My good friend Professor L—- is an eminent scholar of American literature and an upstanding teacher at the University of C——. A few months ago, Professor L—— told me the following story. I repeat it unvarnished and unadorned — a curious but instructive anecdote from the trenches of learning.
Some years ago, on the last day of the semester, a student approached my friend and gushed: "Oh Professor L—–, I just want to tell you what a great course this was, and what a great teacher you are. I learned so much. Especially about writing. I really really appreciated all the thoughtful comments you made on my papers. You were so helpful. I feel like I've made a great deal of progress with my writing. I have just one question. Why do you always write "frog," "frog," "frog" all over the margins of my essays?"
This anecdote raises a number of questions. The most obvious: if the student thought that Professor L —– was afflicted with some sort of obscure batrachian obsession, why didn't she raise the point with him or with the proper medical authorities? Poor child, she must have been both mystified and intimidated.
However, it's not the student but the teacher who should profit from this parable. Here are a few of its many moralia.
If you're a teacher of writing, don't assume that any student knows the difference between a sentence and a fragment. Or even knows that there is such a thing as a fragment. Don't assume that just because you have written something that you think is helpful in the margin of an essay that therefore a student a) reads it, b) understands it) or c) profits from it. Even more important: don't imagine that enthusiastic praise from a middling student has the slightest value — it's simple vanity to think so. In fact, better not to build any structure, however slight, on a foundation of student regard.
And finally: mind your minims.
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