In high school, the writing load was very low and we moved at a painstakingly slow pace whenever we did the one research paper we did every year. The whole project generally was due about two months after it was assigned. It had to be an argumentative paper, dealing with our prospective careers or fields of study. As the years went on, we wrote more in depth about the career field, really specifying the exact job we wanted. It was pretty ineffective, seeing as we were high school students and changed what we thought we wanted to do about every two weeks. The papers ended up rarely corresponding with each other. For example, my sophomore research paper was on stem cell research, junior year was being a Spanish professor, and senior year was finally the advantages of being multilingual in international business. Nobody ever read my writing except for my teachers, unless they chose to use my paper as an example for next year's class. The projects were extremely tedious and time consuming for what seemed like absolutely no reason. We spent about two weeks coming up with our thesis statement, and we had a lot of time in class to do research. We had to turn in highlighted copies of our sources with the information we used, as well as turn in note cards with every piece of related information on them. We turned in many rough drafts. This two month process I generally began the night before the final copy was due, and ended up getting the highest grade every time. This is not a good thing, seeing as this is not going to happen in college. I am really looking forward to being challenged as a writer in college.
That's really similar to my high school experience with writing papers. My junior year we had to write a research paper about where we wanted to go to college. We had to do the same tedious tasks of notecard making, highlighting, constant revision, peer editing, etc. I would definitely agree with you that it was frustrating putting in all that work only to have my teacher read the final copy and give it an A because I turned it in on time and met my deadlines. Hopefully Commonplace will help us find a better audience for our work.
ReplyDeleteI too am unfortunately quite familiar with the "last minute A" and am also excited to be judged on content rather than structure. I am glad now for the structure that I learned in high school, however, though it may have been tedious at the time. Like a good artist is freed up by training and practice to finally express himself, a good writer finds a proper command of the language and grammar frees him up in a similar manner.
ReplyDeleteI can't believe you had to write career papers every year in high school! Mine would definetly change every year too seeing as I would want to be a teacher one week and a psychologist the next week. I hope you will be challanged in this class and enjoy writing meaningful papers!
ReplyDeleteIn my high school, we only ad to write a huge research paper our Junior year. Of course, we did other writing the other years, but they were mainly theme analysis' and persuasive essays. College will be different, and I feel unprepared for what we will be asked to do. I once had a teacher give us a writing assignment, and she didn't feel like reading them, so she gave us all a B+. I'm sure that will not happen at OSU!
ReplyDeleteMaybe writing about your prospective careers wasn't necessarily as ineffective as you think. I would probably feel the same way as you but after thinking about it, I think it was a good idea. Researching the career and writing the paper gave more insight into the career that you were considering at the time and perhaps it helped you realize that it was something you did not want to pursue. Maybe writing those papers saved you a few pointless quarters at school.
ReplyDeleteIn my high school, we had to write a career research paper about what we wanted to specifically major in college and what kind of job that we wanted to have once we graduated college. We started these career folders and we never got graded for them. The main purpose of them was to help us in finding a major. But the career research paper that we had to write was about nine pages long and I wrote mine on International Business. It in a way helped but I hoped that I could get graded for it because the teachers graded all my other research papers and those were shorter in length.
ReplyDeleteGreat post, Kelly. Your writing is very clear, and flows well, which is always helpful in a forum like the internet where people are not required to read anything-- clear, flowing writing keeps a reader engaged.
ReplyDelete