Thursday, January 31, 2008

Writing Advice

This is a footnote, as it were, to my post "How would a fool do it?"

My two colleagues and I were giving the final English-language exam to students earlier this month. One student who had been having serious problems (she had failed the exam twice) had still been struggling in the exam preparation course with my colleague Joyce. Shortly before the exam, Joyce made a surprising suggestion: "Write what you think is a bad essay." So she did, and when we marked it, we thought it was fine!

4 comments:

Donald Brown said...

What a fool believes he sees
No wise man has the power
To reason away
--Becker / Fagen

Andrew Shields said...

Isn't that a Doobie Bros. song? Did F&B write for the Doobies?

Donald Brown said...

Hey, you're right! My mistake! I was thinking of a song on the first Dan album, but quoted the wrong song!

the song I was thinking of was "Only a Fool Would Say That."

age... plays tricks...

Andrew Shields said...

The first, mistaken quotation was still wonderfully apropos.