A College Prof's Nightmare: Grading Essays of the Twitter Generation

by Rob Chambers

[delivered as Sunshine, January 4, 2010]

I find this hard to believe, but the Time magazine issue of Nov. 16, 2009 reports (on page 15) that 75 percent of American youth ages 17 to 24 are for one reason or another ineligible to enlist in the U.S. military.

What happens to them? I guess many go to college, and I feel like a lot of them end up in the World Literature course I teach part time at Kennesaw State University.

Many of these students are terribly unprepared.

This large problem became apparent nationally when, as part of a question and answer portion of the 2007 Miss Teen USA Pageant, Caitlin Upton, Miss Teen South Carolina, was asked to respond to this question: "Recent polls have shown a fifth of Americans can't locate the U.S. on a world map. Why do you think this is?"

Miss Upton famously answered:

I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, uh, some, people out there in our nation don't have maps and, uh, I believe that our, uh, education like such as, uh, South Africa and, uh, the Iraq, everywhere like such as, and, I believe that they should, our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., uh, or, uh, should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future, for our children.

Universities, of course, are aware that many students are clueless. This is advice from a Kennesaw State professor/administrator sent out in a recent e-mail:

[O]ften students don't know—and won't ask--what we mean when give writing assignments that say "discuss" or "analyze" or "trace" or "argue" or "evaluate" and so forth. To be more specific: We should not assume that students know what "summarize" means and how to do it; nor can we assume they know such terms as "paraphrase" and "quote" and "cite." If you tell them not to plagiarize, but fail to show students what these terms mean, your students may not have a clue about what you mean. You may not think you have to teach these terms, but you probably do.

Much of the student writing turned in to me is just plain vanilla bad like this opening paragraph of an essay assignment that was supposed to be about literary characters in relation to a theory by scholar Northrop Frye:

Northern Frye [sic] proposed a series of stages that can all be interrelated into the almost all the stories, these stages help show categorize characters into their stage of superiority. These stages of superiority seem to catalyze the climax or simply make it occur, depending on how useful the power's [sic] of action are. Powers of action refer to how much mental, physical, emotional stability a hero has. These stages along with the power's [sic] of action leave a hero wanting more, or simply ending his or her life, metaphorically or pragmatically speaking.

But I have to say this: a lot of student work is unintentionally funny.

For example, writer Franz Kafka describes the modern world as a horrible nightmare. My students read his novella, The Metamorphosis, in which the main character, Gregor Samsa, wakes up one morning transformed into a cockroach. His disgusted family isolates him and lets him die.

This is how one student essayist responded:

"Gregor Samsa's family expected him to make a living for them. He didn't have to quit. He could of gotten a job in a circus or in some place else that hires giant bugs."

In "A Modest Proposal," the great eighteenth century satirist, Jonathan Swift, savagely attacks the English who had conquered Ireland and turned the people into starving near-slaves. With total sarcasm Swift pretends to sympathize with the oppressors and suggests that they get rid of the poor by turning Irish children into foodstuffs to be butchered and eaten like beef or chicken.

Once upon a time, I had a student who thought this was a good idea. This is what the student wrote:

It is a good idea, but it is not good business to market the children when they are babies. I did a cost-benefit analysis, and you could raise them in feeder lots on corn meal or stuff even cheaper and sell them when they were as old as 14. You could get four times the meat for not a big extra cost.

Teaching, finally, is stimulating, and it keeps me joyfully learning new things. Just yesterday, for instance, I learned that Kraft produces enough Cool Whip in a year to fill the Grand Canyon.