03 September 2008

I know Kylie would buy my book...

...actually, she would probably expect to receive one for free.

I am having quite a bit of difficulty in my online classes due to the fact that most of the other students seem to barely know English. I might not be the best writer, but I sure feel like I am when I read the assignments that some of these people have posted. It makes me sad to think about what is happening to the English language. These people are going to get college degrees and they don't even know how to capitalize the first letter in a sentence! Here is the exact copy of an introduction posted by my classmate, Cory (make sure to read the last sentence):

"Hello again this is Cory Sturdevant. This is my first Class in college, hopefully first of many to come. here are my two goals to help my college career,

1. not to get distracted during semesters and not completing my classes.

2. to keep a steady workload for myself but not to over burden myself and get burned out also not to take up a light workload in the process and drag my feet and take forever to complete college.

my strategies for goal number 1 is to cut back from television , video games, and the internet until my daily weekly assignments are completed. Also try and go to a quiet place and study. Push my assignments back until the last second to complete them.
Now on to my strategies for my second goal to make my workload not to tough or weak is i know my weak point is math so i would probably just take a math class one semester and thats it. also English is one of my strong points so i would probably take a few classes along with my English classes in a semester."


Oh my. I am completely flabbergasted (yes, flabbergasted) that someone would submit that for credit in a college course! How did he even graduate high school? Any English teacher who gave him a passing grade should be fired. Eighty percent of my fellow students have identical writing styles. I chose to share Cory's with you because English is one of his strengths. In each of my classes the instructors expect all of us to respond to our classmates. This is so difficult for me! Please, wish me luck and pray that I can maintain a professional attitude. I will try to make it through the course without being too honest with my responses!

I have a feeling that I will encounter this in all of my future classes. I think I might start keeping track of the worst ones and eventually publish them. Is that legal? I would definitely make it a point to cite my references. I would title the book, "You're Dumb, And Your Dumb Is Showing: The Online Classroom And The Ignorant College Graduate."

1 comment:

Stacey said...

I am probably not the person to give advice about holding back with the honesty... still working on that one.
However, feel free to share more of your frustration here: you are a great writer & really fun to read (um, strike that... only when not directing your remarks at me)