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Comment on Transcribed text of Samantha Fulnecky's assignment, paper, and professor's comments

Her paper is dog shit, but thank you for calling out this dog shit rubric for a flawed assignment. I’m old now, but I wouldn’t have been able to guess the bar would stoop so low. Scares the fuck out of me that this is what passes for an education.

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merc@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
I fully agree that her paper is shitty. But, the ways in which it’s shitty aren’t criteria for the assignment, other than the bit about “is the paper clearly written”. I’d hate to give a hateful girl who did such sloppy work a passing grade, but I can’t see how you can claim her shitty writing didn’t mostly meet the criteria as listed.

IMO a reasonable grading rubric would be something like:

In your own words, cite specific arguments made in the article and any evidence given to support them (5 points)

Analyze one or more of the article’s arguments, by either showing why the supplied evidence is strong or weak, or by finding and citing another credible source that either supports or disputes those arguments (10 points)

Write clearly and persuasively, aiming at a late high school / early college audience (10 points)

Both teachers make comments saying something like “you are being asked to support your ideas with empirical evidence”. If that’s true, it certainly wasn’t in the instructions the students were given. They were only asked for a “thoughtful reaction or response”. You could twist the idea that “thoughtful” is supposed to mean “supported by empirical, scientific evidence”, but it really doesn’t sound like that was the assignment at all. Maybe if every other assignment had been graded that way, and it was well known that a “reaction paper” had to use scientific evidence, and that “thoughtful” meant “carefully citing scientific evidence”, but as it is, it just looks like a really shitty paper that nevertheless meets the requirements of a really sloppy assignment.
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- EitherEther@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  Yup. Shitty assignment. Shitty paper.
  
  However the teacher in question gave her a 0.
  
  She would have gotten the same grade if she didn’t turn anything in at all.
  
  That doesn’t seem correct.
  
  Teachers don’t "give” grades, students earn them. If the teacher felt that the paper didn’t meet the criteria, they should score it appropriately and provide context/reasoning.
  
  A score of 0 feels "given”.
  
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