Mrs. Hillbilly Mom always said, "Teaching freshmen is like box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get when they turn in their papers." Uh huh. I think somebody stole that from me a while back. But I know that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
Picture, if you will, four class periods a day, when Mrs. Hillbilly Mom hands out an assignment to her freshmen. Mrs. HM stands up front, holding the very worksheet the students now have in their hands.
"Look here. This set is True-False.
Right here is says if the statement is false, you must write the correct word to replace the one in italics.
That means you write it on the blank.
You don't write FALSE on the blank, then squeeze your tiny word into the sentence.
If you write the correct word on the blank, I will know that you mean it is false.
No need to fill up that blank with FALSE.
Don't just write FALSE without correcting the italicized word.
You will get it wrong if you just write FALSE.
If the statement is true, all you have to do is put a T.
I'll know that a T means you think the statement is true.
There are 12 questions. 7 of them are false. 5 of them are true.
Don't just write TRUE on all of them so you don't have to correct the italicized word.
Are there any questions?
You may begin."
So simple, even a child could follow these directions. Except these children in my classes. Who apparently have an affinity for the written word FALSE, and for miniscule letters that may possibly one day engrave the Pledge of Allegiance AND the lyrics of The Star Spangled Banner on a grain of rice.
Perhaps it is because Mrs. Hillbilly Mom has grown long in the tooth, and short in her ocular focal length, that she has grown weary of combing through a paper for proposed answers.
During my last year of teaching (it's approaching faster than a locomotive on a helpless lass tied to the tracks), I have a grand plan to make a point.
I will write the grade, very tiny, SOMEWHERE on the paper. It will be like finding Hattie's Hatpin in Reminisce magazine. Except nobody wins a prize when they find their grade.
2 comments:
Or you can write NO grade on their paper, say you DID, argue that you DID and even after several people examine it and pronounce NO GRADE IS ON IT, you will continue to assert there IS indeed a grade on it...
At least that's what I heard happened to a third grade teacher whose student insisted they DID write their name on their paper but no name was there. Perhaps they wrote it with invisible ink?
Sioux,
So bold, my city counterparts! That would be considered cruel and unusual in Hillmomba. Though I have heard tell of a Newmentian in another department tossing all unnamed papers directly into the wastebasket.
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