Johnny

My brother is a professor at a large public university and, more importantly, one of the most generous and kind-hearted people that I know. As much as I miss the classroom, I am glad to be out of the Teaching Game when he shares some of what he has to put up with these days.

I wonder if today's teachers are too accessible.

Anyway, the irony is that the Brother-Unit characterizes the student featured below as a hard worker, and that a returned corrected draft "usually spurs him to include research, have a viable thesis, and correct an amazing amount of awkward phrases and sentences." Johnny apparently is having some difficulty adjusting to college life but, until now, has been plugging away at his work in an honorable fashion.

I wonder what is behind this Freshman Meltdown.

The topic for the batch of writing in question was about notions of identity in the Internet Generation -- Johnny chose to "staunchly defend his group, noting that previous generations are jealous because we had to go to libraries instead of clicking a mouse when we were doing research."

I will give you a moment to appreciate the profundity of this hypothesis.

***** *** *****

Dear Mr. X:

i was reading the comments for my 2nd draft and realized that the only reason why i received such a low grade in the paper was because you were part of the audience being attacked. in your "opinion", the whole paper was
illogical and that's because you do not agree with my point of view and do not see it from my perspective. i did not mean to take it this far. I was expressing how i feel and obviously did not anticipate the consequences.
With all due respect sir, my logic and point of view stands and i won't change anything. i will oversee the grammatical and MLA format errors but that is it. this paper was not a A+ but it certainly wasn't a D- either.
Now that i've seen the expression i got out of you, i find it to be the best paper i've written yet. it was exactly how i expected the attacked audience to react. Now i have the outmost respect for you as a professor, thats why i
recommend you read the paper over, put your feelings aside and give me the grade i deserve. in the case this project cause me to fail this class, I will take the appropriate action and take it to your supervisor and make my
case.please do not take this as a threat, look inside yourself and think about this for a while. i am not going to rewrite this paper because you were offended sir, i can only sincerely apologize. i may have bad grammar
skills or whatever but a stupid kid, i am not sir. Thank you.
[Johnny]


Hi [Johnny]--
You're being naive if you think that I get offended by a paper criticizing my generation. I read and grade each paper from the perspective of an academic audience.
It is, of course, your option not to make any changes in your paper; it is, after all, your paper.
But you've already seen the grade that that paper will receive.
I wouldn't anticipate any change in that grade unless there are viable revisions in the final draft.

Mr. X


hello again SIR.

Guess we gonna have to do this dance because my decision stand. we have two choices: we can schedule a meeting and i will make my
case before you or i can wait until you give me the D than go straight to the dean or whoever is responsible for overseeing this matter. i may competely be naive sir... but i'm confident in my logic. im betting the majority who argue for our generation got this grade and thats why you brought the Bloom triangle BS to class the other week. i know u thinking about me wasting your time, i spent well over 6 hours on the assignment which you have assigned so id say i deserve a bit of ur time. therefore i suggest we try the first option.... [Johnny]


Hi [Johnny]--
My office hours are listed on the syllabus. Feel free to swing by--either with the draft you have or with the final version of the paper.
Be sure to correct the grammar errors before coming by. That should save us a lot of time.
Mr. X

Poor Johnny. Poor Mr. X.