lebowski are essential and always a great thing (I have gotten calls from other friends before just reporting to me some amazing utilization of an obscure Lebowski reference)):
There's a scene early on in The Big Lebowski, during the only league game that we see The Dude, Walter, and Donny participating in, where Walter, arriving late to the game (due to having to take care of his ex-wife's Pomeranian (it has fucking papers)), and embarking upon a conversation with the Dude about the recent injustice wrought upon the Dude's carpet, notices that one of their opponents, Smokey, steps over the line on one of his throws ("OVER THE LINE!"). Smokey appeals to The Dude that he wasn't over and that The Dude should mark his score as 8. Walter, a Vietnam veteran, is outraged, for a league game, in fact, is not Vietnam; there are rules [in league bowling games], and strongly encourages Dude to "mark it zero." The Dude wants to forgive Smoky - "so his toe slipped over a little, it's just a game." Walter reminds Dude that it's a league game, and when he still finds his argument falling on deaf ears, pulls out a gun, cocks it, and puts it to Smokey's head, forcing Smokey to mark it zero.
So, in my situation, my student is Smokey. She has, as it were, let her toe slip over the line by missing so many classes and bombing her homework and participation grades. I am in the role of the other two, caught between being both the Walter that believes in the rules that were established in my class, and a believer in the import of following those rules (an ethicist, as it were), and also The Dude, who (and this is important), although he also admits that Smokey's toe slipped over the line (there is never any question that my student did not initially earn her failing grade), feels that Smokey can be forgiven (The Dude, in this case, is a moralist). So when I hear my student's appeals to give her a passing grade (Smokey saying "Yeah, but I wasn't over."), do I go ahead and mark it 8, or pull my piece out on the lane (sending my student into the "world of pain" of failing ENC 1101)?
Of course the analogy, as perfect and apt as it is, fails to provide insight into a practical solution, but it is a tour de force (if I do say so myself) of Lebowski referencing. In the end, once my thinking stopped being so uptight about the situation (and with practical advice from other sources), I offered my student a chance to rewrite her final paper for a better grade, thus demonstrating to me that she learned what she needed to, which she accepted. (She just sent me her re-written paper, which is actually quite strong, so I'm very comfortable giving her a passing grade now).
2 Comments:
In response to "just because Pete thinks theory is interesting doesn't mean that any readers of the blog do": I think one of the strengths of the blog title that Jack picked out yea these two years ago is that it more or less excuses us from considering reader interest at all. At least that's how I've been interpreting it.
In your analogy, completely crapping out on the coursework may be more akin to throwing the ball into the gutter than stepping over the line, though I guess your ethical situation remains similar. I think your response was correct. I seem to remember Dad talking once about challenging a classroom of business students to explain to him why he had them doing a particular assignment in the first place -- The ultimate answer being "he wants us to learn". (I may be completely misremembering that; Dad can perhaps correct the record if I'm wrong.) So I think the best approach to take in your situation was to allow the student to redo the paper. That re-work probably accounted for a lot of what knowledge she got out of the class overall. Just assigning a better grade to the same failing work doesn't have any point, if you grant that the course has any educational purpose in the first place.
Lebowski is indeed some kind of cultural touchstone. There's probably a low-grade, four-page college paper to be written about Walter's Old Testament-type belief in law and order: Besides the league game scene, we see him refusing to bowl on Saturday due to Jewish law (he converted in order to marry a woman who has since divorced him) and there is also his heated "This is what you get" speech to the supposed teenage thief whose car Walter thinks he is smashing up. The fact that this moral outlook is completely inappropriate to Walter's fairly mundane daily existence is played for laughs rather than for commentary, I think.
Well, in terms of reader interest, I once received the following complement about our blog from a friend of mine (who shall remain nameless since I'm quoting her or him (from an email) without permissions):
"It's pretty genius how you guys manage to sidestep the two worst doubts that must plague any incompletely nascissistic blogger, viz.., 1) why should I have an entire internet periodical devoted to publishing the incompletely digested thoughts of my average day, and 2) who reads these, anyway? Your efforts do end up being of interest to people other than the B------- boys, of course, but your rationale is airtight regardless."
And my own recent comment, re: blogging (in my post about bike porblems back in February):
"Occasionally, still, here at the program, the notion of writing nonfiction gets brought up to me - that I should write something, or whatever. I continue to stand by the fact that nothing ever really happens to me. Nothing does. That's what's great about this blog - it's the perfect venue for this kind of almost-action..."
comment edited for content May '08
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