It's Always the Length

I have not collected the essays, but as I walked around and talked to my students and looked at drafts it seems their biggest problem will be the length. They couldn't make four pages last time and most of them are already complaining that they won't make five. I had to have a pep talk with one of my students who only made two and half pages last time. I told him to just try and take it in small chunks. Take a paragraph and talk about a fallacy. Tell me what the fallacy is and then give me examples of the fallacy. How did this manipulate him? He seemed somewhat encouraged.

I think the other problem will be either talking about too many fallacies/rhetorical appeals or not talking about enough. Some students have chosen three rhetorical fallacies so that they can create their perfect five paragraph essay, so we'll see how that goes. At the same time three might be a perfect number to discuss in a paper this length. I have one student who may only focus on one rhetorical appeal. This may work out great. I hope so. I have other students who are worried about putting all of the fallacies into their papers, and if they try to do that the paper will get overwhelmed. In one of the drafts I saw, the student discussed a few fallacies in depth and then ended the last paragraph of the body with, "Gladwell uses other fallacies such as non sequitor, either/or reasoning, etc." (yes I am being lazy with my etc.) I guess he felt it necessary to mention the fallacies but he didn't feel he had enough space to discuss them.

Honestly, I'm holding out high hopes for this essay. I think they might get this one a little better. In the last one they didn't understand how to make connections. I think they at least understand they are being manipulated and how the author is doing it. Now if they can just explain that clearly...

This time I'm going to try and set aside a chunk of time so I can just do them all at once. That way when I'm finished I won't have completely forgotten what I read two weeks prior when I started the whole mess. Even if the chunk of time is over three days I think that will be better than last time. I might also try putting them in A, B, C, piles as I go rather than wait until the end. See how I feel right after I finish reading and then go back and re-evaluate if I need to.

Here's to a fun weekend and a spring break full of grading!