Dr. Ehrlich, Ms. Haydee and Ms. Maire - I am going to have to confront the issue of grading for the first time ever as a student and its nothing short of awful, and exhausting. To discover how impossible its been to move forward with my papers or go to lecture this past week, as the disconnect between our knowledge of the materials in class and our corresponding answers on the midterm - resulted in very poor grades I find….really….disheartening. We students discuss the materials and answers and compare them to the grades we were given. We discuss the ideas and authors with others who have knowledge of the materials and the problem is obvious: The grader employed to read and grade our midterm of essay style answers cant recognize adequate answers. She confirmed this for me specifically in my meeting with her where I was given 10 minutes to try and discover how i missed answers so badly on material i was sure i knew well, based on my participation in class. I dont think she has been prepared with the knowledge base necessary to evaluate our exams. In another explanation we were supposed to recognize a key word in one question a word like quality, i dont remember exactly it was inconsequential - it wasnt a word that had any specific bearing…it wasnt Communist manifesto, or antisemitic pathology, or any one word that was attributable to the author of a class reading - and yet, she pointed to this word in an exam question i recognized and detailed for me how this one word should have triggered me to know it corresponded to these 5 lines highlighted in a book of copies she had, not the reader, and assured me this was the proper answer and what Dr. Ehrlich was looking for. The idea that this is even possible as a structure is horrifying in that were told by the instructor that wont ever happen in an exam, because valid answers can take many forms. I didnt recognize the lines she showed me as the valid answer. i recognized the question and answered that - without considering this one word was the question. I could and would defend the answer i produced for the question on the exam as most people interpreted it - having done so, from…and Im sorry to have to say this…all the words in the question. You put me in a room right now with anyone qualified to evaluate the questions and answers, face-to face, no phones are databases - even with my imperfect lowly student knowledge base fading and broken and ask me to recite or write answers to reasonable questions on any of the first half semester materials, questions that demonstrate I can accurately and adequately explain for you the main themes of each expert i can do it. I have done it, and the page of questions with my handwritten answers now with their comments and scoring demonstrate I did so adequately, maybe even well. You have another point of view i can field it, and discuss it with you. And if you cant because you havent read the readings Ill know it, and Ill call you on it. Does a D really represent my performance on the midterm? Whatever that answer was i was supposed to recognize, i never saw it before, and thats no doubt a gamble i lost, having read 80 to 90% of everything was adequate to have command of general ideas and most specifics, but not all, thats on me. Im surprised that i had that question so wrong and embarrassed it refers to 5 specific lines i never read. oh and i missed a question as i stated perviously, I counted the number of questions i had completed incorrectly - we were instructed to answer 5 out of 7 I believe it was..and as my exam book shows I completed 4 and left with time remaining having counted and recounted, sure i had completed 5 plus the essay question. The irony is the class defines modernism and post modernism. I would define both this way: If theres one word to define modernism you could make a case for that word being specialization, (Marx would agree, but Im agreeing with him, thats not my idea i read it somewhere in our materials). My answers to the midterm questions are in one place, the page of questions are in another, the professor who teaches the class whom I think is great and with whom I discuss the ideas in class with is not the person who graded our midterms. The person who graded our midterms we never met or saw until after we had taken our midterms, and assured she was eminently qualified to do so, and that these grades would not be considered for review. Our answers and grades tell a very different story and upon leaving the meeting with the reader was i informed the grades were available for review. This is modernism. The day, two weeks ago, when we were introduced to the reader for the first time, after having taken our midterm and having them returned…it just happens that she was sitting in the chair directly behind me - thats post modernism. I felt sick and left class early by this - having been able to politely schedule my meeting with her for the next day in whispers during Dr. Ehrlichs lecture. Thats also post-modernism, felt inappropriate and my choice based on how i was feeling at the time. Post modernism could be defined more completely in that the question page, the answers, the reader/grader, the professor, and the student have never been and wont ever be allowed to be - in the same room together with their knowledge and to discuss the questions and answers. Whether the grade stands or is changed is of no consequence to me, i wont challenge that - what I am challenging is my answers to the questions handed to us for the midterm. I would call them mostly/adequately correct. The professor/grader/reader have found them to be mostly incorrect and if anyone thinks Ill be pacified with a grade change without addressing my answers OR demonstrating for me that my answers are indeed mostly wrong - or that this is an indirect or direct request for a grade change - that would be both post-modern, and incorrect. I left that exam recognizing the questions and sure i had the answers a perception thats been reliable in predicting my grade which I was sure was A-/B+. C would have surprised me and i wouldnt bother questioning. D is too far an outlier from my previous college work and standard deviation of my perception to not question, at least. Its the surprise from my classmates with whom I shared my grade and discussed our answers thats ruled my inquiry, had i not chatted with others I would have assumed I was just off that day and the answers are wrong and i didnt see the questions correctly and some answers required very specific definitions as stated in the materials. I couldnt decide if this was horrifying or hilarious. In my meeting with the reader Im not sure what questions she was referring to, and i didnt recognize the answer she showed me with her clarification on questions that were…..different questions than the midterm stated, All of us have asked her, Why wasnt it stated that way, if thats the question? if you change the wording of the questions in a private meeting from the words on the page, obviously I would give you a different answer. I asked her if she would read the question, the answer, and discuss it with me. She would not. I offered to demonstrate verbally an answer to any question she might pose, she responded with, Writing them and speaking them is different and this midterm exam asks you to respond with the knowledge you had in writing on that day. Fair enough, i just assumed those guidelines pertained to the questions on the exam as well, not just our answers, and it has not. This does not address my answer to the question we were presented with on that day on their page. Their claim is I got the question wrong so my answer is of course wrong. My request is show me 6 answers out of the class of 65 right or wrong, that interpreted the question to be what the professor and reader are claiming was the question. If 10% of the class attempted to provide answers to the question as Dr. Ehrlich and his reader have defined since the midterm thats very different from what Im told was the question and different from the words on their page of questions - ill live with 90% of us got the question wrong, but i think 10% is a reasonable minimum demonstration for the professor to claim through the reader my answer wasnt considered because i missed the question. Thats easy to claim about me, or any one student and make it stand up when presented behind a closed door, verbally, individually. I dont think that holds up in public (modernism), and it may never have a chance (post-modermism) because the only possible outcome of a successful appeal benefits the student and damages the professor, and the institution in the way Marx says it will from his place in the 1800s looking forward from the beginning of the beginning of the industrial revolution. Thats what the communist manifesto is to my surprise, having read it. It doesnt say anything about Communism, it predicts with frightening accuracy who we will become and how we will behave from the effects of specialization and the Industrial revolution and that we wont have any recognizable life outside of these commercial values, and while you may not agree with my summary, he goes into detail, and the truth is very deniable to anyone who reads it which is also post-modernism. It didnt use to be - during modernism. I wouldnt bother with this until Spring because Im too sick, too tired and content in having my midterm blue book with which I can demonstrate i expressed in written form on that day reasonable command of the class and its offerings by my answers to Dr. Ehrlichs questions on the midterm. The grade of D on my midterm means Dr. Ehrlich would disagree which has left me questioning my ability to tread, to listen to him and understand. The midterm grade says i cant adequately do these things, while others tell me i have and i can. Could i submit an excellent midterm paper on Tuesday and get an F? if i dont recognize a question on the final can i write crap and score well on that question? According to other students, based on their midterm grades and their knowledge of that they did not know and their willingness to share honestly with me about it - the answer to my questions here would be most likely. As a student with disabilities you can call me late with my papers, you can judge me for missing lectures and not reading half a chapter here or there. But no one has ever told me i wasnt capable of delivering quality work, and if thats the case then that news is going to be very hard on me, because i love being a Berkeley student, and i know i have limits that are documented. If the issue is my perception Im open to having that adjusted, and came to do so assuming that was the problem. But If its a mental health issue and i cant see with your explanations how my work is off, I cant continue at school. Im not going to mince words, i could give a shit about the grade myself, but the Office of Financial Aid might feel differently. What I care about is my command of the work, subject, readings, lectures and my comprehension, perception, and synthesis of class offerings that allows me to demonstrate to anyone - including anyone of you - anyone at UC Berkeley adequate command of the class worthy of a passing grade. My concern that for the first time a grade does not reflect my studies. I can argue this is both modernism in idea, and post modernism if its true. these arguments arent relevant yet. Post Modernism might be explained well by using as example: the very common demand and insistence by a student to a professor their need for an A in that professors class as if the grade could not be earned by the student through their work in class, or that their work shouldnt be of consequence especially if that students work is not A work. This demand/need for an A doesnt seem to materialize from students i study with, i cant tell you based on my experience if students that do A work and know it, feel the need to demand a grade from their professor outside of the work theyve delivered in class. This is decidedly post modern. Its also bizarre. This is not a Socratic method of reasoning from students, unless of course grades are bestowed from divine rights, like kings - this is even pre-modernism. I assumed i could earn a grade based on my work and that my work was good to excellent in this class. While that assumption is valid and modern, and it might not be true, which would make it post-modern.
Posted on: Sat, 23 Nov 2013 12:54:01 +0000
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