Comments:

lemming - 2006-11-28 18:03:51
A few weeks ago I reminded my classes about the attendance policy, i.e. if you miss too many it will hurt your grade. Things perked up for a few days, but now we're back to the people who can least afford a cut to their final grade missing class. Yet I know that these are the people who will protest their final grade the most vociferously.
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elgan - 2006-11-28 18:04:03
Are your students not required at some point to pass a writing proficiency test and, if they are shown wanting, take an appropriate course? They do it here, I suppose because we have so many francophones studying for the first time in English. But quite a few anglophones end up in it too, a shockingly large number.
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Blaze - 2006-11-28 23:37:31
Thank you! I still have a week and a half left of class. Then a full week to write papers. Then finals week. I had a class today that only meets two more times, and the professor was frantically racing through material just like you. We also had to sacrifice the discussion!
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rs536-2000 - 2006-11-29 08:21:05
Nice of you to warn them. Showing up to class sounds like the least they can do.
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Kelley2 - 2006-11-29 12:23:51
We wanted to get our lights up last weekend but didn't get to it. Too bad, it was *warm* last weekend. Always nicer to do it when it's warm out. I am, however, almost all done with the decorating.
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Harriet - 2006-11-29 13:40:08
There is not, as far as I know, a writing proficiency requirement. There is a formal writing tutorial program on campus that is free to students. Professors are instructed to refer students with writing problems there. It's an excellent program, but the problem is that the students have to decide to take advantage of it and add it in to their already overscheduled days. But the real problem, I think, is that professors in all subjects need to hold students accountable for their writing. I find it appalling that a student could be a senior at one of the most prestigious universities in the world and not be able to consistently put together complete sentences, let alone an argument. If I had paid the kind of tuition parents pay for this university and my kid wrote like this at graduation, I'd be beyond livid.
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