English: Subjective Standards

Tell me if this bothers you.

I am taking a class called Iris during this inter-term. The class is mainly a dive into Literature and Film and how they interact. It is a co-taught class between seven teachers and the main teacher, administratively speaking, is the English professor. The work load for this class is very heavy. We have reading or a paper due each day of the eleven day class and we watch a movie every day. Thus, after nine hours of intense thought and discussion, the students are expected to take time outside of class to read or write. The third day of class we had a paper due on the subjects of The Murder of Roger Akroyd by Agatha Christie and Suspicion a film by Hitchcock. I wrote this paper not knowing exactly what to expect and recieved a 78%, C+. I was enraged. I don't often (or ever) receive bad grades on papers and this grade caused me to seriously question myself and my abilities. The English professor proceeded to get up in front of class after discovering that almost the entire class was displeased with their grades and give a speech. He said that as an English teacher he was really trying to make us students better writers, and by giving us appropriate grades he might cause us to improve on our skills. Then he also talked about the possibility that it might be in his best interest to give all the students less than adequate grades at the beginning of the class that we might improve in our writing skills. Thus, if we were disturbed or angry with our grades, to adjust accordingly, and expect improvement from ourselves and the grades we recieved.
Bullshit!
I was appalled at this speech. I raised my hand and asked the professor if there was any kind of objective grading scale which was being used to give such grades. He admitted that there wasn't so and trailed off as he gave some allusion to trying to improve our writing capabilities.

Two days later we had another paper due. This one was on the book and film Big Fish. I wrote about the ways in which the film and book departed from each other in their essential narrative structure. I worked hard on this paper from the point we got out of class until I was happy with what seemed to be an excellent argument and paper before me. I marveled at my own use of language in my late night delirious editorial proofreading. I thought, this will surely earn me a better grade, and show the professor what I am capable of.

I received the paper on the following Monday getting an 80%. Two points higher than my previous paper. Also, a very similar lecture was given about this educational idea of improving student morale by giving better grades as the class progressed. I was aghast.

The next paper I was coerced to write pertained to Shakespeare's Macbeth and Kurosawa's film Throne of Blood. After an entire nine hour session of class, devoted entirely to the picking apart of this play I was exhausted. Additionally, I was expected to write this paper and make it better than my last. I decided not to comply. I wrote the paper in about an hour. I didn't make interesting or thought provoking connections, nor did I follow any of the comments I had received on earlier papers. I wrote as simplistically as I could. Bereft of good language, words, or ideas I thought surely this paper would land me an even worse grade than my initial one. Yet I had a theory. I was not writing and planning on turning in this paper to 'stick it to the man' or be a 'rebel without a cause.' I thought about what my professor had said after receiving each of my previous papers. His long authoritarian speeches about improving the grades as the class progressed, and I took them to heart. I wrote my paper as poorly as I could in order to divulge whether this professor was being truthful in his statements.

He was.
I received a 90% on this paper and laughed my way out of his class room.

I still have two more papers to write for this class. I am truly excited to see what grades I will receive.