model writing sample
The troubling
part here is that
while I’d avoid
this teacher at all
costs - as a
student, parent
or administrator -
the state of New
York uses them
as a model.
Content grade: D;
Writing grade: C/C-.
Overall grade: C-.
Responses to "Please
Grade the Following
Essay, Part 2"
RSS 2.0 RSS Feed for
comments on this post.
You can leave a
response, or trackback
from your own site.
jungsun
July 25th, 2007 at 10:40
am
Did I read correctly?
This specific essay is a
model one? They use
others, too, I hope?
Matthew
July 25th, 2007 at 1:10
pm
You read it fine, Jungsun
- New York State uses
this response as a
model. They use two:
this one, which is labeled
“Stronger Response,”
and another - and yes, it
is worse - that they call a
“Weaker Response.”
I’m waiting on a call back
regarding some stats for
the test. As soon as I get
a little more concrete
information, I’ll write up
the details of this
question’s context and
why it’s such a travesty.
http://www.
matthewktabor.
com/2007/07/24/please-
grade-the-following-
essay-part-2/
The troubling
part here is that
while I’d avoid
this teacher at all
costs - as a
student, parent
or administrator -
the state of New
York uses them
as a model.
Content grade: D;
Writing grade: C/C-.
Overall grade: C-.
Responses to "Please
Grade the Following
Essay, Part 2"
RSS 2.0 RSS Feed for
comments on this post.
You can leave a
response, or trackback
from your own site.
jungsun
July 25th, 2007 at 10:40
am
Did I read correctly?
This specific essay is a
model one? They use
others, too, I hope?
Matthew
July 25th, 2007 at 1:10
pm
You read it fine, Jungsun
- New York State uses
this response as a
model. They use two:
this one, which is labeled
“Stronger Response,”
and another - and yes, it
is worse - that they call a
“Weaker Response.”
I’m waiting on a call back
regarding some stats for
the test. As soon as I get
a little more concrete
information, I’ll write up
the details of this
question’s context and
why it’s such a travesty.
http://www.
matthewktabor.
com/2007/07/24/please-
grade-the-following-
essay-part-2/
| Teacher Writing Sample Where's the direct teaching? Why is this teacher so passive? That's what she learned in education school, I suppose. How about teaching grammar and reading and writing skills through the career lessons? |
Following are two
strategies I’d use to
promote my students’
career awareness and
understanding of the
world of work. 1. Make
every other Friday a
“career-focus day” in
the class, and 2.
Implement language
arts activities on an
ongoing basis that
relate clearly and
directly to the
development of skills
students will need to
succeed in the work
force.
Career-focus days: I’d
start by dividing the
class into groups to
brainstorm lists of jobs,
companies, and other
job-related information
that students would
like to know about,
offering them examples
to get them started.
Based on these lists, I’d
have groups of
students compose
letters to send to
employers, workers,
and others in the
community asking
them to come talk to
the class about
different jobs, their
characteristics,
requirements, etc. I’d
also ask someone from
a local community
college to come
discuss the role of
further education in
students’ career plans.
I’d urge all speakers to
use hands-on activities
and materials and to
provide practical,
useful information in
an informal setting. To
help speakers prepare,
I’d also give them
student-generated lists
of questions so their
presentations would be
relevant to students’
concerns. As the year
proceeds, the career-
focus days would also
include other activities
besides speakers (e.g.,
visits to local
workplaces, computer
research into available
jobs), depending on the
needs and wishes of
class members. The
career-focus days
should be effective
mainly because the
activities would be
very student-centered
and organized to
address students’ own
questions, interests,
and concerns. In
addition, they’ll give
students access to
many different
“voices” and
perspectives. The
students know they’ll
be graduating soon
and needing to think
about work, so they
should be especially
motivated once they
realize that they really
control the agenda of
the career-focus days.
Ongoing instructional
activities. I’d regularly
incorporate into my
language arts
instruction various
activities to help
students develop
language and
interpersonal skills
that will be helpful in
their future work lives.
For example, I’d have
students work in
cooperative learning
groups to conduct
research and develop
group presentations on
topics of interest to
group members,
including perhaps
some topics that
specifically address job-
related areas of
interest. These
activities would help
students develop
practical workplace
skills (e.g., locating,
using and organizing
information, writing,
working
collaboratively,
organizing complex
tasks). I’d ensure that
students see how the
skills used in the
activities relate to
success in the world of
work by having them
reflect on and discuss
these connections. I
could address
immediate career
needs and motivate
students to improve
their work-related
skills by helping them
see how what they’re
doing in school links to
their needs in the
workplace.
UPDATE at 7.24.07, 5.15
pm:
You can read my critique
of the writing and
content at “Please
Grade the Following
Essay, Part 2.“
strategies I’d use to
promote my students’
career awareness and
understanding of the
world of work. 1. Make
every other Friday a
“career-focus day” in
the class, and 2.
Implement language
arts activities on an
ongoing basis that
relate clearly and
directly to the
development of skills
students will need to
succeed in the work
force.
Career-focus days: I’d
start by dividing the
class into groups to
brainstorm lists of jobs,
companies, and other
job-related information
that students would
like to know about,
offering them examples
to get them started.
Based on these lists, I’d
have groups of
students compose
letters to send to
employers, workers,
and others in the
community asking
them to come talk to
the class about
different jobs, their
characteristics,
requirements, etc. I’d
also ask someone from
a local community
college to come
discuss the role of
further education in
students’ career plans.
I’d urge all speakers to
use hands-on activities
and materials and to
provide practical,
useful information in
an informal setting. To
help speakers prepare,
I’d also give them
student-generated lists
of questions so their
presentations would be
relevant to students’
concerns. As the year
proceeds, the career-
focus days would also
include other activities
besides speakers (e.g.,
visits to local
workplaces, computer
research into available
jobs), depending on the
needs and wishes of
class members. The
career-focus days
should be effective
mainly because the
activities would be
very student-centered
and organized to
address students’ own
questions, interests,
and concerns. In
addition, they’ll give
students access to
many different
“voices” and
perspectives. The
students know they’ll
be graduating soon
and needing to think
about work, so they
should be especially
motivated once they
realize that they really
control the agenda of
the career-focus days.
Ongoing instructional
activities. I’d regularly
incorporate into my
language arts
instruction various
activities to help
students develop
language and
interpersonal skills
that will be helpful in
their future work lives.
For example, I’d have
students work in
cooperative learning
groups to conduct
research and develop
group presentations on
topics of interest to
group members,
including perhaps
some topics that
specifically address job-
related areas of
interest. These
activities would help
students develop
practical workplace
skills (e.g., locating,
using and organizing
information, writing,
working
collaboratively,
organizing complex
tasks). I’d ensure that
students see how the
skills used in the
activities relate to
success in the world of
work by having them
reflect on and discuss
these connections. I
could address
immediate career
needs and motivate
students to improve
their work-related
skills by helping them
see how what they’re
doing in school links to
their needs in the
workplace.
UPDATE at 7.24.07, 5.15
pm:
You can read my critique
of the writing and
content at “Please
Grade the Following
Essay, Part 2.“
| Published by Matthew June 8th, 2007 Florida A&M University, Florida Education Though I consult occasionally on academic subjects/media [usually history and its variants], my primary vocation is graduate/professional school admissions consulting. I help students elucidate their goals, identify the best schools that fit and get them in. Occasionally a school commits such an egregious misstep that I, as an admissions consultant, cannot in good faith recommend that a student apply to that particular school. Such is the case with Florida A&M University Law School [FAMU]. The St. Petersburg Times reported this week on the incompetence of Florida A&M Law School’s legal writing instructor. Victoria Dawson, hired at a salary of ~$105,000/yr., has trouble writing coherent sentences. This is not a joke. Dawson submitted a paper to several journals [through a distribution service] and the peer review process ate her alive. Why? Poor grammar, misspellings and unreadable sentences. In short, it is a total embarrassment for one charged with teaching law students - our future legal scholars - how to research and write. Peer review can sometimes be unkind, but criticism here is warranted. Here are a few examples of Dawson’s writing: “Environmental Dispute Resolution: Developing Mechanisims [sic] for Effective Transnational Enforcement of International Environmental Standards.” [This mistake appeared in the title.] “He consulted with government officials and he sent his general manager of asset management representative repeatedly crossed the creek to negotiate with village leaders of Ugborodo during the women’s 10- day occupation.” “Borrowing from the environmental dispute strategy of the local threats and the focus of Agenda 21 with the sustainable development flavor it is dispute settlement that is one of the key elements to ensure that the environmental dimensions of security can be maintained.” You can view more throughout and at the bottom of the article. If you’d like to generate your own, I suggest giving a 30-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon to an 8th grader, forcing him/her at gunpoint to write a legal brief and then laughing - or crying? - at the result. It is difficult to know where to begin when analyzing a situation like this. Regardless of the reasons for Dawson’s problems with writing, the conclusion is the same: those charged with preparing law students to conduct necessary research and expressing the results of that research clearly and coherently must themselves be expert practitioners. Students’ future jobs, not to mention the fates of their clients, will depend on those skills. If Dawson can’t write, she should not serve in her current capacity - this should be clear. FAMU is doing a disservice not only to students who aren’t getting the education they need, but also to alumni whose professional reputations will suffer. Staff associated with FAMU will also experience the fallout from this embarrassment. And FAMU Law, which currently operates with provisional accreditation from the American Bar Association, has not strengthened its case for full accreditation in the future. Regardless of the reasons for Dawson’s hiring - though also a contentious point, as her ties to Texas Southern University invoke thoughts of favoritism in hiring - the University’s response to Dawsongate is appalling. Apparently, many students have submitted written complaints to the University with little result aside from a typically bureaucratic stall. We will see in coming weeks whether FAMU’s administration, including Interim Law School Dean Ruth Witherspoon, will respond appropriately to restore both quality and dignity to a troubled program. The school’s mission statement includes the following: “To provide a law program with high academic standards that produces excellent legal professionals who demonstrate professionalism, provide public service, enhance justice and promote scholarship…” Until they align their practices with their theory, I cannot consider FAMU Law a viable option for any student. UPDATE at 6/09/07, 4.29 pm: PrawfsBlawg has a different take on Dawsongate: A few years ago, Professor Dawson posted on bepress [ed. - The Berkeley Electronic Press, which “produces tools to improve scholarly communication. These tools provide innovative and effective means of content production and dissemination”] a draft of a paper — still in need of a proof-read — as it was being circulated to law reviews for publication. The paper later appeared in the Missouri Environmental Law and Policy Review. Nothing too unusual there, right? Well, some FAMU students are “now using [the draft paper] to help build a case that Dawson is not qualified to teach and was hired primarily on the strength of her personal ties.” The Prawf who authored this post is quite kind, possessed with a charity I must lack, for describing the paper as “still in need of a proof-read.” Any sensible scholar, amateur or professional, should recognize that a paper written this badly might net them a C in 8th grade and is unacceptable anywhere beyond. After throwing some snark toward the St. Pete Times, the Prawfs continue: And so because someone posted a shitty first draft on bepress, she is facing questions about her competence to teach. I understand that legal writing may be part of her responsibilities and I understand that FAMU’s law school has had various serious problems, but I’m quite worried now that articles of the sort run in the St. Pete’s Times will undermine the goal of getting “tomorrow’s research today.” If this is the flimsy evidence of incompetence used to shame someone publicly, we can thank the St Pete Times — for now even more scholars, especially junior ones, will be worried about what their local paper will publish when there are incomplete or somewhat mangled drafts up on SSRN and bepress. Yes, you’re right - that’s exactly why she’s facing these charges. I could go on and on about how putting up such a rotten draft with total disregard for professionalism reflects poorly on herself, the institution and all scholars, but I won’t. I’ll let commenter “miss grammar” take it away: This is more than a “shitty first draft”. It is an incomprehensible first draft that reveals consistent (rather than merely episodic) grammatical problems (based on the select excerpts) and someone with solid writing and thinking skills would not have produced it or posted it online. I just looked up the “polished” version, which was published, and it is still very poorly written and hard to follow. Even based on the published draft, I am confident that my law school would never hire someone with these subpar writing skills into any profesional position, let alone a professorial or legal writing director position and under the circumstances I think the St. Petersburg Times is justified on reporting on this. The bigger story for me is how the law school and university seem ill equipped to deal with the problem of students who have lost confidence in their legal writing program. No one at the law school or university seems to be reassuring their students, which sets off major alarm bells for me about the management of this institution. I am also not sure how highlighting an extreme example of a law school hiring a person who is obviously a terrible writer and sloppy thinker to direct their legal wiriting program in any way undermines the incentive for faculty who can write in complete sentences and think logically to post their works on SSRN or BEPRESS before publication, even where that work may contain epidosodic errors or be subject to criticism. Don’t we want to subject our works to vetting by our peers before publication? Even if this means the occassional typo is brought to our attention? (Look and youi will find a number of typos in this work even after publication, and I doubt you will be able to follow the argument the author seems to be trying to make.) Maybe I am missing something? Well done, miss grammar. And, since I am confident in what the evidence shows [which is indeed more solid than “flimsy”], I have no trouble with shaming someone publicly, especially when their actions are a detriment to the education that many work hard to get. FAMU is a fine institution that need not be marred by pseudoscholarly-garbage; students come to FAMU - and everywhere else, for the most part - to get an education, not to be burdened with parsing their professor’s child-like writing. You hit the nail on the head when you said that inexperienced/younger scholars might be worried about the consequences of their actions. In the adult world, we call that “accountability,” and those of us who care deeply for standards/professionalism and have pride in ourselves and communities have no trouble doing what it takes to satisfy that metric. http://www. matthewktabor. com/2007/06/08/florida- am-law-school-famu- blacklisted-admissions- consulting/ |
Please Grade
the Following
Essay
Published by Matthew July
19th, 2007
I’d like some opinions on
the following essay - just a
sentence or two and a
standard letter grade [A
down to F] in the
comments will suffice,
though feel free to post
more if you’re inclined.
You can comment on the
writing or the content. [If
you’ve already read the
essay, you can jump
directly to “Please Grade
the Following Essay, Part
2.“]
I’ll post information about
what this essay is and
what it means after a few
readers have weighed in.
Background: The writer is
a prospective educator
and the essay is meant to
be read by a group of
educators. It is
reproduced verbatim, with
the exact structure,
punctuation, etc. of the
original.
Question: After identifying
what subject/level you will
teach, explain the
importance of helping
students develop career
awareness and an
understanding of the
world of work;
describe two strategies
you would use to achieve
this educational goal; and
explain why the strategies
you describe would be
effective in achieving this
educational goal.
Essay/response:
I plan to teach high
school English. In this
essay, I will discuss how
I’d work with “non-
college-bound”
students. Many such
students have very
limited horizons in terms
of thinking about what
jobs they’d enjoy and be
qualified for upon
graduation, so it’s
especially important to
increase their career
awareness and
understanding of the
world of work. An
important part of my role
would be to help them
recognize what their
career options might
include. I’d try to help
them overcome
insecurities by
prompting them to
consider the world of
work available to them
and working with them
to develop skills for
different kinds of jobs.
Most students respond
positively to learning
that they believe will
help them in their future
lives and careers. A
wise teacher takes
advantage of this
motivational factor by
integrating into subject
matter career-related
information and skills
that enable students to
be successful in the
world of work. Such
integration is especially
important at the senior
high level because of
the immediacy of career-
related decision making.
the Following
Essay
Published by Matthew July
19th, 2007
I’d like some opinions on
the following essay - just a
sentence or two and a
standard letter grade [A
down to F] in the
comments will suffice,
though feel free to post
more if you’re inclined.
You can comment on the
writing or the content. [If
you’ve already read the
essay, you can jump
directly to “Please Grade
the Following Essay, Part
2.“]
I’ll post information about
what this essay is and
what it means after a few
readers have weighed in.
Background: The writer is
a prospective educator
and the essay is meant to
be read by a group of
educators. It is
reproduced verbatim, with
the exact structure,
punctuation, etc. of the
original.
Question: After identifying
what subject/level you will
teach, explain the
importance of helping
students develop career
awareness and an
understanding of the
world of work;
describe two strategies
you would use to achieve
this educational goal; and
explain why the strategies
you describe would be
effective in achieving this
educational goal.
Essay/response:
I plan to teach high
school English. In this
essay, I will discuss how
I’d work with “non-
college-bound”
students. Many such
students have very
limited horizons in terms
of thinking about what
jobs they’d enjoy and be
qualified for upon
graduation, so it’s
especially important to
increase their career
awareness and
understanding of the
world of work. An
important part of my role
would be to help them
recognize what their
career options might
include. I’d try to help
them overcome
insecurities by
prompting them to
consider the world of
work available to them
and working with them
to develop skills for
different kinds of jobs.
Most students respond
positively to learning
that they believe will
help them in their future
lives and careers. A
wise teacher takes
advantage of this
motivational factor by
integrating into subject
matter career-related
information and skills
that enable students to
be successful in the
world of work. Such
integration is especially
important at the senior
high level because of
the immediacy of career-
related decision making.
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