Ask me anything about college writing

[ADLinden]

At the beginning of a lot of courses I have taken, teachers will assign a small writing assignment to "see how I write". How much do you think teachers really read those to see how I write and use that information to grade future assignments later in the course?

[I_teach_writing]

[ QUOTE ]
At the beginning of a lot of courses I have taken, teachers will assign a small writing assignment to "see how I write". How much do you think teachers really read those to see how I write and use that information to grade future assignments later in the course?

[/ QUOTE ]

I find this type of activity useful for two reasons. The first is to see if a student has any *serious* problems with writing, to see if the class is appropriate for the student's ability with writing. I don't want a student to waste time if he/she needs to drop down to an easier class.

The second reason I give these assignments is that it helps me catch plagiarism later. If students do a short piece of writing on the first day, it's kind of like a fingerprint of the way in which a student writes, the "voice" of a student. Two points:

1) most plagiarism is laughably easy to identify if the instructor is a decent reader

2)I think plagiarism is a much more complex issue than most instructors realize, especially in the age of information and the internet. I don't consider it a "moral issue"; it just pisses me off when I waste my time reading something a student plagiarized.

Overall, these types of assignments have little to do with future grades.

[pokerchap]

i teach writing, i sent you a PM but you told me to post it here. I am trying to write a college essay about surfing but other ppl have told me it might be a bad idea since some ppl will see me as a surfer bro or w.e. Anyways, I planned on talking about how it has made me realize a lot about my life because surf trips have brought me to Costa Rica where everyone is so humble etc. It has also helped me face my fears by charging bigger waves and so on... the thing about this topic it probably isnt [censored] and really has taught me a lot