Perhaps, but the harshness isn't directed towards you
Man, I know how some, rather peculiar type assignments can get out there, and the students can get stuck... This one, well happened to a classmate of mine. When I was taking English 102 at UNM, the thing is the mid term composition and the portfolio (which counted for 50% of the semester grade) was graded by other people's teachers in the dept.
Unfortunately all didn't go well, as the teachers started flunking each other's students mid-terms, and from what our teacher said, talk amongst the faculty turned into
Oh yeah? You think you can give my students an F? Well 2 can play at that game. I'm flunking your whole class... Take that...
What a "wonderful" use of the grading power
And here I thought it was supposed to be about teaching the students something, rather then trying to get revenge against other teachers :down:
Anyhow, our teacher passed out the compositions, so another student could go over the paper, and help the writer by giving some constructive feedback which would help them improve their writting. This after we were told what had happened...
The paper I had gotten back, had absolutely no grammatical marks on it whatsoever, no corrections on his English, and only 1 comment. The student who's paper I was going over with him, was written from more of a Darwinist perspective, and the only comment said:
Humans are not animals. You're opinions are wrong, I'm giving you an F
Not withstanding it was an opinion essay, and not a research paper, what he had written could have found support from a number of professors who worked over in the biology dept., which I had known as I was taking a number of biology classes at uni. She litterly flunked him, cause his paper wasn't written from a Creationist perspective, and therefore she didn't personally like his opinions in an opinion essay
I finally, after reviewing the thing, and her only comment, took the paper up to our own teacher, showed him, and was like "Umm, how am I supposed to help him with this? There is not 1 shred of constructive critisism by the teacher who graded this, on this entire paper. What's more, professors in this very university, despite her claims his opinions are wrong, would back up what he has written here... How am I supposed to help him, when this was the only feedback given?"
Umm, rofl Yeah, some teachers can get a little strange with their assignments, and in many cases (albeit that he could have challenged, as one shouldn't flunk students for an opinion essay, simply because it gives a non-Creationist slant to the topic), it's the sorta BS one just has to go through... The operative word is to hang in there, do the assignment that is required, and know that when it's done, you won't have to look back