SO, I'm taking English 101 this semester. Going into it I knew it was going to be the easiest class in my schedule and I planned on blowing through it with an easy A. Yeah, well that's still all going as planned. I just wanted to rant about our piss poor public education system and stupid people for a bit.
Today we had to do peer editing for our autoethnographies essays which basically an excuse to write about any group of people you've ever belonged to and what specific factors made that group different from others; subcultures. Anyhow, I put a good three hours into four double spaced pages about running culture. I had a fun time writing it, putting quips and anecdotes in it that made it seem humorous and casual. I wasn't really too thrilled with the result cause it seemed like I wrote an article for Reader's Digest or something rather than a more personal explanation of my involvement with running. Anyway, my professor loved it, and the people in my group thought it was pretty good too. That was last week. This week was the second peer editing session. Instead of critiquing on ideas and topic in your paper like last week, this was more grammar and sentence structure critiquing. It's like someone wanted to make me laugh or something. I love tearing that shit apart.
Out of all the rejects in my class I probably got one of the better picks. That's not saying much of course. The first sentence instantly turned me off from the essay when I learned it was about Catholicism cause anyone who's ever met me knows how devout I am to religion. By the time I got to the thesis I was already stifling my laughs from the girl right next to me who happened to write it. If a seventh grader was in my class he would have found this paper paper amusing. I've tried to push most of the gritty details of how bad this paper was out of my head forever, but some of them are just bound to stay for a while. I spent a full half hour simply correcting grammar and sentence structure before I got to the questions our professor wanted us to address about each others topics. Most people had already read and "critiqued" three papers by then. I felt bad for being so hard on her. I really don't know whether she didn't enjoy writing her paper and blew it off, or she never glanced at it after completion or what. Maybe she just went to a really shitty high school.
Sometimes I'm really glad I went to the school that I did. Sure it was boring at some times, yeah it was about 92% white, filled with hicks who dipped 24/7, punks who thought they were hot shit, and girls that got everything they wanted but a second car, but I'm glad I had the chance to take English classes that taught me to discern between talented and poor writing. I'll agree with the theory that you write better when you you're writing about something that interests you. That's probably the biggest reason why I nearly always got B's on most of my English essays in senior year. But that's the whole point I'm trying to make with this autoethnography situation. We're writing about things that we're a part of, we're obviously interested, try a little. Last week when we merely read our essays to each other I was having a hard time not shouting out every three sentences saying "Why would you ever say that there," or "That has to be fixed somehow". I don't know. Shit like that bothers me.
I think classes like English and writing need to be held on a tougher scale. I mean, it's your language for Christ's sake. You should learn to use it correctly. It's the basis that holds together societies. Its not like its just a thing that goes away once you're out of school. You'll be known as a shitty writer or a shitty speaker for your whole life, and its one of the easiest flaws to spot in a person. When people do poorly in an English class, or I read something with obvious mistakes I always think back to an episode of King of the Hill I once saw. Bobby had just gotten an F in English on his report card. Hank comes into the scene and examines it and says to his son, "Bobby, how did you get a F in English. You speak English." Seriously. We speak English, either learn it right or move to China cause they're about as good at it as most Americans now.
Today we had to do peer editing for our autoethnographies essays which basically an excuse to write about any group of people you've ever belonged to and what specific factors made that group different from others; subcultures. Anyhow, I put a good three hours into four double spaced pages about running culture. I had a fun time writing it, putting quips and anecdotes in it that made it seem humorous and casual. I wasn't really too thrilled with the result cause it seemed like I wrote an article for Reader's Digest or something rather than a more personal explanation of my involvement with running. Anyway, my professor loved it, and the people in my group thought it was pretty good too. That was last week. This week was the second peer editing session. Instead of critiquing on ideas and topic in your paper like last week, this was more grammar and sentence structure critiquing. It's like someone wanted to make me laugh or something. I love tearing that shit apart.
Out of all the rejects in my class I probably got one of the better picks. That's not saying much of course. The first sentence instantly turned me off from the essay when I learned it was about Catholicism cause anyone who's ever met me knows how devout I am to religion. By the time I got to the thesis I was already stifling my laughs from the girl right next to me who happened to write it. If a seventh grader was in my class he would have found this paper paper amusing. I've tried to push most of the gritty details of how bad this paper was out of my head forever, but some of them are just bound to stay for a while. I spent a full half hour simply correcting grammar and sentence structure before I got to the questions our professor wanted us to address about each others topics. Most people had already read and "critiqued" three papers by then. I felt bad for being so hard on her. I really don't know whether she didn't enjoy writing her paper and blew it off, or she never glanced at it after completion or what. Maybe she just went to a really shitty high school.
Sometimes I'm really glad I went to the school that I did. Sure it was boring at some times, yeah it was about 92% white, filled with hicks who dipped 24/7, punks who thought they were hot shit, and girls that got everything they wanted but a second car, but I'm glad I had the chance to take English classes that taught me to discern between talented and poor writing. I'll agree with the theory that you write better when you you're writing about something that interests you. That's probably the biggest reason why I nearly always got B's on most of my English essays in senior year. But that's the whole point I'm trying to make with this autoethnography situation. We're writing about things that we're a part of, we're obviously interested, try a little. Last week when we merely read our essays to each other I was having a hard time not shouting out every three sentences saying "Why would you ever say that there," or "That has to be fixed somehow". I don't know. Shit like that bothers me.
I think classes like English and writing need to be held on a tougher scale. I mean, it's your language for Christ's sake. You should learn to use it correctly. It's the basis that holds together societies. Its not like its just a thing that goes away once you're out of school. You'll be known as a shitty writer or a shitty speaker for your whole life, and its one of the easiest flaws to spot in a person. When people do poorly in an English class, or I read something with obvious mistakes I always think back to an episode of King of the Hill I once saw. Bobby had just gotten an F in English on his report card. Hank comes into the scene and examines it and says to his son, "Bobby, how did you get a F in English. You speak English." Seriously. We speak English, either learn it right or move to China cause they're about as good at it as most Americans now.
Shit like that pisses me off.
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