A midterm essay informs me that "Religious morels and values greatly change a person's life." When fungi find faith, there's hope for us all. Well, most of us, anyway.
I've just finished reading midterm essay exams, and overall, I'm pleased. Every student wrote an actual essay, which is a big improvement over past years, when some students saw the words "essay exam" as an excuse to toss a mess of unconnected insights onto the page. Some of the essays are quite good, and most are competent. However, I'm a little concerned about a small group of students who wrote pretty good essays that simply failed to meet the requirements for the assignment.
This happened in a freshman composition class that has been focusing intensely on properly incorporating material from sources into their own writing. The midterm exam asked students to write an essay in response to a particular question, drawing evidence from two of the essays they've read for class in the past three weeks. I had told them in advance that they should bring their textbooks because I expected them to use and document quotations from the readings, and the midterm exam assignment sheet specifically stated that they were required to use quotations and paraphrases from the two essays in question and to document them properly.
Most students demonstrated at least some acquaintance with the two essays and incorporated information from them with varying degrees of competence. One student, however, wrote a very interesting and creative essay that had nothing to do with the two readings and included a bogus Works Cited entry for the student's own encyclopedic knowledge of the topic. Three other students wrote fairly competent essays in which they vaguely referred to the two readings but included no solid information, no quotations, and no documentation. Did they ignore the instructions, or did they forget to buy the textbook?
What kind of thought process leads a student to spend an hour writing an essay that demonstrates little or no relationship to the assignment? Do they think that I just won't notice that they haven't fulfilled the requirements? Or do they hope to charm me with their sparkling prose? It's true that I am reluctant to write an F on a well-written essay, but what else can I do? Using and documenting quotations was a major component of this assignment, and these students simply failed to do that. And if they paid so little attention to the assignment sheet, how much attention will they pay to the helpful comments I write on their essays?
What these students need is a life-changing experience. Where are those religious morels when you need them?
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