Full disclosure time
I gotta be honest here.
The only reason I am doing this Oprah essay judging thing is so that I have something to blog about. That and the money. But more for the material it would garner for this blog.
The question the students had to answer was "How is Elie Weisel's "Night" relevant today." I wish I had logged all the hilarious things I read in these essays. I know a lot of teenagers, and sometimes I am shocked at how much they dramatize the most minor things. But some of these teenagers took it to a whole new level. One girl compared the holocaust to when a good friend of hers "dumped her" for a new boyfriend. Another girl said that Hispanic Americans are the new Jews. Some kids got all God Squad on me and started quoting the Bible and making connections between abortion and the holocaust. Only a few kids made the connection between Rwanda and Sudan, which I was kind of hoping to see more of. The ones that did this were all honest enough to at least cite their sources; unfortunately, all of them used fucking Google or Wikipedia as a primary source of information. Awful.
It's a good thing nearly all of them were hands-down shitty essays; we weren't given much instruction in how to evaluate them.
As I have been brainwashed by a fancy suburban school district with high standards, I expect a rubric for everything. It's gotten so bad that when I go to the grocery store I search the shelves for a rubric for the produce; I simply cannot identify quality without a table containing the words "Exceeds Expectations, "Meet Expecations" and "Fails to Meet Expectations" at the top of each column. When I walked in, the girl gave me a stack of papers and told me to give each a score of 1-10 (using decimals if I wish) for 5 categories- Creativity, Originality, Relevance to the Question, Structure and something else that escapes my mind right now. She said I might not see a single essay that comes anywhere near the total of 50 so I should not stress if I found myself giving low scores. Not only did she not give me a rubric, but she would not even tell me what these kids were competing for. I mean, let's face it, if it's a college scholarship my standards are going to be different than if it's two tickets to the Oprah Show. If it's a large sum of money to be put toward a college education, I'm looking for mind blowing writing; if it's Oprah tickets, I'm looking for a girl who is going to dress real nice and put on a good hands-trembling-over-her-face crying display when Oprah walks onto the stage. If nothing else, I'd like to see a good old fashioned sob story for a pair of Oprah tickets. Still, all she said was "the winner and a friend will get to come to the show when Elie Weisel is on." Oh boy. That's really exciting. Don't get me wrong; I'm sure Mr. Weisel is an amazing interview, but do they seriously expect me to believe that they are paying all these teachers $23/hour to read 500,000 essays just so we can determine the lucky winner of two fucking Oprah tickets? Please. I've seen this woman give away hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of highly sought-after material goods to an audience full of screaming upper middle class white women; there's no way she's being this stingy with two tickets and a chance to sit in the same room as Elie Weisel.
Anyway, I did not give a score that exceeded 35. The kid that got the 35 simply composed a nice, inoffensive 5 paragraph essay with a three-pronged thesis, which started to look like Pulitzer Prize winning stuff by the time I flew through 80 essays. It was easy grading though because I could tell right away when I did not need to waste time reading an entire essay. Automatic disqualifiers included:
1. The use of an exclamation point anywhere within the text of the essay (which is always an automatic DQ for me)
2. An introduction that included:
a. "According to dictionary.com Holocaust is defined as..."
b. The holocaust was a devastating time in history.
c. Some people might think racism is over, but it's still a huge issue today.
d. Pain. Suffering. Torture. That's what Elie Weisel and his family lived through.
3. The use of the fonts Comic Sans, Curlz MT or Apple Chancery (again, an automatic DQ)
I'll go back tomorrow to do some more grading. I did it for 3 hours tonight, and I was so over the thrill of someday getting a paycheck signed by Oprah Winfrey. Sadly, it looks as if the "essay grading" that I feared was actually a trip to some exotic place if I did not attend is, in fact, just essay grading. But like I said, it's $23/hour and blog worthy. And in these desperate times much like the ones Mr. Weisel faced, that's all we can hope for (that's a direct quote from a kid from South Carolina).
The only reason I am doing this Oprah essay judging thing is so that I have something to blog about. That and the money. But more for the material it would garner for this blog.
The question the students had to answer was "How is Elie Weisel's "Night" relevant today." I wish I had logged all the hilarious things I read in these essays. I know a lot of teenagers, and sometimes I am shocked at how much they dramatize the most minor things. But some of these teenagers took it to a whole new level. One girl compared the holocaust to when a good friend of hers "dumped her" for a new boyfriend. Another girl said that Hispanic Americans are the new Jews. Some kids got all God Squad on me and started quoting the Bible and making connections between abortion and the holocaust. Only a few kids made the connection between Rwanda and Sudan, which I was kind of hoping to see more of. The ones that did this were all honest enough to at least cite their sources; unfortunately, all of them used fucking Google or Wikipedia as a primary source of information. Awful.
It's a good thing nearly all of them were hands-down shitty essays; we weren't given much instruction in how to evaluate them.
As I have been brainwashed by a fancy suburban school district with high standards, I expect a rubric for everything. It's gotten so bad that when I go to the grocery store I search the shelves for a rubric for the produce; I simply cannot identify quality without a table containing the words "Exceeds Expectations, "Meet Expecations" and "Fails to Meet Expectations" at the top of each column. When I walked in, the girl gave me a stack of papers and told me to give each a score of 1-10 (using decimals if I wish) for 5 categories- Creativity, Originality, Relevance to the Question, Structure and something else that escapes my mind right now. She said I might not see a single essay that comes anywhere near the total of 50 so I should not stress if I found myself giving low scores. Not only did she not give me a rubric, but she would not even tell me what these kids were competing for. I mean, let's face it, if it's a college scholarship my standards are going to be different than if it's two tickets to the Oprah Show. If it's a large sum of money to be put toward a college education, I'm looking for mind blowing writing; if it's Oprah tickets, I'm looking for a girl who is going to dress real nice and put on a good hands-trembling-over-her-face crying display when Oprah walks onto the stage. If nothing else, I'd like to see a good old fashioned sob story for a pair of Oprah tickets. Still, all she said was "the winner and a friend will get to come to the show when Elie Weisel is on." Oh boy. That's really exciting. Don't get me wrong; I'm sure Mr. Weisel is an amazing interview, but do they seriously expect me to believe that they are paying all these teachers $23/hour to read 500,000 essays just so we can determine the lucky winner of two fucking Oprah tickets? Please. I've seen this woman give away hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of highly sought-after material goods to an audience full of screaming upper middle class white women; there's no way she's being this stingy with two tickets and a chance to sit in the same room as Elie Weisel.Anyway, I did not give a score that exceeded 35. The kid that got the 35 simply composed a nice, inoffensive 5 paragraph essay with a three-pronged thesis, which started to look like Pulitzer Prize winning stuff by the time I flew through 80 essays. It was easy grading though because I could tell right away when I did not need to waste time reading an entire essay. Automatic disqualifiers included:
1. The use of an exclamation point anywhere within the text of the essay (which is always an automatic DQ for me)
2. An introduction that included:
a. "According to dictionary.com Holocaust is defined as..."
b. The holocaust was a devastating time in history.
c. Some people might think racism is over, but it's still a huge issue today.
d. Pain. Suffering. Torture. That's what Elie Weisel and his family lived through.
3. The use of the fonts Comic Sans, Curlz MT or Apple Chancery (again, an automatic DQ)
I'll go back tomorrow to do some more grading. I did it for 3 hours tonight, and I was so over the thrill of someday getting a paycheck signed by Oprah Winfrey. Sadly, it looks as if the "essay grading" that I feared was actually a trip to some exotic place if I did not attend is, in fact, just essay grading. But like I said, it's $23/hour and blog worthy. And in these desperate times much like the ones Mr. Weisel faced, that's all we can hope for (that's a direct quote from a kid from South Carolina).
posted by Sue Ellen Mischke at 5:32 PM
10 Comments:
You accused me of not updating, but I do have an update. The only problem is an entry got deleted somehow, so I had to repost it. Scroll down for an exciting tale full of sex, violence, and a great car chase . . .
Sorry the essays blow.
p.s. : ( : (
http://www2.oprah.com/obc_classic/obc_essay_contest.jhtml
Then, based on their essays, a panel of learned judges will select 50 high school students. Each finalist, along with one designated parent or guardian, will receive a trip to a special Oprah Show taping in late February.
Ha! You are a "learned judge"!
Esbee- of course I'm a learned judge!
Dr. K- sex, violence and a great car chase? Can't wait!!
Has it been 3 weeks yet, by the way?
Doth my eyes deceive me, or did one entry say it payed $26 and the next entry said it payed $23? That Opera is such a penny pinching, corner cutting ho! Sticking it to the educators like that! Shameless!
p.s.: This is SO cheating by the way. Leave it to us to find a way.
Dr. Kenneth- I think that's my error. I can't remember if it's 26 or 23. I think it's 26.
Damn it. I was afraid it was cheating. Next thing you know we'll be sending smoke signals.
Good call on the photocopy, esbee. Better still, insist on getting one of those huge novelty checks like in Happy Gilmore.
Tara-bear, look for an entry soon on my site about either zombies or iguanas.
Dear Learned Judge:
For how many hours did Ms. Winfrey have to pony up in the end? And more importantly, did the show ask you to join them for a very special episode in late February? And if so, if they give you a "pampering package complete with spa robe", can I have the spa robe? Mine's getting kinda ratty.
Best,
Esbee
This is a good example of why I could never be a teacher. That and I'm a whore and will do anything for money. Long live courier new font.
How did I find this blog...oh well. I entered that contest and I won. Woot. No boyfriend dumping stories here and I can't say I used any dictionary definitions. Comic sans: classic. It's interesting to see it all from the other side...
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