On the one hand, it sounded like the student ignored the purpose of the assignment. On the other, it sounds like the teacher was more interested in indoctrinating her students into her own liberalism than she was in teaching English.
“On the one hand, it sounded like the student ignored the purpose of the assignment.”
This may be ture, so give the student the grade they deserve and don’t blog about it. The parent’s were complaining about the blogging, not the grade (from what I read).
the student wrote an essay critiquing the president, the teacher wrote a sample one of what the student SHOULD have written with her own views that essentially trashed Bush and praised Obama. and the student didn’t get it? the only thing wrong with the student’s paper was that she was conservative and not liberal.
One Saturday in February, she posted her thoughts about a student's presentation in her English class at the Academy of Notre Dame de Namur, an all-girls private school in Villanova. She criticized its tone and political outlook.From her blog:[snip]
Collins added that she felt "annoyance" because she disagreed with the politics of the speech and "dismay" that her message about the right tone was not getting through.
[snip]
Collins maintains that she was the target of an unjustified attack by the Whites that was largely motivated by what she called in one e-mail to the school their "clear political intolerance" toward her views.
...obviously people are "stalking" me online and keeping a tally of what I say, how I vote, and my stance on the issues.Her political views, how she votes, and stance on the issues are wholly immaterial, irrelevent and absolutely not germane to teaching English whatsoever. While the student apparently failed to comply with the requirements for the assignment, the teacher's actions were far from 'conciliatory' in and of themselves.
The ONLY thing that the teacher can critique about the essay are mechanical issues, e.g., essay format, i.e., essay introductory statement, introductory paragraph content, thesis statement, body paragraph detail, body paragraph leading thesis-statement, conclusion statement and concluding paragraph content.
For example, the introduction should be designed to attract the reader's attention and give an idea to the reader of the essay's focus and to generate interest to continue reading. One should never cite opinion as fact in an essay. Moreover, one should absolutely abstain from the use of cliche', e.g., 'it goes without saying, bla bla bla' Obviously grammer, spelling and punctuation are to be totally hammered (regardless of the content of the essay).
This was apparently a 'creative writing' assignment, and so the topic would be at the student's discretion. However, the student had to conform to the requirements. This doesn't strike me as an essay where the topic is defined, e.g., themes in literature (define the literary devices that Nathanial Hawthorne uses in A Young Goodman Brown for character sketch, establishing the setting, or the use of foreshadowing, or point of view). Moreover, if the assignment was to compare or contrast two things, the content of the essay MUST address that reqruiremt. In these cases there is absolutely no lattitude for the student.
A conciliatory argument is not one that is antagonistic, offends, ridicules, belittles the reader's own views (or is overtly hostile), but is intended to assuage, garner sympathy for the writer's viewpoint, and intended to gain the goodwill or favor. A diatribe can not be considered to be 'conciliatory' in any sense or connotation of the word. If the writing 'style' failed to address those aspects of the assignment, then those are the qualities of the essay that deserved to be severely scored.
Most argumentive essys will require to defend a position, either for or against. In fact, most instructors who intend on teaching intellectual discipline will poll students positions on any arbitrary matter, and assign them to defend or argue a contrary position. If one truly wants to learn how to write an essay, try to write an essay defending abortion when one is hostile anti-abortion; that is truly an excercise in intellectual discipline.
It would be interesting to ascertain the degree of 'conciliatory' of tone the teacher's 'model' anti-Bush rebuttal essay contained. Sounds like this instructor wears their political ideologies on their sleeve for all to see. Whenever instructors wax and pontificate about political issues, students should question whether that specific material will on any exams forthcoming, or not. I absolutely relish being able to hijack classroom discussions all the way to Alpha-Centauri. In fact, whenever the instructor asks the class if there are any questions, I always inquire, "So, what's up with that whole Mid-East peace thing and do you think it'll ever be resolved?"