English Papers

[Jewel <3]

Does anyone hate them as much as me? Today I went to my university and I went to the computer lab to write a 550 word essay. I ended up writing a 632 word essay. I hate how teachers are so strict sometimes. She gets you for the littlest things. I was just wondering how strict your english teachers are on papers and stuff and how much does she/he make you write?

[Bean Bandit]

English was always my worse subjects. Essays were always the hardest when they want you to include everything, in a certain amount of words. I never got them perfect.

["lotus alchemist"]

Teachers are always like that.. ya know what.. my teacher gave back my paper, and guess what! damn! a big OT in a red ink written out of place.. and said in a whole voice "you should do better than that and see ya in office." Man! He gave me 2days researching unfamiliar words.. oh well! that was my unforgettable scene in my universtiy, and I'm scared it might happen again.. HE is the weird teacher that I have.. You can't trace it's mood.. HE IS MOODY..

["lotus alchemist"]

oh well! I'm not 15.., one year higher, in my country! of course.. Americans can't be in college when they didn't reach 18.. here is different.. If someone wants to know^^

[Capernicus]

Yeah, English professors are pretty strict. I am one of the best writers I know of, and probably the best in that class, and he still saw fit to give me a B. >.> Why??? I'm sorry if the essay read more like a survey than an exploration. GOSH Explain what you want better ya old man. -_-;

[Ami~chan]

Well, even though I'm still in high school, I'm taking a college English and Algebra class through a nearby university. I've had to write quite a few papers, but honestly, I enjoy them. I love English, and writing papers, no matter what the subject.

And trust me; my class is no easier than any real college class.

[Knuffle Bunny]

Well, I'm not in university yet, but isn't it better that you wrote MORE than what yrou suppose to? To me, that's like holding back yoru education.

[BoldMushroom]

Apparently, I've always done really well on essays (though I scored a meager 7 on the essay in the new SAT - in my defense, the '06 class was the first to take it, and we only had 25 minutes). Despite this, I've never enjoyed writing them.

Mainly, I think essays are too standardized - they force writers into a very specific format. An essay assignment should challenge me to show how well I know the material, and how well I can convey it. It shouldn't be about how well I can fit my thoughts into a predefined writing model. Writing assignments should be more freeform - I can understand having a standard for organization, but most of the time I find it's constricting, it takes me longer, and it worsens my writing by making it seem more forced.

Still, I think writing assignments (in general - not just long essays) are probably the best method of gauging the performance of students... it shows that they are actually learning the material, it develops their writing skills, and it shows how well they can use logic, ingenuity, and reasoning. For certain subjects, we rely too much on feverishly studying and memorizing facts - things like homework, textbooks, and standardized tests.

[Eris]

Does anyone hate them as much as me? Today I went to my university and I went to the computer lab to write a 550 word essay. I ended up writing a 632 word essay. I hate how teachers are so strict sometimes. She gets you for the littlest things. I was just wondering how strict your english teachers are on papers and stuff and how much does she/he make you write?

I always struggle to make the word-limit, not to keep it below. My text is generally very concise.

[DynastyxFell]

I hate English papers. When I'm interested in something, I can write/talk about it for quite awhile. Most of the time, however, the topics for my English papers don't quite strike my fancy, so I end up having to rephrase everything to make it longer.

[Yugure's Goddess]

I sorta like English Essays. I'm not taking any college courses right now, but it's still kinda hard somtimes. Especially when they want you to do that boring 5-7 paragraph format every other time. It makes it kind of dull but I understand why they do that.

....I'm a decent writer and I tend to write a lot to express my feelings on a subject (just look at like half my posts, those are essays, themselves). But I also try to suggest a different view point on the subject than what is asked of in the writing prompt (that usually gets a couple extra points for originality). For instance We've just started our first essay of the year in English and the writing Prompt is something like in the Lord of the Flies, Ralph says something to the effect that "We need to have rules and follow them" and it asked how are rules important in society. Now I'm writing my Essay in opposition to the opinion expressed in the prompt and doing pretty well to support it (I'm so proud of it, as thus far, I may post the finished results in my journal).

But yeah, if you have problems give unique perspectives and support it with stuff from literature and history. Stuff like that. I, myself never have much trouble meeting word requirements, since when I get on a roll... there's not stopping me, I even get comments sometimes that I write too much (and sometimes side-track a bit... THAT'S frustrating and hard to correct on my part, sometimes... >_>)

...

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