Dammit, don't take the class if you're not even going to try!

The BBQ Pit
1

I’m currently taking English 3330: Intro to Creative Writing- Fiction. The class is set up so that we each write a story and submit it to the review of our peers. The next week, we discuss the three stories from the previous week, and hand in our comments and corrections. So far, the stories I’ve read have been mostly good. One last week wasn’t structured very well, but it had the beginnings of a very good story. But, just now, I read and marked up a story that it an insult to writers everywhere.

It took me at least 30 minutes to wade through 6 1/2 double spaced pages of one of the most poorly written, poorly punctuated, poorly organized, poorly conceived stories I have ever had the displeasure of reading, and that’s counting all the stories our 6th grade English teacher forced us to write and evaluate. I mean, come on! How can you be a sophomore in college and not know how to punctuate a quote, how to use a comma, how to use an apostrophe, or that you have to start a new paragraph when you start quoting someone new? How can you not know that possesives and contractions require an apostrophe? How can you not know that a compound sentence requires a comma? ESPECIALLY IF YOU’RE A BLOODY ENGLISH MAJOR, which most of the people in this class are. I hope to God this guy isn’t. These aren’t just random errors I’m describing; he made these mistakes with regularity throughout the paper, as if it were the accepted form! Most posts on the SDMB are written and punctuated better than this! Most trollish posts on the SDMB are, too, for that matter!

AND PROOFREAD, GOD DAMMIT! Even if he is completely ignorant as to proper grammar and punctuation, at least he could have caught the many instances of awkward wording! Hell, it doesn’t even look like he read it as he went along. It looks like he just randomly splattered a really bad idea all over his word processor.

How can you think a list of dry facts constitutes a description? How can you think that randomly describing something in the setting (such as a painting that bears no significance to the situation) constitutes good description? How can you think that a plot consists of clichéd characters getting their clichéd just desserts? How can you write like this and expect to be taken seriously in a college-level creative writing course?

In short, either try harder or drop this fragging class so we don’t have to deal with you!

I am so dreading Wednesday, when we’ll actually have to discuss this guy’s paper in class…

AAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!

2

Ask him if he’s considered writing for television.

3

I don’t know, Loopus; sometimes this techinique works pretty well. I mean, it seems to in our literary magazine…

4

I think Loous would have caught on if it were being used as a technique.

But don’t be too hard on the guy. Maybe he’s just not that bright. Or is very bright, but not in this subject. Or maybe his GF just left him and he’s been a pit of hellish despair, unable to even bathe himself in his depression, and just threw something together becasue he had to turn something in. Or he’s been so busy that he mistakenly turned in the rough draft rather than the finished paper.

5

Loopus, I hope you’re not being harsh with this guy to his face.

When I was in grade 12, I was in a creative-writing class, and partnered with a guy who acted as if it were an insult for me to show him a story that was not worthy of publication. I’d thought the idea was for students to share stuff that needed improvement, so we could advise each other, but it was apparently not worth his time to critique my stuff. If it wasn’t perfect (and how could it have been?) it was dismissed as “Crap”.

So how about helping your fellow student? If he’s really not aware of the mistakes he makes, point them out to him, diplomatically of course, and show him how he can be better.

6

Gotta agree with Rilchiam. Cut the kid some slack. Maybe he ISN’T an english major. Hoe do you know that someone else isn’t reading your paper saying the same things? I fucking hate writing papers. That’s why I am an engineer.

Actually, you sound like an asshole you big bad sophmore you. I hope you don’t ever get in a position where you are teaching children. That would REALLY frustrate you.

7

Also, didn’t you say this was an “Intro to Creative Writing” class? An intro. And you are probably what, a month into the semester at most? This is probably the first or second paper that has been written in a goddam intro class.

Jesus Christ get a grip on yourself.

8

My sympathies, Loopus. The grammar and punctuation things you describe should be well taught in high school. Shit, kids here taking the Key Stage Two tests at age 11 are marked on whether they do those things consistently.

Sometimes you just have to have a little vent. I doubt Loopus will be as harsh to the kid’s face as he is being here - this is letting off steam in the Pit, after all. I think “Jesus Christ get a grip on yourself” is excessively harsh (and underpunctuated :p).

Here are my sort of kind of hints for handling the review session.

  1. Focus on the creative writing aspects. Spend a lot more time talking about the problems with characterisation rather than the problems with punctuation

  2. Be constructive and helpful, and discuss strategies for how problems with the characters and plot might be overcome - things the guy could get the characters to do to subtly show their character, things he could better describe, things he could describe less.

  3. Try really hard not to sound exasperated - gettin the aaarrrgh out in the Pit is a good plan.

  4. Maybe you could show the story to the teacher, say that the piece highlights a lot of gaps in the students’ knowledge of written English, and that maybe a refresher session might be useful - either in that class or in a more suitable class. It may be that only that student, or a small group of students, need to be brought up to speed on punctuation. If so, it might be best for that to happen separately from the main work of the class. Otherwise, the teacher runs the risk of alienating and frustrating students like yourself who do already know the rules of punctuation.

9

You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. It is NOT his place to approach the teacher about his percieved problems with this other students writing. That is up to the teacher to do when he reads handed in assignments. That is point of “peer review”. To get feedback from peers. Not get sold out to your teachers.

I would be one pissed off motherfucker if some holier-than-thou shithead went around me to the prof with his personal issues with my writing. They are in the same class and are academically at the same level. The “poor writers” performance does not affect Loopus grade at all, so it is not his place to voice his “concern” to the professor.

Maybe if he has the balls he can say something to the other student, but not the prof. You can rest assured that if he pulls a stunt like that he will be forever alienated from the rest of his class for selling out his classmate like that. He has 3 years of school left to deal with these same students.

10

Hand in to the teacher, I presume. Loopus will correct me if I have the wrong impression about the teacher viewing the corrections as a matter of course.

The point being that corrections of punctuation shouldn’t be the primary focus of the review session, because it’s a creative writing class. It’d be a waste of time if Loopus spent the session harping on about all the punctuation and grammar mistakes at the expense of comments about the fiction as a piece of fiction. “There were quite a few little mistakes with punctuation and the like, which I haven’t had time to go through in detail in the class, but I made some notes”. The teacher gets the notes, the fellow student gets the notes too if that’s how the class works, the teacher’s attention is drawn to some gaps in knowledge, and no one’s been either embarrassed or bored to tears by Loopus banging on about the punctuation in what is ostensibly a fiction review session.

I’ve never been to a US or Canadian University, so I have no idea whether a typical class of students would exhibit the immaturity that Stinkpalm suggests. If so, then by all means do as he says, keep your trap shut and your head down.

11

Ok, the way you said it in the other post gave me the impression of “telling” on the other student. If what you meant was for Loopus to turn in his criticism of the punctuation with the critque form or whatever other medium they are using for the critique then that makes some sense.

I don’t think that Loopus should go beyond his basic criticisms and start making suggestions to the prof how he should handle the situation. I’m sure the prof has dealt with every kind of student imaginable and will deal with this one as well.

Sorry if I misunderstood.

12

Sorry for not being quite clear in the previous post. I was typing slightly too fast for my brain.

13

and also sorry for the snippy broadside about immaturity - probably could have kept that to myself.

14

Actually, I’ve got to agree with Loopus. As a part-time student who couldn’t get into either of the two classes I need to take as pre-requisites because of crowding, it makes me sick to know that some dumbass who didn’t pay attention to the basics of writing in high school is now sitting in college doing the same thing.

In my second year of college I helped a techer with grading essays written by students that were either sophomore or junior level students. You’ve never seen anything like it. It made gang slogans spray painted on ghetto walls sound like literary masterpeices. And despite the fact that the papers had to be written on the computer, most of the students failed to check the spelling. They just typed thier papers and turned them in without a thought.

Sigh.

15

As far as addressing this in the critique, you need to focus on why puncuation matters, not how to correct it: the type of erors you describe are almost certainly a matter of not thinking it is important, not a matter of not knowing anybeter. (Unless he is Englsih as a Second Language–watch for that, writing profeciency lags way behind speaking profeciency for ESL students).

What this guy needs to learn is that reading writing with poor punctuation is more work than reading writing with good punctuation and that readers are lazy and quit at the first good excuse. Therefore, if he wants to be read, he has to make it as easy as possible for the readers.

But if this guy pisses you off, you will go ballistic when you realize that at least one nad probably more people in this class will feel like it’s their right to submit their stuff for peer review and have their slice of time but who are just too busy to read anyone else’s stuff. There is always one in every creative writing class.

16

…er, I didn’t mean that it was being used as a valid literary technique (or an attempt at such). I was just saying that the same problem plagues the literary magazine at my school. Y’know, a sort-of “sympathy post,” “I know what you’re saying, man” thing.

17

Okay, I was a bit miffed when I wrote the OP. It was late at night, and I had been hoping to breeze through reading the three papers for this week, only correcting obvious errors and writing the comment sheets today or tomorrow, when I got stuck on this one. I was upset, but I can see I overreacted.

Don’t worry, I’m not going to be harsh with him to his face, or even in the comment sheet. I know how hard it is to submit something you’ve written for the review of your peers, so I afford him enough respect, at least in that area, to be polite to him.

The main thing that peeves me is that there are only three sections of this class offered, and each class allows a maximum of 15 students. So, out of the 33,000 students at this university, 45 get to take this class this semester. It’s entirely probable that this person is depriving some poor schlub who’s really serious about writing from taking the course. That bothers me.

As for going to the instructor (he’s a graduate student, not a prof), that’s definitely not necessary. He got a copy of the paper along with the rest of us, and will deal with it as he sees fit. As for myself, I will, as politely as possible, mention what problems I have with the paper in the comment sheet (along with what I like about it- there are a few things), and be even politer during the class discussion. I wrote the OP to vent, so that I wouldn’t risk talking or writing to him like that.

Stinkpalm: Yes, this is an intro class. However, the prerequisites for it include freshman English and freshman composition I and II, so it assumes a basic proficiency with grammar and punctuation that this person doesn’t have. If the only problems with his paper had been in the area of characterization, plot, etc., I wouldn’t have gotten so angry because those are the things we should be learning in an intro to creative writing. In fact, I read a paper last week that was almost as poorly structured as this, but had a good plot an excellent characterization, and I didn’t get at all mad at the author.

I am going to try to focus on the creative writing aspects in my critique, though I corrected most of the grammar errors on the paper. This class isn’t about grammar, and I certainly don’t want it to be.

18

Uh… It just occured to me that this doesn’t make much sense, and certainly doesn’t gel with what I just spent the first part of that paragraph saying. I should have gotten upset that this author lacked basic skills for this course, but didn’t because she had skills we were supposed to acquire in this course.

:smack: I admit, it’s an anomoly, but I don’t have time to figure it out now. I still think I would be okay with the author I spoke of in the OP if he had written the same (bad) story with good grammar.

19

Sounds like an unhealthy number of papers I read in several of my English classes … and in one of the campus newspapers as well.

You might be surprised to see the professors in said classes making some of those mistakes as well. And no, I am not shitting you.

20

When I was in college, I was with some friends studying (really) one time. One of the others asked me to proofread a paper she’d written for a creative writing class; writing was her major and she hoped to become a professional.
The paper was bad in every possible way. The spelling and punctuation were terrible, and the ideas were poorly organized and not clearly defined. (I should mention we were all juniors) I marked up the paper and gave it back to her, with a tactful comment that she might want to work on the spelling issue.
Her response was classic. “I won’t need to worry about those things, there’ll be editors to take care of it.”

I left it at that, because we were sort of friends, but my immediate thought was “If an editor ever sees a piece that looks like this, he’ll throw it away after one paragraph.”

I’m not sure what she’s doing now, but it’s not writing.