And a truly scary one: "I took this course in the Spring of 2011. It started in January and lasted all the way through the end of April. In this course we read many works of Spanish literature."
If you convert the list from the previous post into a sentence by concatenating them int one long comma-ridden sentence and then add this one right behind it then you already have compiled half an essay full of obvious things !
That's precisely what the students are trying to achieve with this. Each one of them thinks that s/he invented the wheel which consists of padding the essay to make it longer.
It would be helpful in the future to forbid references to the course itself in a paper. The paper should not be addressed to the professor or refer to the course at all, in fact. This would eliminate one kind of obvious statement, though I'm sure the students could still tell you that human beings have been talking about love and hate for millennia, that Cervantes is famous writer from Spain...
Today I was reduced to delivering the gist of these 3 posts in English which is the first time these students heard me speak English. If this doesn't work, nothing will.
Ich habe: Casa de Bernarda Alba is a critique of USSR. Women all dressed in black is a critique of Mao suits. The reason Bernarda doesn't have enough money is that she's a Communist and Communism does not grow economies.
I've had Casa de BA explained to me by students as a critique of the Franco regime. (For readers of the blog who aren't Spanish professors, the Franco regime started after Lorca's death.
8 comments:
If you convert the list from the previous post into a sentence by concatenating them int one long comma-ridden sentence and then add this one right behind it then you already have compiled half an essay full of obvious things !
Nice to have a picture of you, Tim!
That's precisely what the students are trying to achieve with this. Each one of them thinks that s/he invented the wheel which consists of padding the essay to make it longer.
It would be helpful in the future to forbid references to the course itself in a paper. The paper should not be addressed to the professor or refer to the course at all, in fact. This would eliminate one kind of obvious statement, though I'm sure the students could still tell you that human beings have been talking about love and hate for millennia, that Cervantes is famous writer from Spain...
Today I was reduced to delivering the gist of these 3 posts in English which is the first time these students heard me speak English. If this doesn't work, nothing will.
Ich habe: Casa de Bernarda Alba is a critique of USSR. Women all dressed in black is a critique of Mao suits.
The reason Bernarda doesn't have enough money is that she's a Communist and Communism does not grow economies.
I'm kind of tired, so for one scary moment there I thought you were being serious.
I cannot believe that a student actually wrote this.
It's just tragic.
I've had Casa de BA explained to me by students as a critique of the Franco regime. (For readers of the blog who aren't Spanish professors, the Franco regime started after Lorca's death.
But Lorca was such a total GENIUS. He could have foreseen thing for years to come. :-) :-)
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