Julie Smith Posted September 13, 2018 Share Posted September 13, 2018 (edited) My son is taking his highschool classes at a public online highschool. At this school most courses are divided into 4 units. You read the provided material, answer the questions, submit the unit and get a mark back. You don't have an assigned teacher, and each unit might end up being graded by a different teacher. Also please note that in my province there is massive grade inflation. At this point 80% is considered average. I'm not kidding. He has had several other units graded, and I have been okay with all them. But the last one has me annoyed. The below is an example of one of the problems. Can you let me know if you agree with me or the teacher. One of the questions was about the poem, "The Cremation of Sam McGee" (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45081/the-cremation-of-sam-mcgee) Write a descriptive paragraph of about 75 words to describe Sam McGee. Think about what effect you want to create. Choose words that are strong and vivid to help create that effect. Include an appropriate simile or metaphor. (18 marks) The grading guide was: The paragraph: Is approximately 75 words long (1 mark) Includes a topic sentence that establishes the effect (1 mark) Includes at least three sentences that provide relevant details (2 marks each = 6 marks) Uses words that are vivid and paint a picture (3 marks) Includes a concluding sentence that wraps up the description (1 mark) Includes an appropriate simile or metaphor (2 marks) Uses correct grammar (2 marks) Uses correct spelling (2 marks) This was my son's answer: Ordinary common speaking Sam McGee from PlumTree Tennessee, moved to the frigid north to mine for gold. He was the only one of his peers to whimper about the cold which was gelid enough to take the skin off your bones. The only reason he stayed was “the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell.” Undeniably he had an “awful dread of the icy grave”. With his last breath, he requested cremation so he could finally experience warmth again. The teacher gave him the grade of 13/18 (72%) with the comments; "In this descriptive paragraph on Sam McGee you show us the force which drove him – his love of gold. You must also show that you understand how his story ends." and "Tell us what happened after they started to burn him". The teacher gave no other comments, or any indications of other problems. I'm not sure how not including that cost him 5 marks, and I'm not even sure why that needs to be included considering the question. Am I missing something, or is the teacher in the wrong. As it is my son worked hard on it trying to get 5 requested sentences in and stay within about 75 words. Edited September 13, 2018 by Julie Smith Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sbgrace Posted September 13, 2018 Share Posted September 13, 2018 It seems he met the criteria the grading guide included. I would feel it was incorrectly graded as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
8filltheheart Posted September 13, 2018 Share Posted September 13, 2018 Is punctuation onsidered part of the grammar grade? Not that the teacher mentioned it, but could he have lost a pt for his incorrect punctuation? It would be hard to address everything additionally requested in the word limit, so that does seem inappropriate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CAJinBE Posted September 13, 2018 Share Posted September 13, 2018 It would be nice if the teacher could give more specific feedback. To me that is one of the main reasons to have an outside teacher. Since I can't read the teacher's mind either, I'll offer my best guess at what she felt was missing. First I read your son's paragraph without reading the poem. I haven't read that poem in a long time so I forgot everything except that Sam died in a cold place and was cremated. And that is what I got from reading your son's paragraph as well. When I read the poem I could see that there was a lot more to it and Sam is quite a creepy character, not just someone who doesn't like the cold because he is from the sunny South. There is almost no description in the poem about his physical traits while alive, but quite a bit about his corpse and it's effect on the speaker. And the ending where he comes alive again is a huge part of his character and shouldn't be left out of a description. The assignment could have been worded better and the 75 words seems too little to do what they are asking. There was too much focus on mechanics and not enough on the overall goal of describing Sam. This is why I prefer grading math papers. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
8filltheheart Posted September 13, 2018 Share Posted September 13, 2018 2 hours ago, CAJinBE said: It would be nice if the teacher could give more specific feedback. To me that is one of the main reasons to have an outside teacher. Since I can't read the teacher's mind either, I'll offer my best guess at what she felt was missing. First I read your son's paragraph without reading the poem. I haven't read that poem in a long time so I forgot everything except that Sam died in a cold place and was cremated. And that is what I got from reading your son's paragraph as well. When I read the poem I could see that there was a lot more to it and Sam is quite a creepy character, not just someone who doesn't like the cold because he is from the sunny South. There is almost no description in the poem about his physical traits while alive, but quite a bit about his corpse and it's effect on the speaker. And the ending where he comes alive again is a huge part of his character and shouldn't be left out of a description. The assignment could have been worded better and the 75 words seems too little to do what they are asking. There was too much focus on mechanics and not enough on the overall goal of describing Sam. This is why I prefer grading math papers. Excellent feedback. I haven't read the poem, but based on your post, I agree that the assignment sounds like it lost pts for its analysis. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Julie Smith Posted September 13, 2018 Author Share Posted September 13, 2018 (edited) 5 hours ago, CAJinBE said: It would be nice if the teacher could give more specific feedback. To me that is one of the main reasons to have an outside teacher. Since I can't read the teacher's mind either, I'll offer my best guess at what she felt was missing. First I read your son's paragraph without reading the poem. I haven't read that poem in a long time so I forgot everything except that Sam died in a cold place and was cremated. And that is what I got from reading your son's paragraph as well. When I read the poem I could see that there was a lot more to it and Sam is quite a creepy character, not just someone who doesn't like the cold because he is from the sunny South. There is almost no description in the poem about his physical traits while alive, but quite a bit about his corpse and it's effect on the speaker. And the ending where he comes alive again is a huge part of his character and shouldn't be left out of a description. The assignment could have been worded better and the 75 words seems too little to do what they are asking. There was too much focus on mechanics and not enough on the overall goal of describing Sam. This is why I prefer grading math papers. Perhaps he misssed something. But he felt that the corpse didn’t come back to life, cause that is impossible. Instead the person cremating him hallucinated that his corpse came back to life. Therefore that whole “creepiness” part wasnt Sam Magee but his worn out exhausted friend having a hallucination. Sam ended with his final breath. https://sammcgeesalaska.com/whos-sam-mcgee/ Edited September 13, 2018 by Julie Smith Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CAJinBE Posted September 13, 2018 Share Posted September 13, 2018 Well I guess as a poem it is open to interpretation but there are ghostly images of Sam's corpse and it probably did drive his friend a bit crazy. Was he there or his ghost? That is what ghost stories are about I guess. My point was simply that he probably shouldn't have ignored the role of Sam's character after his death because that is what most of the poem was about. I would like to hear what the teacher has to say about the grade. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
katilac Posted September 14, 2018 Share Posted September 14, 2018 The teacher definitely should be giving more details on scoring; that is the point of a rubric. I think your son wrote more of a narrative paragraph rather than a descriptive one - he narrated what happened to Sam rather than describing him. There are grammatical errors. The topic sentence has too much going on (because he's narrating) and so doesn't do what the rubric calls for (convey one specific effect). Without reading the whole poem or sitting in the class, my guess would be she wanted something more like: Sam McGee craved warmth, the bright warmth of the sun and the soft warmth of gold. That's not awesome, lol, but it describes Sam and centers on the one idea of warmth. It's 75 words total, you can't talk about how he speaks and where he's from, etc. His concluding sentence doesn't wrap up the description, because again it's too narrative and it doesn't have one central description. The required simile is a quote from the poem, and many of the vivid words are from the poem as well. Many of his errors, imo, come from misunderstanding the point of the assignment. I'm pretty surprised his teacher didn't mention that. I would definitely advise your son to politely ask her to detail what the point deductions are for, as per the rubric. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
katilac Posted September 14, 2018 Share Posted September 14, 2018 12 hours ago, CAJinBE said: Well I guess as a poem it is open to interpretation but there are ghostly images of Sam's corpse and it probably did drive his friend a bit crazy. Was he there or his ghost? That is what ghost stories are about I guess. My point was simply that he probably shouldn't have ignored the role of Sam's character after his death because that is what most of the poem was about. 1 Yes. Sam is dead for much more of the poem than he is alive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Garga Posted September 14, 2018 Share Posted September 14, 2018 Did the teacher give examples? I agree that it is probably more narrative than descriptive. Did he have examples to work from? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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