# To my freshman English teacher: **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [February 25, 2003, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-my-freshman-english-teacher/157452 "2003-02-25T19:10:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![pepperlandgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f17d59/32.png) [@pepperlandgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pepperlandgirl)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2003, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-my-freshman-english-teacher/157452/41 "2003-02-27T16:03:51Z")
> [@](#): > > But if somebody has the basic mechanics of grammar and composition down (and in an ideal world, that’s the stuff you learn in junior high, not in college), then I think it’s a waste of time to make freshman comp classes consist of rehashing these basic principles. People are paying good money for this education: let them enjoy an education. I pretty much agree with everything you say, but the problem is that it’s not an ideal world, and Freshman Comp teachers have to deal with teaching everybody the _basics_ of writing. For all we know, the OP’s essay was thoughful and creative, but he had the wrong format, or far too many grammar mistakes, or the Prof was trying to get across a certain point in her assignment, and he ignored it completely, or something along those lines. In that regard, I don’t think that a Freshman Comp prof is the _bad_ guy for handing a lower grade. I think that we don’t know who the Prof is and we don’t know what the assignment was or how the OP dealt with the assignment, what is grammar skills were like, how developed his thoughts were, or even what she was grading on. Based on the lack of information and my own experience, my gut says that the Professor was right, and that robert probably needs to stop worrying about how creative he is at this point and just worry about what the prof expects and will grade on. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2003, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-my-freshman-english-teacher/157452/42 "2003-02-27T16:15:24Z")
Okay, that’s fair. My gut tells me differently, based on **Robert** ’s posts here: he looks to me like he’s got the basics down. Strategically, of course, he should fulfill the prof’s expectations; that doesn’t mean he has to like it, however, or even that he’s getting his money’s worth out of the course. Daniel ---
**Author:** ![Futile\_Gesture](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f05b48/32.png) [@Futile\_Gesture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Futile_Gesture)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2003, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-my-freshman-english-teacher/157452/43 "2003-02-27T17:45:56Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by DanielWithrow \* > **"Upon the depraved river carried to me the essence of bird singing in my ears,"** 😃 I think someone may have discovered that Shift F7 starts up Microsoft Word’s Thesaurus. Is that not worth a passing grade.? Or, to put it another way… Ascertaining that Shift F7 is the genesis of Microsoft Word’s Thesaurus by someone is a contemplation of myself. Is that not deserving a transitory classification? ---
**Author:** ![robertliguori](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/46a35a/32.png) [@robertliguori](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robertliguori)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2003, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-my-freshman-english-teacher/157452/44 "2003-02-27T18:42:27Z")
Well, pepperlandgirl, I apologise for not making a comment. Should you post again detailing your skills with the English language and make a typo, I will certainly not refrain from commenting as I did this time. 🙂 > [@](#): > > For all we know, the OP’s essay was thoughful and creative, but he had the wrong format, or far too many grammar mistakes, or the Prof was trying to get across a certain point in her assignment, and he ignored it completely, or something along those lines. > [@](#): > > I had 2.5 friggen’ pages of textual support, my thesis was eminently defensible, but oops! I just happened to take my paper in a direction that you didn’t support. Do you know what she marked on my paper? There was a checkmark on every sentance except the one where I accidentally switched tenses. There was a “nice transition” comment for two of my transition sentances. And there was a complaint that I used the word “assimilation” in the standard meaning of integrating into a society, rather than the slightly odder definition that the author we were reading used. And the grade. A B-. I had one grammar mistake. And the topic of the essay was to connect the themes of the course (marginality and assimiliation) with the work in question (James Baldwin’s _The Fire Next Time_). My thesis was "that black Americans had been conditioned to think of themselves as inferior, and thus not only help to sustain their marginalized condition, but help create an atmosphere which was openly hostile towards their assimilation into mainstream culture. " (Liguori 1). I get that there are many people out there who will complain that their bad paper got a bad grade. I’m saying that I’m not one of them. I will cite my various comments here as evidence that even if I can’t write well reliably, I can tell when I’ve written well. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2003, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-my-freshman-english-teacher/157452/45 "2003-02-27T18:52:13Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Futile Gesture \* > **I think someone may have discovered that Shift F7 starts up Microsoft Word’s Thesaurus. Is that not worth a passing grade.?** Honeychile, if that boy had ever even heard of a thesaurus, then I got seventeen buttcheeks. He was suffering from a vast overconfidence in his abilities, coupled with a devotion to Jack Kerouac’s hipster machismo. The sad thing is, my example sentence above isn’t nearly as convoluted and horrific as his actual sentences were: they’re a pale imitation of the original. You know how the villains in Lovecraftian novels are unintelligibly monstrous beings who exist according to a mathematic incomprehensible to mortal minds? how the protagonists of Lovecraftian tales go insane from trying to understand what they’re seeing? That’s what his prose was like. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got an idea for a short story: “The Sentence Out of Space.” Daniel [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-my-freshman-english-teacher/157452.md?page=2)