The Disgusted Teacher :: Teachers Teaching Education Writing Essays

The Disgusted Teacher In her paper, a student must not only support her belief in the death penalty, but also present counter-arguments to the readings. In response to an essay which claims that the death penalty is used in a racially biased way, the student writes, "Mostly blacks are given the death penalty because blacks are more violent and commit more crimes than other races." A student's assignment asks whether or not the U.N. should put a stop to infibulation in the Third World. The assignment is couched in and refers back to readings about multiculturalism and respect for other systems of belief. The student bypasses these questions and, as his main argument, suggests that infibulation should not be stopped because women who have had the operation, unlike American women, do not cheat on their husbands. A student comes into the University Writing Center, seeking help with a first year composition assignment on homosexual marriage. Her ideas are unfocused and she has no support for her view that gays should not be allowed to marry. After a half-hour, the student finally reveals that she is having trouble because, like Queen Victoria, she doesn't believe homosexuals actually exist. The frustrated (and gay) tutor bursts out with, "Well, you've been talking to one for the last half hour!" It can happen at any moment, to any instructor, that sudden, unreal feeling when a student voices a view that seems simply wrong. Not unsupported, or badly thought out, but simply, obviously and completely wrong. Women are biologically programmed to be neater than men. Vegetarians are cold all the time and die early because they don't eat enough protein. Children placed in day care grow up to be psychopathic killers. These kinds of views can surface anytime, but they seem to come up more often and to be more of a problem in first-year writing classes. They come up more often, it seems, because first-year writing classes are small, discussion-driven and tend to focus on building arguments by examining such controversial topics as abortion and the death penalty. First-year writing classes also focus on the student's ability to present and defend an opinion, rather than master a set of facts or theories. They are more problematic in these classes than elsewhere because the opinions form the basis of written work.