Posted on 05/29/2012 7:18:20 AM PDT by SmileRight
When the passing rate for students taking the writing FCAT dropped to 30 percent this year, compared to 80 percent last year, the Florida Board of Education addressed the problem with typical aplomb: It changed the grading scale.
Like magic, failure turned into success for tens of thousands of students. Of course, they can’t write any better than before, but that’s beside the point. The students passed the FCAT, didn’t they? So their schools’ letter-grade ratings won’t go down, and their self-esteem will remain intact. That’s what’s important, isn’t it?
The high initial failure rate was due at least in part to increased emphasis this year on spelling, grammar and punctuation, a change in approach administrators didn’t adequately convey to the teachers charged with preparing students for the test. As someone who has made a living his entire adult life as a writer and editor, I find this curious. Good writing rests on a foundation...
(Excerpt) Read more at bizpacreview.com ...
I learned IIRC and FWIW ON FR! How long have you been here, Graybeard? You cannot sit here and tell me that you’ve NEVER seen these acronyms, especially on Free Republic. They’re regularly used acronyms along with IM(H)O, TTIUWP, FUBAR, FUBO, YITBOS, etc.
It’s not a generational thing, as you surmise, it’s a net-speak thing. We were talking about structured composition in a classroom/standardized test environment. Do you not see the difference?
I’m not an expert in English by any stretch. I’ve committed 7 years of my post-secondary educational life to studying and perfecting my understanding and use of the English language. I know many who are much better grammarians and linguists. Why are you specifically keyed on two acronyms I used in my post?
I’m a self-taught typist as well. I taught myself to type 18 years ago at the age of 14, and I’ve been doing it ever since. Never sat in a typing class in high school or college. My apologies if you took offense to anything in my post, but I feel you’re barking into the wind.
“I learned IIRC and FWIW ON FR! How long have you been here, Graybeard? You cannot sit here and tell me that you’ve NEVER seen these acronyms, especially on Free Republic. They’re regularly used acronyms along with IM(H)O, TTIUWP, FUBAR, FUBO, YITBOS, etc.”
I’ve been here 14 years and have no idea what any of that crap means!!!
Anyone that uses them should be executed!
“My apologies if you took offense to anything in my post”
No offense taken and none meant friend or should that be FRiend?
“I feel you’re barking into the wind”
I’ll be alright, as long as I don’t turn into a “barking moon bat”.
Have you heard the good news? I’m a new father!:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2886877/posts
(Caution - contains a picture with me in it.)
Do you just gloss over them? Have you trained your eye to overlook them? They’re on almost every post I read, and I troll FR for hours daily.
Congratulations to you, sir. That is most exciting news.
Instead of chucking the next novel we were supposed to read and focusing on diagramming sentences, he gave up. He never mentioned it again.
He was really a great teacher in general, but very close to retirement by that point. I think he'd been beaten down by the system.
After all, that's so very boring and limiting, for the teacher!
We fared better with much less “teacher training” 100 years ago.
This might interest you:
“Unstoppable rise of American English: Study shows young Britons copying US writing style”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2889247/posts
Ugh... no more! I get brain fried for weeks after reading articles like these.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.