The Child Commacide Conundrum

As those who know me are already aware, I teach several introductory film classes in order to supplement my income from creative pursuits. No need to get into percentages right now, so I won’t to that. Anyway, the first assignment for my Film 101 class is always the same thing, and the students have plenty of time to prepare. About three weeks before classes start, meaning a handful of days ago for this semester, I send all of my students a list of thirty classic movies that they should have already seen. They are supposed to watch the ones they somehow managed to miss and then on the first day of class I hand each student a slip of paper with the name of one of those movies on it. Then the students are given half an hour to write about their assigned film. Observations of cinematic techniques, comments about the quality of the film and the people making it, and anything else that is not a plot summary or completely irrelevant is permissible. Shouldn’t be hard at all, but apparently it is.

The point of this assignment is to give me an idea what to expect from each student academically, and far too often it leads me to expect incompetence. Somewhat so with respect to film knowledge, but more so with their lack of respect of basic grammar. It led me to fail about three quarters of my students on that assignment last year, and since I must pay the bills to use my skills I am reluctantly complying with the Dean’s request for me to change my own personal guidelines of how to grade this assignment. The following is the first sentence of a sample assignment that thanks to lowered standards would presently earn a “D”:

In my opinion, The Wizard Of Oz is a great movie since it is intresting innov8ive and it has classic songs like The Wicked Which is Dead.

I don’t know how many times I’ve had students tell me that “innov8ive” is an acceptable word to put on a collegiate assignment because it’s not hard to understand, but all that matters is that there have been more than zero instances of such language mauling. I don’t even particularly like English, but when anything (or anyone) is being so mercilessly pummeled for no good reason and sticking up for it will not lead to injury on my part, then I must stand up for it. Alas, due to the aforementioned orders from higher-ups I cannot fully defend against this assault but at least I can penalize the perpetrators.

Writing a sample assignment corresponding to a failing grade would have been excruciatingly painful, so an “F” essay is simply something that falls short of the standard set by my sample “D” assignment. Hard to believe as it may be, I think I will still be failing plenty of first assignments. The propensity for commacide in today’s college students is astonishing.

What is to blame for this plague of apparent stupidity? I know it isn’t me.

Tags: commacide, stupidity, teaching, uly

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Cindy Liberty on August 15, 2009 at 11:04pm: You sure it's not you - you judge by your standards, but then again, it's the first day of class, and you have already assigned homework before even introducing yourself.... shame on you.

Instead of do this you should first be giving your students a list of requirements, and your expectations. That would then give you and them better insight into your class, and what you expect as a teacher!; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Ulysses S. DeBris on August 15, 2009 at 11:26pm: I teach at a college, not a Kindergarten. Furthermore, as I already stated, students are informed of this assignment week in advance, giving them ample time to prepare.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Laura Lewis Rolen on August 16, 2009 at 2:42pm: I teach graduate students, and I have had the same thoughts. I commonly see run-on sentences, sentence fragments, and sentences like, "The book Developmental Psychology by John Smith talks about developmental psychology."

Several years ago a professor who would have had reason to know about such matters told me that publishers and authors of medical school textbooks had been asked to lower the reading level of the texts because the students were having difficulty comprehending them. As for what is to blame.....I think it is a combination of factors. People tend to blame it on whatever their pet issue happens to be. I have a thought on the matter that is probably not "politically correct" but may be true. At one time, only a small percentage of people pursued higher education, and they were probably the people with higher intelligence. Now larger numbers of people are pursuing it, thus making it less "elite." Are we "dumbing down" higher education in order to make it accessible to more people? Of course, I want to see everyone have opportunities and achieve their goals, but this is just a thought I had when I read your discussion. What do you think?; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Di on September 3, 2009 at 5:02pm: I, too, teach undergrad thru grad level. And some of the written assignments are challenges to grade.

In my intro classes, I tell students to write in English sentences and if you don't know whether you're writing English, go check in the writing lab. My students laugh; my fellow teachers don't.

I agree that everyone should have the opportunity to achieve their goals.....

But that doesn't mean that everyone should go to college.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Ulysses S. DeBris on August 20, 2009 at 6:30pm: It's the same way with school and the Industry. Anyone with a decent amount of money can go to college, and anyone who can afford a webcam can make a publicly available film. But now most of these degrees and films are practically worthless.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Mike Leins on September 14, 2009 at 3:34pm: It doesn't sound like an unreasonable assignment, except for the 30 films to watch before school begins. Some students may have seen all 30 films multiple times, while others are just beginning their journey into film studies and have only seen 1 or 2. If anything, I'd say assign 5 films instead.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Ulysses S. DeBris on September 14, 2009 at 5:18pm: I must disagree with you, Mike. This assignment holds minimal weight in the final grading scheme but rather serves as a starting point for me to know where these students are both in their knowledge of cinema and general academic competence. To assign only five movies would allow all students with half a brain to complete and essentially memorize their responses for all five movies within the three week period and would show me very little. Although I wouldn't be surprised if some students still managed to fail with only five assigned films.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Laura Lewis Rolen on September 14, 2009 at 7:09pm: Following is the content of an email I received from a graduate student:

when is my paper do

That is exactly as it was. No capitalization. No punctuation.

Not to mention that the assignments and due dates are unambiguously stated in three separate places on the website.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Prof Robert Ekblaw on September 17, 2009 at 1:00pm: I get that often, Laura. I, too, have gone paperless with my course. Everything is on the course's Blackboard site, yet I constantly get students asking, "Where's the syllabus?" ( and it is clearly visible on the "splash" page that first appears).

Fortunately, I don't tend to get questions about when the assignments are due, because the Blackboard is connected to the student's Microsoft Outlook calendar, and I have the due date of the assignment added to every student's calendar. That seems to work well, although I still get students handing in late assignments. Nobody ever claims that they didn't know when it was due, though!; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Prof Robert Ekblaw on September 17, 2009 at 12:58pm: I encounter some of the same problems, although since I teach computers I rarely assign writing assignments. However, I also tutor student in college entrance exams (SAT, ACT, GRE, GMAT), and I am amazed at the weak writing ability of modern students.

I think a lot has to do with e-mail and texting. The students no longer have to organize what they are saying into anything resembling a sentence, and they don't know how to spell at all - either spell checking programs do that for them, or they are used to the abbreviations and short cuts from text messages.; ▶ Reply to This