I'd rather say "the author conclueds," than "it was concluded that."

I'm in favour of writing 'I conclude.' Apparently the academic community doesn't like this construction. I don't care. I'm the one who's bloody well concluding.

I also try to avoid starting any sentence or clause with 'it was'.

But then we'd have no, "It was a dark and stormy night"!

I don't think that you should have to tell your students not to use textspeak on assignments.

Actually, you do have to. She teaches middle school not college. If you want middle school students to do something or not do something, you have to be specific and tell them about it. Including things they should have learned in kindegarten like don't hit others or raise your hand to speak. And then you have to reinforce the expectations all year long because they will forget.

Is that babying them? Possibly. Is that meeting them at their developmental level and helping them to succeed? Absolutely.

As a middle school teacher, I expect more from my 7th graders than I do my 6th and more from 8th than 7th. But, I also give all of them direct instruction on expectations and give them a framework for success rather than assuming they already know. If they do already know, great. It's review.

But then we'd have no, "It was a dark and stormy night"!

Heh. I was considering making this exact post. With the same punctuation and everything.

There are going to be teachers that as a student, you don't like, and that are not going treat every student as that student feel they should be treated. Or, they are going to expect things that that student is going to disagree with. But the student has the choice to get past that and learn or sit there and focus on the fact that they think the teacher sucks.

ITA. (yes, that was on purpose) :) This was the problem with my GA that I had to fire. She believed that being right was more important than being employed.

I am the first to admit that I come from the Fear Me school of teaching, but I will never forget the day that I got a thank you note from a student who had received the Truman Scholarship, for which I was on the committee. He said that he was really nervous when he saw me on the committee, but that I pushed him to work hard and nitpicked every detail and that ultimately helped him get the scholarship.

I keep that note and I pull it out and reread it when I get frustrated. It's not the only way, but it does work with some students.

But then we'd have no, "It was a dark and stormy night"!

Great writing sometimes means breaking a few rules.

Actually, you do have to. She teaches middle school not college. If you want middle school students to do something or not do something, you have to be specific and tell them about it. Including things they should have learned in kindegarten like don't hit others or raise your hand to speak. And then you have to reinforce the expectations all year long because they will forget.

good point. I should know this, since I have to sometimes remind my college students to raise their hands :)

Heh. I was considering making this exact post. With the same punctuation and everything.

::high-fives tommyrot::

I'm in favour of writing 'I conclude.' Apparently the academic community doesn't like this construction. I don't care. I'm the one who's bloody well concluding.

Oh yeah, that's just crazy. I have gotten more flack for trying to make things clear and engaging when they were supposed to be about Serious Research, I swear.

The year I studied in France the exchange program from our school would take the grade the teacher gave us, compare it with other native and exchange students in the class, factor in somehow the teacher's evaluation of us and our evaluation of the teacher, and *somehow* come up with a grade. I got a 12/20 in French lit and a 16/20 in Prehistory (he was so nice to me, for me to get that grade on an oral exam on a randomly chosen subject). My American GPA went up.

I'm still bitter about the fact that my 13s and 14s junior year were Bs to my university but As anywhere else.

I heard many times the explanation that they're really tough at University, especially the first year, because it's so cheap for French students to go to college that they need to weed a bunch out. I don't know how true this is, or was in 1996, anyway.

Sort of. There's just a big inclination to not inflate grades. I taught first years at one of the most exclusive universities in the country and my mandated class average was 10 out of 20 (I think for second years that went up to 10.5). So, if you wanted to give someone a 14, you had to really want to. I think 15 was the highest grade I ever gave and 7 was the lowest.

I also had to rank each student in my class and you were limited on the number of ex-aequos you could give.