WizardofFrobozz
@WizardofFrobozz@lemmy.ca
- Comment on I'm tired 16 hours ago:
“We’ve reached a point where Americans would rather the world fall apart than get off their cowardly asses and do something.”
- Comment on Pfft 5 days ago:
I guarantee your writing class has a syllabus. The problem here is a disconnect between what you think the syllabus says and what it actually says.
- Comment on Pfft 5 days ago:
English prof up on a soapbox here.
Comments like “you have to learn the rules before you break them” are kind of off the mark. For the most part, those of use who teach English aren’t particularly concerned with enforcing “rules” (with the exception maybe of English as a second or foreign language, where conventions/rules are used to scaffold learning rather than as universal truths). English teachers are familiar with linguistics and the fluid, messy nature of language and all the fun things we can do with it. In short, the grammar Nazis you encounter online are VERY unlikely to be English teachers, who are often the first to point out that language is constantly changing and that what’s considered “correct” depends heavily on … everything, really.
But we’re talking here, ostensibly, about a “class.” And if we’re talking about a class, we’re talking about a syllabus. Specific outcomes on which a course is responsible for improving and checking proficiency. Your English class isn’t a place for you to learn English, especially if English is your first language. It’s a place for you to become proficient at doing a specific selection of specific things with your language. Very often these things aren’t even about rules or grammar, but that doesn’t mean the expectations aren’t strict- and what most people read as strictness is usually just specificity.
It’s damn near impossible to know whether a curriculum, teacher, method, or activity is successful without an outcome to measure. Lack of specificity makes measurement difficult and potentially unfair. If you’re told to “write a persuasive essay,” what exactly does that mean? What separates an A from a C? How does the teacher justify that distinction, and how does the student know what they need to improve? Without very specific target structures or a “can do” inventory, assessment becomes messier and we leave students guessing about what an given teacher might want from them, which isn’t especially fair (or useful, from a pedagogical POV).
A teacher can understand perfectly well that language is flexible, that different contexts call for different kinds of language, and that conventions change over time, while still expecting students to demonstrate a particular skill according to given criteria. There isn’t one correct way to use English, but a class DOES needs to establish what it’s trying to do, what students are expected to be able to do, and how anyone can tell whether they’ve been successful. That’s not necessarily prescriptivism. That’s just how a curriculum works.
- Comment on Wealth inequality will destroy America. 1 week ago:
Hey look, I found one of those people!
- Comment on Wealth inequality will destroy America. 1 week ago:
You’ve spent half a century watching these people and knowing exactly what they will do. Sure, I guess if it makes you feel better, you can “blame them” the same way I’d blame a bunch of 12-year-olds playing with fireworks in a warehouse full of gasoline. But at a certain point, the people who knew exactly what was going to happen and kept allowing them to obtain matches are the ones who need to be held responsible.
- Comment on Wealth inequality will destroy America. 1 week ago:
No, the people with crumbs STILL doing nothing despite having nothing to lose will allow America to be destroyed.
- Comment on Anon isn't worried about population decline 1 week ago:
People forget how much was going right in the 90s. Boomers were in their prime working years, paying into Social Security instead of collecting it. Women’s participation in the workforce had hugely expanded. Also a decade of strong economic growth and job creation meant more people working, lower unemployment, and more money going into the system. It allowed the US to briefly reverse the decades-long decline in the number of workers supporting each Social Security beneficiary, and then kept that ratio stable for a while. Obviously some of that was demographic luck, but the Clinton economy was actually putting people to work.
- Comment on 103°F in Los Angeles all week 2 weeks ago:
Did I suggest they were any better?
I mean… they’re not. But fuck you for that disingenuous little sleight of hand where “they didn’t fight fascism hard enough” somehow becomes equivalent to “we voted for the fascists,” and also fuck you for making me defend their cowardly asses.
- Comment on 103°F in Los Angeles all week 2 weeks ago:
Oh, okay- so you’re just cowards who spent half a century allowing it because you didn’t want to risk your relative comfort.
- Comment on Not saying this is Hell, but it's pretty fucking close 2 weeks ago:
Nobody gives a shit about Kirk anymore. I’m honestly surprised how little anyone cared a week later.
More Charlie Kirks every day, please.
- Comment on Not saying this is Hell, but it's pretty fucking close 3 weeks ago:
This bullshit argument has been shut down every time it’s been leveled, and always results in a page full of moderator-deleted comments.
Your schtick is tired.
- Comment on Not saying this is Hell, but it's pretty fucking close 3 weeks ago:
The one just north that’s been telling you for 30 years to get your house in order. ‘What country are you from?’ bullshit is clown-ass deflection from comfortable white liberals. We’ve been telling you for decades you were on this path, you refused to fix it and got belligerent and renamed french fries in response, and now your failure is spilling across borders and becoming everybody else’s problem. You don’t get to export your Nazis and then suddenly discover nationalism when somebody outside your borders points out that your cowardice is responsible. Keep sitting on your ass, you pants-pissing coward, while 30% of your country jokes about annexing mine. Fuck you.
- Comment on Not saying this is Hell, but it's pretty fucking close 3 weeks ago:
You’re a fucking coward.
- Comment on Not saying this is Hell, but it's pretty fucking close 3 weeks ago:
Every Charlie Kirk moves the needle.
- Comment on Not saying this is Hell, but it's pretty fucking close 3 weeks ago:
Geography is a hell of a substitute for an argument.
- Comment on Not saying this is Hell, but it's pretty fucking close 3 weeks ago:
Only one thing ever stopped Nazis
- Comment on Not saying this is Hell, but it's pretty fucking close 3 weeks ago:
Could start with another Brian Thompson.
We’re talking here about someone who has already given up. He could do nothing, or he could move the needle a bit.
You know what isn’t going to help him? Waiting for you to get off your able-bodied ass.
- Comment on Not saying this is Hell, but it's pretty fucking close 3 weeks ago:
Fascist enablers, always REAL defensive 👍
Enjoy MAGA. You’ve earned it.
- Comment on Not saying this is Hell, but it's pretty fucking close 3 weeks ago:
Cool. Enjoy allowing your high profile Nazis to continue to feel safe in public. You’re not part of the problem at all.
- Comment on Not saying this is Hell, but it's pretty fucking close 3 weeks ago:
Americans, forever incapable of imagining solutions above the level of individual behavior (though at a certain point one suspects you’ll fall back on any talking points that allow you to avoid actually doing something).
- Comment on Not saying this is Hell, but it's pretty fucking close 3 weeks ago:
Charlie Kirk got pretty well “solved”
- Comment on Not saying this is Hell, but it's pretty fucking close 3 weeks ago:
Slaves aren’t armed to the teeth. Stop letting these people pretend cowardice is helplessness.
- Comment on How did he do that? 5 weeks ago:
It’s so fucking bizarre- I once thought plastic surgery had mostly peaked in the 80s and everyone pretty much agreed it made people look like horrific nightmare creatures.
Yet here we are
- Comment on Happy Kirkday! 5 weeks ago:
Show your work.
- Comment on We ain't happy anymore... 1 month ago:
Being “happy” in the US in 2014 is fucking insane.
I left in 2004 because of how bad things were getting- a decision that has been continually justified every day since.
- Comment on The American Dream, minus 60% 1 month ago:
Coward.
- Comment on The American Dream, minus 60% 1 month ago:
Oh, it’s DIFFICULT? My apologies. I didn’t realize you were looking for easy solutions that wouldn’t create any discomfort for any of you.
And you’re absolutely misrepresenting what would be necessary. 20 or so high profile Charlie Kirks and a couple dozen people ready to take down ICE patrols in every neighborhood would get you a great deal of the way there. Broken noses and missing teeth are the proper response to Nazi taking points. On paper, no population in history has had better odds of successfully putting down a fascist takeover of their government- Americans either don’t care or are sinply unwilling to put their comfort at risk.
- Comment on The American Dream, minus 60% 1 month ago:
Maybe try doing something about it?
- Comment on The American Dream, minus 60% 1 month ago:
How about you stand the fuck up and fight, you absolute cowards
- Comment on German joke 1 month ago:
Very cute to imply that “outside” is meaningful here, allowing you to pretend you’ve dodged responsibility