Hey Everyone,
I missed last month's letter and I looked at the calendar and saw that this month is half way over. I need to amend my slovenly ways. Here is my excuse for what it is worth. April saw the finals at BYU-I and the start of a new semester and the finals at ISU. Between all three, the paper work was immense and I barely made it through alive. Last semester at BYU-I ended on a positive note, I think. I only had one student plagiarize one paper last semester and that was on the final paper. When I flunked the paper, the student email me and asked me why I had given the paper a 0. I had to point out that she tried to pass off someone else's work off as her own and that was a bad thing. Other students said that they really needed an A in the class and was there anything they could do to get that. Yes. They could have turned in all of the assignments instead of skipping them and class. I don't know. It seems pretty commonsensical to me that if you don't turn something in you should expect a 0 for the assignment and that zeroes will hurt the overall grade. However, that could simply be my advanced degree in teaching speaking, and I might just be out of touch with today's students.
ISU finished and what a finish it was. There wasn't a whole lot of sleeping going on with me during the last two weeks of the semester. I had a 50 page portfolio due, a 20 page paper, and a 10 page paper. Got them done and was somewhat proud of my work. I've decided to try and take my little 10 pager to a conference somewhere. I wrote about teaching visual literacy in the university level by using comics and graphic novels. I used Moore's Watchmen as examples. If you haven't read it, it is one that I suggest trying to get through. I say try because the violence can be rather graphic at times (pun intended) and is meant to be disturbing (the author gets his wish). However, the play with image and language is utter genius and the moral dilemma at the end is mind-blowingly delicious. Anyway since then, I have been on a graphic novel/comics kick. If you want an easy "in" to graphic novels - pick up the Bone series of novels (there are 9 in total). It is a Lord of the Rings-esque adventure with much lighter humor.
We are slowly getting out house put back together after the winter water adventures. We have everything bought. I just need to get around to cutting, painting, and installing all of them. I have a deadline now of July 4th when Morgan's family is staying with us for a few days for their family vacation. Which reminds me - is anyone going to the high school reunion? I'm trying to decide if I am going to go. I can't go to the afternoon lunch get together because I am in class at that time and it happens to be conference days - can't back out, and we are leaving to Morgan's family reunion early the following morning, so i am trying to decide if it would all be worth it. Any who - I think that is all I have to report without starting to get into what has happened during May.
Look forward to hearing how everyone is doing,
Derik
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5 comments:
Silly Derik, don't you know that non-Math teachers are supposed to assign subjective grades instead of zeroes based on the work you guess they would have done, had they completed the assignment? When will you learn ;)
I dunno about the HS reunion. I never planned on going (since 10 years ago when I graduated). I really never cared to be around 90+ percent of my classmates again.
...But I would definitely be tempted to come and endure if we were planing on doing something after/before.
When is it? I never heard any details (though I did realize in Jan that it would be this year).
Yes Derik, you are out of touch with today's students. I say that speaking as a cool, young student. Here are some tips to help you better understand us in the younger, hipper generation: 1) absent is the new present, 2) late is the new on time, 3) plagarized is the new personal effort, 4) begging for a grade is the new research for a paper, and 5) bad grammer is the new good grammer.
Cheers,
Oh yes, and about the high school reunion, I would be going if I could. I don't get break until September this year and so we won't make it out West. If you do go I would like to hear back from you about how it is. And if you do host a party just put a picture of me somewhere in your house so I can say I was there.
Well I, for one, say let's ditch the "real" reunion, and just reunite our friends (perhaps around the time when Stew can come to Idaho).
I haven't kept in touch well with the female half of the octet, but I'm sure many of them could come.
Sorry if I am intruding here, but I'm all for a reunion of friends. I know others would probably be so also as others can't make it to the high school reunion. And I am somewhat on the fence of going to the high school reunion anyway. But I think it would be a lot of fun to get the octet (plus some) together some time.
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