3.26.2008

ridiculous t.a. strikes again

a few weeks ago i wrote about our mountain biking t.a. well apparently {and i should've known better} he has more tricks up his little biking sleeves. for the class we are required to write a 3-4 page paper on some aspect of biking/mountain biking that has significant meaning to the sport. the week before the paper was due, he sent a mass email to the class explaining the criteria. so, just as i've completed every other paper while at byu, i waited until the night before to really get serious. i chose to write about the Tour de France. i thought my paper turned out pretty good {nothing too terrible} plus i learned a lot. the papers were due yesterday at 4. this morning chris and i found another mass email in our inboxes from mountain biking t.a.. i've copied it below it for reading pleasure:

Riders-
I have begun posting grades on the mountain biking reports to Blackboard.
While many of you may be frustrated as to why a mountain biking class would be so demanding in a paper, practicing good writing skills never hurt anyone.
Because this is an "easy" class, I am allowing a single paper re-submission before the beginning of class (4pm) next week on 1 April, 2008. Please carefully follow the instructions I've given below for your re-submission.
1) Pick up your graded paper copy at Outdoors Unlimited. When you go to pick it up, ask any employee up front to grab your paper. You will need to tell them that it is in the rental forms file under your last name.
If Blackboard does not have a grade for your paper, it's not ready to pick up.
2) Review your paper + the grading rubric and see what you missed and why. The idea of the rubric is to help me objectively assign a score to your paper, and to also give you objective feedback on your paper.
3) Ask me any questions you may have. If after looking at your scored paper you still feel my comments are unfair/unreasonable, I ask that you make me aware of your concerns. I am always available by e-mail and SMS, my mobile number is 435.668.7524.
If you prefer, I'm happy to make arrangements for a face to face meeting to provide even more feedback. Let me know when you'd like to meet.
4) Re-write your paper. The closer you pay attention to the feedback I've given you, the better score you'll get on the paper.
5) Re-submit your paper. You will need to turn in a hard copy of your new paper along with the graded copy of your old paper at the beginning of class next Thursday.
6) Adjustments to grades will be made. A resubmission will only help your grade, not hurt it.
Hope this helps,
-m


at this point i was worried, but seriously, how bad could it be? so chris and i checked our grades. chris got a 56 and i got a 42...out of 100. yeah. terrible right? so i'm trying to decide if it's really worth it to redo the thing. but how pathetic would it be to not get an A in a mountain biking class...but how even more pathetic is it that a mountain biking t.a. gives out 42/100 on a paper? i'm counting down the days till it's over already buddy and you're not helping matters at all.

6 comments:

ms said...

What in the world?? That is bizarre. It's funny you're having that problem because the worst grades I have ever received (and I don't think I'm a terrible writer) have been in classes that shouldn't specialize in the medium anyway. How retarded.

bec said...

what a psycho TA. It seems like just have some kind of text related to mountain biking should at least qualify for a C.

The Original Fred said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Melinda Jones said...

Unbelievable! I think that this TA has a secret fantasy of being a psychotic English professor. Who knew that taking a biking block class actually meant writing a perfectly polished dissertation on the ins and outs of the biking world? You gotta love power-hungry TAs. Good luck on the paper, that is definitely one thing that I DON'T miss about being in school. Also, good luck on the marathon, Stace, you are a champion!
-Mel

Anonymous said...

This is the so-called "ridiculous t.a." A mutual friend tipped me off to your blog. I am so offended right now. You guys just don't get it. Whatever doesn't kill you will make you stronger. I just want to push you to get the best out of you. If you take this bad attitude toward mountain biking, you will take this same bad attitude toward the rest of your life and you will end up living in a van down by the river. If you want any chance of not failing, come see me in outdoors unlimited and beg for forgiveness.

(This is actually Taylor, but did I have you going?)

Brandon said...

I am seriously furious! While reading this blog I actually felt anger building up inside of me. Who does this guy think he is? I would love to ride a mountain bike right over his face.