[lit-ideas] Re: sharing my brother's misery
- From: John Lye <jlye@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 10 Apr 2004 15:47:25 -0400
At 05:38 PM 4/10/2004 +0100, you wrote:
>I doubt anyone here teaches undergrad courses, but I had to see if anyone
>could tell me how comparable this is to undergrad work around the country.
>My
>brother forwarded me the below, re. a second semester comp class he teaches.
>I
>had my 12 year old fix the sentence and send it back to him <g>. The
>College
>is a well-regarded Private College. Btw, it was typed, not handwritten.
>Julie Krueger
>
><<The following is the first sentence of the paper I am currently grading:
>
>"Two women with somewhat matching situations and common traits, but then
>also
>had totally different outcomes to their stories.">>
In Canadian universities only a very few professors would not teach
undergraduate courses. It is relatively rare for graduate students to
teach at a higher level than Year 1, although some who have hung around
without completing their dissertations do.
What is interesting about the ungrammatical sentence, by the way, is that
it makes entirely good sense, despite its breaking the rules; drop the "but
then also" and there you have it. After 38 years of university teaching I
get a little tired of people whining and/or being scandalized about
students' bad grammar. It's not the end of the world, it is no reflection
on the student's character, and it is likely fixable.
Regards -- just popping in for a moment, don't mind me --
Professor John Lye
Chair, Department of English Language and Literature
Chair of Senate
Brock University St. Catharines, ON
Home page www.brocku.ca/english/jlye
Email jlye@xxxxxxxxx
"We're chained to the world/ And we all gotta pull."
-- Tom Waits
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