Jules Verne Forum

<jvf@Gilead.org.il>

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec 19961997199819992000200120022003200420052006200720082009

Re: 20K - which chapts to skip? (sorry 4 the blasphemy)

From: Nejat Bayramoglu <neckobay~at~ttmail.com>
Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2008 01:39:15 +0200
To: "Jules Verne Forum" <jvf~at~gilead.org.il>

David, I'm sorry.
I may have great ideas about teaching, but being not a teacher myself,
perhaps it would have been better to keep my mouth shut.
Your response to my message revived memories of a pretty novel I had read
some forty years ago: "Up the Down Staircase"

Nejat


----- Original Message -----
From: "David Merchant" <merchant~at~latech.edu>
To: "Jules Verne Forum" <jvf~at~Gilead.org.il>
Sent: Thursday, January 03, 2008 1:03 AM
Subject: Re: 20K - which chapts to skip? (sorry 4 the blasphemy)


> At 01:27 PM 1/2/2008, you wrote:
>>David,
>>
>>Rick has provided the "official skipping list" of 20K chapters. I don't
>>think any Forum member can contest it.
>>
>>On the other hand, I would in a way side with Master Miller and suggest
>>that you leave the students free to skip any part or chapter that they
>>find boring, but ask them to provide their reason for skipping it in two
>>or three sentences.
>
> My only fear is that they will say every chapter is boring :-). Too many
> of my students are people who don't like reading (well, they think they
> don't like it, hard to say you don't like something if you've never done
> it before). They work very hard at fining escape clauses, loopholes,
> wiggle room. That they are experts and geniuses at. And if that fails,
> then they just skip short readings and take the penalty for failing a
> reading quiz (I'm working on increasing the penalties for that). Every
> quarter I have to add another clause to my ever lengthening syllabi to
> cover yet another loophole. Very literal, these engineers! I do have some
> that like to read, and a few that love to read - computer science majors,
> humanities majors, mainly. I'm afraid it is in no small part the failings
> of the Louisiana public school system. That, and the No Child Left Behind
> act - the high school teachers are too busy teaching to the tests, and
> little time for writing papers and critical reading. But that's a tirade
> for another list, not this one.
>
> TTFN,
> David
>
> --
> Instructor, Department of English.
> Louisiana Tech University
Received on Thu 03 Jan 2008 - 01:38:59 IST

JV.Gilead.org.il
Copyright © Zvi Har’El
$Date: 2009/02/01 22:36:11 $$