Your assignment for next week [furious scribble, shuffling of papers, semiaudible groans] is to write an essay of 1500 words on one of the following topics: (instructor lists three or four options). One week later, to the hour, the trembling hands of the acolyte usher forth pages of not so purple prose to the high priest of ENGLISH COMPOSITION, who bears them off to his lonely monastic cell. For all the average student knows, what is next performed is as mysterious as alchemy, as indecipherable as Celtic runes-the student never witnesses the isolated acts of the most holy of holies-,the grading of the essay.1 This is done as the priest moves to each essay, in turn, changing its often hoped-for gold into dross, making strange almost hieroglyphic-like markings in the margins-symbols like awk, / /, and dele., and finally consigning each to Heaven (A), or Hell (E), or Purgatory (any grade between). There is, usually, no appeal to the hierophant-his mark is low, his decision final. The last paragraph is only partially exaggerated; most students instantly recognize the process. Freshmen tend to take his-the evaluator's prescriptions a bit more seriously than world-weary seniors who, by dexterous sleight of hand, have managed to put off their composition requirements until the last possible moment. In both instances, however, the process of mystery remains-one hands in a paper, and at some later date, receives it back.2 If the student agrees with the grade, she tends to file the paper away with minimal attention. If she disagrees with the grade, our by now angry writer scrutinizes the evaluated paper intensely, looking not so much for her own mistakes, but for those, if any, of her instructor hoping against hope that she'll find one, (or at the very least, an ambiguity) which will help raise her grade-every little bit helps.3 Not the

Preview this article: Contract/Conference Evaluations of Fresnhman Composition, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/ce/37/7/collegeenglish16670-1.gif