Hi this is [a student]. I took you class last quarter. I received a C in the class was there any possibility that I could have received at ct. The reason I am asking is that I am suppose to grade this quarter and I have talk to all my teachers except you. I have a gpa less than 2 I got on probation winter quarter I had got real sick with the flu and was getting better towards final but not competlely healthy. I am suppose to graduate this quarter and I was just hoping a miracle coulkd occur. I am so desperate because I already told family and friend that I was graduating and I even have people coming out of town to come to the graduation. I have already finish my classes this quarter but is left with a gpa less than 2. If you were able to give me a ct instead of C I would be able to graduate this quarter. Your my last hope. Ihope it possible because I am already feeling depressed. I don't have the ability to ake out any loans or grants or have the money to take one class in the summer just to take a class to increase my gpa. I been praying everday for a miracle maybe you be the person to give it to me. I hope that you will be able to contact as soon as possible because the deadline to have all grades in is saturday. I can be reached at [xxxxxxxxxx].Thanks so much if you are able to change my grade and GOD Bless You
Thursday, June 08, 2006
In which I receive more email.
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18 comments:
Is the t supposed to be a +?
And my god, I had better grammar when I was in sixth grade.
I believe so, yes. It was easy to say no to this request, as I had already bumped the grade up from a C- to a C.
I remember this student quite clearly. S/he is the reason why I never proctor my own exams now.
Now now, come on AP, how can you refuse the performance of a miracle!! Or are you one of 'em evil secular humanists with no sense of morality and who believe that you get the grade that you earned!
Frenchdoc, because the class in question was Critical Thinking, the whole "praying for a miracle" thing means I must have graded her far too leniently the first time around.
I keep shaking my head that she thought this appeal would work on me, of all people.
I'm simply stunned that someone who writes this badly could graduate from college.
There's a gal I met on an email group whose writing is worse, spelling is atrocious, and she's talking about going to grad school. Eeeek!
I'm stunned that someone who writes that badly got IN to college in the first place.
I realize that there are different conventions for email/IM/formal writing/comments on a blog/whatever, but if you're trying to persuade someone, make an effort!
If her critical thinking skills mirror her writing abilities, the miracle is that she got a C- in the first place.
When all this came down yesterday, the TA confessed that she'd been overly generous grading the essay portion of this person's exams. This student left only one (not anonymous) comment when I requested feedback to improve the course: make all the exams all multiple choice.
My chair sends around an email right around when grades are due reminding us that no student is being expelled or put on probation because of the grade s/he earned in our class. It's always a matter of more than one bad grade; the email's a nice reminder that one grade doesn't make a student career.
And in this case, that seems especially apt. The student didn't earn a C average in four or more years of college. I bet all her other instructors got a similar email, eh?
Wait, I'm confused. s/he wants a CAT scan in place of a grade? That would take a miracle! Though s/he might do better with an MRI to the head, just to see if there's anything in there!
I, too, find the quality of people's email (spelling, grammer, structure) deplorable. And it seems to be dragging the quality of the rest of their writing down. At least word processors have spell check. But they act like it's some huge burden when you ask them to write properly. ("Ohhhh. You know what I mean!")
Does anyone have any strategies to address this? Refuse to read or respond to badly written email? Explain to the class "one of the things you will learn is professional demeanor in correspondence...this means addressing people by their titles, getting an email address that isn't "sexylips" etc."
I've even considered being a total anachronism and addressing students as Mr. or Ms. Whatever.
Well, she has a future in writing emails for 419 scams if the whole regular job thing doesn't work out.
"I been praying everday for a miracle maybe you be the person to give it to me"... wait a freakin' minute... aren't miracles supposed to come from G_D and not some evil secular antichrist-loving christian-hating evolution-promoting professors?
Actually, you might tell her that you'll change her grade if she can write an essay (with proper grammar and spelling) regarding how her email shows complete failure to get the content of the class she just took with you.
I've been working with some computer scientists on machine translation lately (Linguists are always the last to be invited to these things...then we get asked to summarise everything we know about human language, and make it snappy, please). I wonder if we couldn't produce a moron-to-actual English filter. Bet there would be a market for it.
I think she may need to master the written language a little better before graduating! God, can you imagine what people will think when this fine young lady says, "I graduate from ____ Univeristy last year. I make 1.8 gpa" ?
I can not fathom the fact that this student had the gall to actually SEND this.
How does she walk, with balls that big??
I also can't imagine her actually graduating. Letting her graduate might devalue the diploma value of the Uni.
This student's balls are not in question. Rather, this is an indicator that somewhere there exist instructors whose past behavior has given this student an expectation that this kind of appeal stands a reasonable chance of being successful.
How can you folks even figure out what this students wants? I had to read it about three times before I could even hazard a guess that he or she wanted a grade change? Holy Moses.
I, too, am even more concerned about the grammar and logic than about the presumptuous request.
Because of this kind of thing, I am going to apply the standards that were used when I was in college, starting this very fall. Never mind that that was in a richer state, at the top state institution there, and so on. Never mind that secondary education has deteriorated since then, or that teaching methods have changed, so we are supposed to be more tolerant of 'different learning styles' (and poorer results: no matter what your learning style, I still expect you to learn the same basic material).
No wonder you're angry.
I've been out of the workplace for 11 years now but previously taught at the elementary level.
I now see that my advanced degree (a lowly Master's) isn't worth shit if this is the quality of today's students.
How did that person ever get to a 4 year university in the first place?
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