Rainbow of Quiz 2

This is "Quiz 2 Week" for my Basic Writing students. They are all in a hybrid class so I meet one class on Tuesday and one on Thursday. The quiz was actually to be last week, but I realized I could slow down the pace just slightly, so I made a schedule change.

I thought making the change would give them more time to study, to prepare; not to mention, I needed the time to get caught up on grading their essays, which I am still doing. I think when I give them time, they become jellyfish -- just floating -- and they lose all momentum. It's a total waste of time because they don't think about getting into their textbook or handbook to just read, study, and do some activities to improve their skill.

I'd like to try the jellyfish behavior, but instead I have finally accomplished the grading for the Tuesday class and am continuing to work on the Thursday class. I've had two essays from each student and because they are "basic writing" students, it is not appropriate to just place a grade at the conclusion of their document. It is an opportunity to give each student one-on-one instruction. So it can take a goodly amount of time to read and comment on each essay.

The problem, though, is that most of them don't want comments on their finished essays; they just want to see a high class grade. They don't realize that education is not about collecting grades, but about gaining knowledge and learning skills. They want to ignore my comments, not learn from them.

So this week they will take an objective quiz. It is nothing more than proofreading and writing the comma rules. If I don't make them write the rules, they don't bother to learn them. If they don't know the rules, then they don't know where to place a comma. If soldiers in boot camp behaved like my students, none of them would come home from the war.

One student emailed me today to ask if she could send her Working Bibliography (due tomorrow) to me by email attachment, so I could check it for her. The WB assignment has only six entries and their textbook explains how to write each one. So I explained to her that the job of proofreading belongs to the writer, not the reader, and politely told her "no." I did explain that I could answer questions about her document, if she wants to meet with me in the Writing Center in the morning. Gosh, if I could just proofread all of my students' work, then they'd all earn top grades. Sheeeeesh!

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No rain today, but it has been cold. The weather reporters predict that we've got Santana winds coming and then rain. That's a repeat of what happened last week.

It is the end of the first week in November!
Good night from Southern California.
Rosie (& Mr. Fun), aka Carol