I liked it too.
I think the worst shit I had to read in HS English was some of the stuff from the Great Awakening. Ugh.
I think the worst shit I had to read in HS English was some of the stuff from the Great Awakening. Ugh.
My high school English classes could have also been called African American Women's studies, seeing as all we basically read were Toni Morrison novels. I got it after the first two books we read: being an African American women pre and during the civil rights movement sucked. Not to be callous or anything, but could we please find another topic?
Looking back, my only other gripe is that my English teachers really stopped teaching and looking for the fundamentals of English around my sophmore year. If a sentence was a run on, or punctuation was used only semi-correctly it was called 'style'. Now, through the perspective of having several papers graded by law professors, I've discovered that my mastery of English wasn't quite as high as I thought it was.
Looking back, my only other gripe is that my English teachers really stopped teaching and looking for the fundamentals of English around my sophmore year. If a sentence was a run on, or punctuation was used only semi-correctly it was called 'style'. Now, through the perspective of having several papers graded by law professors, I've discovered that my mastery of English wasn't quite as high as I thought it was.
my sophomore and senior year english professor would automatically give you a C if you used a comma splice, or at least that's what he threatened.
At higher levels of English, rules become localized, subjective to topic and up to user preference. I never liked iron-handed English teachers much. The ones who completely disregard the art in favor of the (flawed) science.mcgid1 wrote:
I've discovered that my mastery of English wasn't quite as high as I thought it was.
unnamed wtf are you talking about at 'higher levels of english' rules become "subjective to topic". no they don't. what the fuck are you talking about! you're essentially dismissing higher level academic study and research in english (i.e. something you don't do, something you are incapable of) as "oh everyone's right and it's all subjective, anyway". very convenient for your worldview and ego, i'm sure. english research is still peer-reviewed, it's not this solipsistic task, and arguments must still be logical, rational and self-evidenced using primary and secondary research. this whole "english at a high level is easy and anyone can do it because it's just like, art maaan, and everyone's opinion is right" is completely lazy thinking from a bunch of science-obsessed engineering grads. you guys are delusional. and stop talking about "high level" english when the last class you sat in was at some hippie fucking high-school. you're not a post-doctoral english researcher so why are you talking with any authority! i'm not summarizing science syllabuses on here!
i can't speak for style-guides or your individual teacher's preferences and demands, but really that shit is not hard. in every piece of writing you will ever do in your life, you will tailor it to an audience and you will write it appropriately - formally and stylistically. if you couldn't please an english teacher with your english then, yeah, it doesn't surprise me that your writing isn't judged of a high standard by a law professor who will surely demand a page full of intricate legalese and loquacious piffle.
i can't speak for style-guides or your individual teacher's preferences and demands, but really that shit is not hard. in every piece of writing you will ever do in your life, you will tailor it to an audience and you will write it appropriately - formally and stylistically. if you couldn't please an english teacher with your english then, yeah, it doesn't surprise me that your writing isn't judged of a high standard by a law professor who will surely demand a page full of intricate legalese and loquacious piffle.
libertarian benefit collector - anti-academic super-intellectual. http://mixlr.com/the-little-phrase/
Except he's right, Uzique. And you essentially made his argument for him, buried somewhere in you knee-jerk, miss-the-point, reactionary rant.
Outside of the academic environment, rule sets are localized, based on (oftentimes) individual preferences. See Oxford Comma thread for an example.
Outside of the academic environment, rule sets are localized, based on (oftentimes) individual preferences. See Oxford Comma thread for an example.
“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”
― Albert Einstein
Doing the popular thing is not always right. Doing the right thing is not always popular
― Albert Einstein
Doing the popular thing is not always right. Doing the right thing is not always popular
how are they localized when you are peer-reviewed by a global academic community? how is high-level english any more localized than doctoral level science research? science research must be held up to rigorous logical proofs, just as english research must hold up to being picked apart by the academic community. this whole total idiot misconception that there is no 'truth' or 'scientific principle' in arts, therefore it collapses into this epistemological void where nothing ever gets done or nothing ever progresses... is total nonsense. i haven't proved him right at all, you have just tragically (and preferentially) misread my point. academic research is still a very formalised thing. i have no fucking idea how you're connecting some whimsical grammatical preference (in the end entirely pointless anyway) to an entire academic discipline. having an individual or institutional preference over your use of the comma is a LONG FUCKING WAY away from having an individual approach to the academic discipline. how are you even inferring one from the other? preposterous. if you were doing some gnitty-gritty post-structuralist thesis at a small college in the uk, it would have to make just as much sense and would be appraised technically and intellectually in just the same way as if you were presenting it to a philosophy/math professor at amherst, or a poetics don at ucla, or a french literature specialist at oxford. you have an extremely poor understanding of how academic research is conducted and guided in the arts and humanities.
libertarian benefit collector - anti-academic super-intellectual. http://mixlr.com/the-little-phrase/
Uzique, you jumped to a conclusion that he didn't make.
His point being: Usage rules do become localized and subjective as one progresses. Whether it be to a particular University's style of citation in a paper (just a very minor example) or your workplace's (which could include a global corporation) directives on grammar and punctuation--which may even violate the most basic rules of English you learned as a kid. None of which have anything to do with research.
So calm down, Francis.
Where, in the above, does he say anything about high level academic English? Protip: He doesn't. You made that conclusion. You assume that the only "higher level" of English possible is via academia, and then knee-jerk into your typical defense of the arts as objective, rather than subjective, opening up a can of worms that didn't need to be opened.At higher levels of English, rules become localized, subjective to topic and up to user preference. I never liked iron-handed English teachers much. The ones who completely disregard the art in favor of the (flawed) science.
His point being: Usage rules do become localized and subjective as one progresses. Whether it be to a particular University's style of citation in a paper (just a very minor example) or your workplace's (which could include a global corporation) directives on grammar and punctuation--which may even violate the most basic rules of English you learned as a kid. None of which have anything to do with research.
So calm down, Francis.
“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”
― Albert Einstein
Doing the popular thing is not always right. Doing the right thing is not always popular
― Albert Einstein
Doing the popular thing is not always right. Doing the right thing is not always popular
i'm using english academia because it is the highest use of english as a subject of theoretical study, obviously. if part of your discipline's entire focus is on grammar and poetics and such like, of course it's going to have a point. what i'm saying is that there is an international and 'high' 'formal' form of language. it doesn't just devolve into this subjective 'creative license' free-for-all at higher levels at all. you're expected to write in much the same way and structure yourself in much the same way for professors and experts the world over. i'd take them as the authority on the use of formal written english, if you'll allow that, over the office memo passed around by some company. what i will agree upon is that the rules themselves do change over time, to allow for changes in language and standards, but that doesn't mean the rules don't exist. what newbie means rather than saying high-level english has no rules is that, instead, a lot of companies in the real-world don't give a shit. which is quite different to inferring that "it's all subjective, man!".
Last edited by Uzique (2011-12-05 06:28:21)
libertarian benefit collector - anti-academic super-intellectual. http://mixlr.com/the-little-phrase/
1:10...
You can take them as the authority all you want...but you still have to follow the rules laid down locally if you want to keep your job. As distasteful as it may be to a truist.Uzique wrote:
i'm using english academia because it is the highest use of english as a subject of theoretical study, obviously. if part of your discipline's entire focus is on grammar and poetics and such like, of course it's going to have a point. what i'm saying is that there is an international and 'high' 'formal' form of language. it doesn't just devolve into this subjective 'creative license' free-for-all at higher levels at all. you're expected to write in much the same way and structure yourself in much the same way for professors and experts the world over. i'd take them as the authority on the use of formal written english, if you'll allow that, over the office memo passed around by some company. what i will agree upon is that the rules themselves do change over time, to allow for changes in language and standards, but that doesn't mean the rules don't exist. what newbie means rather than saying high-level english has no rules is that, instead, a lot of companies in the real-world don't give a shit. which is quite different to inferring that "it's all subjective, man!".
“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”
― Albert Einstein
Doing the popular thing is not always right. Doing the right thing is not always popular
― Albert Einstein
Doing the popular thing is not always right. Doing the right thing is not always popular
Which manual of style do you use?Uzique wrote:
how are they localized when you are peer-reviewed by a global academic community?
libertarian benefit collector - anti-academic super-intellectual. http://mixlr.com/the-little-phrase/
Pretty much every rebuttal I'd have made to protests against what I didn't say have already been made by someone else. Yes, proper styles of writing differ depending on what you're writing about and who you're writing to/for. I don't mean that it's proper to break the fundamental rules of the language, unless you're quoting or writing dialog or if there's some other valid reason. But more to the point, I didn't mean for "higher levels of English" to solely include upper academic.
You've started an argument where none existed, zeek.
You've started an argument where none existed, zeek.
I am pretty sure that "proper" English is boring as fuck and any author worth their salt is at least more interesting than that
uuuum, ye- no.
libertarian benefit collector - anti-academic super-intellectual. http://mixlr.com/the-little-phrase/
interesting, related article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ans … _blog.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ans … _blog.html
A longtime friend on the school board of one of the largest school systems in America did something that few public servants are willing to do. He took versions of his state’s high-stakes standardized math and reading tests for 10th graders, and said he’d make his scores public.
By any reasonable measure, my friend is a success. His now-grown kids are well-educated. He has a big house in a good part of town. Paid-for condo in the Caribbean. Influential friends. Lots of frequent flyer miles. Enough time of his own to give serious attention to his school board responsibilities. The margins of his electoral wins and his good relationships with administrators and teachers testify to his openness to dialogue and willingness to listen.
....
“I won’t beat around the bush,” he wrote in an email. “The math section had 60 questions. I knew the answers to none of them, but managed to guess ten out of the 60 correctly. On the reading test, I got 62% . In our system, that’s a “D”, and would get me a mandatory assignment to a double block of reading instruction.
He continued, “It seems to me something is seriously wrong. I have a bachelor of science degree, two masters degrees, and 15 credit hours toward a doctorate.
“I help oversee an organization with 22,000 employees and a $3 billion operations and capital budget, and am able to make sense of complex data related to those responsibilities.
“It might be argued that I’ve been out of school too long, that if I’d actually been in the 10th grade prior to taking the test, the material would have been fresh. But doesn’t that miss the point? A test that can determine a student’s future life chances should surely relate in some practical way to the requirements of life. I can’t see how that could possibly be true of the test I took.”
Here’s the clincher in what he wrote:
“If I’d been required to take those two tests when I was a 10th grader, my life would almost certainly have been very different. I’d have been told I wasn’t ‘college material,’ would probably have believed it, and looked for work appropriate for the level of ability that the test said I had.
“It makes no sense to me that a test with the potential for shaping a student’s entire future has so little apparent relevance to adult, real-world functioning. Who decided the kind of questions and their level of difficulty? Using what criteria? To whom did they have to defend their decisions? As subject-matter specialists, how qualified were they to make general judgments about the needs of this state’s children in a future they can’t possibly predict? Who set the pass-fail “cut score”?
well standardize tests are to judge a school and hold no weight in for the student (unless its the ACT or SATs).
I kind of both agree and disagree. I was always a very good test taker so there's a big part of me that says suck it up, not everyone is cut out for college. But, the other part of me really hates the way material is taught in grade school. Forcing memorization does no one any good. Teach kids the why and then show them the how. Memorizing formulas or obscure word definitions is so far removed from reality, at college, and even moreso in the real world, that it probably does more harm than good. Teach kids the 'why' and they will self motivate.KEN-JENNINGS wrote:
interesting, related article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ans … _blog.htmlA longtime friend on the school board of one of the largest school systems in America did something that few public servants are willing to do. He took versions of his state’s high-stakes standardized math and reading tests for 10th graders, and said he’d make his scores public.
By any reasonable measure, my friend is a success. His now-grown kids are well-educated. He has a big house in a good part of town. Paid-for condo in the Caribbean. Influential friends. Lots of frequent flyer miles. Enough time of his own to give serious attention to his school board responsibilities. The margins of his electoral wins and his good relationships with administrators and teachers testify to his openness to dialogue and willingness to listen.
....
“I won’t beat around the bush,” he wrote in an email. “The math section had 60 questions. I knew the answers to none of them, but managed to guess ten out of the 60 correctly. On the reading test, I got 62% . In our system, that’s a “D”, and would get me a mandatory assignment to a double block of reading instruction.
He continued, “It seems to me something is seriously wrong. I have a bachelor of science degree, two masters degrees, and 15 credit hours toward a doctorate.
“I help oversee an organization with 22,000 employees and a $3 billion operations and capital budget, and am able to make sense of complex data related to those responsibilities.
“It might be argued that I’ve been out of school too long, that if I’d actually been in the 10th grade prior to taking the test, the material would have been fresh. But doesn’t that miss the point? A test that can determine a student’s future life chances should surely relate in some practical way to the requirements of life. I can’t see how that could possibly be true of the test I took.”
Here’s the clincher in what he wrote:
“If I’d been required to take those two tests when I was a 10th grader, my life would almost certainly have been very different. I’d have been told I wasn’t ‘college material,’ would probably have believed it, and looked for work appropriate for the level of ability that the test said I had.
“It makes no sense to me that a test with the potential for shaping a student’s entire future has so little apparent relevance to adult, real-world functioning. Who decided the kind of questions and their level of difficulty? Using what criteria? To whom did they have to defend their decisions? As subject-matter specialists, how qualified were they to make general judgments about the needs of this state’s children in a future they can’t possibly predict? Who set the pass-fail “cut score”?
"Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough."
-Frederick Bastiat
-Frederick Bastiat
Did you read the article?Cybargs wrote:
well standardize tests are to judge a school and hold no weight in for the student (unless its the ACT or SATs).
yes i did, but i was replying mainly to this partKEN-JENNINGS wrote:
Did you read the article?Cybargs wrote:
well standardize tests are to judge a school and hold no weight in for the student (unless its the ACT or SATs).
“If I’d been required to take those two tests when I was a 10th grader, my life would almost certainly have been very different. I’d have been told I wasn’t ‘college material,’ would probably have believed it, and looked for work appropriate for the level of ability that the test said I had."
when i took standardized tests, no one received the scores but me and just placed me in a percentile ranking. and these tests don't determine a students future at all, but i do agree most standardized tests are a complete sham and ineffective way to judge how well a school/student is doing.
If you don't know the math there is nothing you could do. The reading though...I don't understand how he couldn't work that out.
It is a little bizarre that in this country we have such a focus on individualism but at the same time rely on a one size fits all education model. You would think we had figured out a system that takes advantage of each different persons inherent skills and abilities by now.
It is a little bizarre that in this country we have such a focus on individualism but at the same time rely on a one size fits all education model. You would think we had figured out a system that takes advantage of each different persons inherent skills and abilities by now.
Last edited by Macbeth (2011-12-09 13:48:10)
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$Macbeth wrote:
If you don't know the math there is nothing you could do. The reading though...I don't understand how he couldn't work that out.
It is a little bizarre that in this country we have such a focus on individualism but at the same time rely on a one size fits all education model. You would think we had figured out a system that takes advantage of each different persons inherent skills and abilities.
What about it?Cybargs wrote:
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$Macbeth wrote:
If you don't know the math there is nothing you could do. The reading though...I don't understand how he couldn't work that out.
It is a little bizarre that in this country we have such a focus on individualism but at the same time rely on a one size fits all education model. You would think we had figured out a system that takes advantage of each different persons inherent skills and abilities.
There's too much money or too little?
Odd that they guy can't remember ANY algebra or geometry...I can understand missing things like the surface area of a sphere, but knowing NONE?!Macbeth wrote:
If you don't know the math there is nothing you could do. The reading though...I don't understand how he couldn't work that out.
It is a little bizarre that in this country we have such a focus on individualism but at the same time rely on a one size fits all education model. You would think we had figured out a system that takes advantage of each different persons inherent skills and abilities by now.
I really don't see why he should mess up the reading section so bad, either.