Why can't anyone write properly?

[bitWISE]

Some of my college classes require me to do group work and every time I am amazed at the lack of writing skills. I know that I don't typically exzibit great ability with my posts so you can just imagine how bad these tards are. The class I'm in right now is actually for working adults so the two people in my group are like 30+. They have experience which makes them a little wiser than me but I'm rewriting our paper because it sucks so bad. They don't know how to use apostrophes and the sentance structure is just terrible. Here is an example:
"We realize and understand that no one wants to be in debt or wanted to be in debt, but during hard times, we have to make decisions that help the situation. We have very professional associates that would sit and talk to you about your debt and what we at Buckeye Finance can do to help you. All information will be kept private. We are not in the business to make things harder for our clients by exposing their debt." :icon27:

Have any of you guys had to deal with this shit? How do you think I should handle returning the paper? I was only supposed to be designing a letter head but I am not going to turn in something like this.

[phantasmagoria]

I'm at an art college where half the students are dyslexic. It's frustraiting at the best of times.

[Pext]

i'm from germany... and i'm lazy. so i don't think my english is allways that good

[bitWISE]

Damn I can imagine.

[Foo]

I usually write on 2 levels, I write out the points I want to get across, then I look at it and structure it into a formal framework, complete with any extra structure I want to put across (for example, at work when sending out IT notices, I deliberatly rework emails to present a 'we' view of our department rather than 'I am doing so and so, please log off'. A basic example, but anyway, I digress:

Many people do not perform this step. In my experience, they've just not had experience with professional writing or it was not a part of their education. Either way, you can suggest they take this step diplomatically. Might save you some work.

[Guest]

i'm from germany... and i'm lazy. so i don't think my english is allways that good

"always"

[tnf]

I hear you. When I taught at the university I was always amazed at the work that was turned in. I couldn't believe that people could actually graduate high school with such poor writing skills. Now I teach high school, and see how it happens.

[Billy Bellend]

i think i can , but im tramatized into my way only

[GONNAFISTYA]

Now I teach high school, and see how it happens.

How exactly?

[phantasmagoria]

I learned far more about English grammar than i ever learned in my English GCSE or even A Level when i took GCSE German, even the very basic lexical and syntactical methods just aren't taught anymore.

I recently learned that English GCSE exam papers were no longer going to be penalised for spelling and grammatical errors

[tnf]

It begins in the middle schools. Students enter middle school (grades 7 and 8) with a 3rd or 4th grade reading level. They leave middle school with the same reading level.
They are promoted to the next grade for no other reason than it is easier for teachers, and because we are so concerned about students' 'feelings' that we don't dare hold them back - it would hurt their self-esteem. GWB tried to address some of this social promotion with NCLB - but all that boils down to is teaching students how to take standardized tests. If I really were to hold my students to high, high writing standards, I'd be failing 50% of them and dealing with irate parents telling me "you teach science, not English." (I've heard that one before.)

[FragaGeddon]

Blame it on the english teachers.

[Nightshade]

It begins in the middle schools. Students enter middle school (grades 7 and 8) with a 3rd or 4th grade reading level. They leave middle school with the same reading level.
They are promoted to the next grade for no other reason than it is easier for teachers, and because we are so concerned about students' 'feelings' that we don't dare hold them back - it would hurt their self-esteem. GWB tried to address some of this social promotion with NCLB - but all that boils down to is teaching students how to take standardized tests. If I really were to hold my students to high, high writing standards, I'd be failing 50% of them and dealing with irate parents telling me "you teach science, not English." (I've heard that one before.)

Why, Mr. tnf, are you trying to say that shitty parenting is the cause of YET ANOTHER of the world's ills?

[Eraser]

It was terrible on my college as well. People just write terrible sentences, use bad punctuation and make plain grammar mistakes. I found myself rewriting large pieces of text often as well.

[4days]

I learned far more about English grammar than i ever learned in my English GCSE or even A Level when i took GCSE German, even the very basic lexical and syntactical methods just aren't taught anymore.

I recently learned that English GCSE exam papers were no longer going to be penalised for spelling and grammatical errors

aye, literacy's on its way down the pan over here

at school, there were a few weeks of "this is a verb, this is an adjective" from a supply teacher, then our regular english teachers got back to the steady diet of making us all write reviews of 'teen reader' books. as far as i could tell, the only purpose of the review was to determine whether or not we'd read the book and spent more than 10 minutes writing out a few sides of A4. that was 15 years ago, can't imagine things have gotten any better since then. hardly suprising that kids cram for A levels - they've probably learned fuckall in the previous decade.

bumped into my old english teacher in a pub in birmingham a while back. he complemented me on a story of mine that he'd read in a magazine, then tried to take the credit for being such a great english teacher. if i were a bigger man, i'd have smiled and let him wax on - describing how those few years spent listening to him prattle about judy blume stories refined my skill - but i'm not, so i didn't.

[Dave]

I hear you. When I taught at the university I was always amazed at the work that was turned in. I couldn't believe that people could actually graduate high school with such poor writing skills. Now I teach high school, and see how it happens.

If I end up going the teaching route, I'm going to do all I can to be a writing asshole. College work isn't too hard for highschool students--at least history work isn't that hard... They're not trying to cure cancer or anything.

I reviewed a paper by this girl in my class last semester that was utterly horrible... full paragraph's of direct quotes, "I think...", and numerous other problems. This would have been ok, but I found out later she's an 'honors student' :ack:

[Billy Bellend]

instead o writin asshole, how bout

a vigilent proponant o the writing arts

mabe studens would be casual'er with that

[Dave]

speaking of writing...

[Billy Bellend]

when needed im rockin heavy

[Dave]

I know.. that's why I bring it up

[Billy Bellend]

:blueshe:

[DRuM]

exzibit

exhibit.


Yea, I ca.n unders.tand yor frustrasion theyres nothing wurse then peeple who cunt write proper.lee.

[werldhed]

I hear you. When I taught at the university I was always amazed at the work that was turned in. I couldn't believe that people could actually graduate high school with such poor writing skills. Now I teach high school, and see how it happens.

If I end up going the teaching route, I'm going to do all I can to be a writing asshole. College work isn't too hard for highschool students--at least history work isn't that hard... They're not trying to cure cancer or anything.

I reviewed a paper by this girl in my class last semester that was utterly horrible... full paragraph's of direct quotes, "I think...", and numerous other problems. This would have been ok, but I found out later she's an 'honors student' :ack:

Do it. I never had to grade written papers when I was teaching labs, but I had done pleanty of proofreading for other students, and it was unbelieveable how poor their writing was. Sometimes I'd hesitate to scribble all over their papers -- for fear of insulting them or pretending I'm better than them -- but I'd always tell myself that they'll never learn how to do it right unless you sit them down and say, "This is terrible writing." Often I'd surprise the "honors students" because I was a slacker/anti-prep at a fairly conservative college, so most people assumed my hairstyle/clothing/attitude signified I didn't know anything. When I'd call them out on stupid writing, though, they'd be ashamed of being corrected by someone who wasn't wearing a cartigan.

"OMG! This druggie pot-head got a better grade on his analysis of Socrates' early case for monotheistic philosophy than I did! Terrorist!" :icon23:

[werldhed]

If I really were to hold my students to high, high writing standards, I'd be failing 50% of them and dealing with irate parents telling me "you teach science, not English." (I've heard that one before.)

I'd have to imagine that's frustrating when science writing requires an extremely high level of precision. When a parent says something like that, you should hand them a copy of a recent journal publication and say, "This is how well your child needs to be able to write if he or she wants to learn science."

[Billy Bellend]

maybe that explains why there is so many more readers than writers

ey

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