Monday, March 26, 2007

better late than never

I agree with the previous posts that writing the assignment was a bit of a task. Needless to say, creating the assignment from a different perspective put a new spin on things. I found myself reading, re-reading and re-reading, trying to make sure someone else could understand exactly what I wanted. I found myself double checking grammar and using the thesaurus quite a lot. One of the handouts had a list of helpful active verbs and in what situation to use them. I think it was orange. Anyways, I found that very helpful to clarify the assignment so I didn't repeat "create" "develop" etc. Your parting comment about which professor surprised me. I guess I would much rather the ambiguous professor with room for creativity. Then, I would probably go and argue after if the assignment was not to his/her liking, but still I see your point. It's a happy medium that (unfortunately) few teachers are able to achieve. I find most of my assignments are either too wordy or so far out in left field I think I stepped into the wrong class. Just curious, what would everyone else prefer -- lengthy assignments or little guidance with room for personal interpretation (note the rhetoric)?

1 comment:

Larysa Balysky said...

I feel that sometimes leaving room for personal interpretation may leave too much room for ambiguity, but I think it depends on the professor and their expectations. If the professor has a set of expectations in mind for the assignment, but leaves the assignment up to the students then that would be unfair. Professors who truly leave the assignment’s interpretation to the students should know that each student’s work will be uniquely different. Also, some students may have a preference that needs to be catered to. There are students who are very artistically creative and others who are very rigid and organized so they like everything laid out for them. I feel that this is a very difficult question to answer and hopefully most professors find a happy medium.