The WORD Blog

“You’re anal,” concluded a student in one of my writing classes after I told her I wasn’t accepting her late class assignment. It’s clear in the class guidelines that first drafts of story assignments must be turned in on time or the grade for the assignment is F. But she seemed to believe, for reasons I didn’t understand, that I would overlook her serious omission. Well, said a student in another news writing class, we feel that the class is disorganized. We show up we and we never know what to expect.

These were the most notable comments in the face-to-face meetings I scheduled with my student writers in March. This semester, like the others, many didn’t read the syllabus nor the assignment guidelines and many came to class unprepared. Some can’t or won’t follow simple directions.

They, like many before them, Do the DUH a lot.

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