Grrrrrrr.

Grrr. Here's an annoying thing from student slacker (who had an annoying habit of surfing the Internet while I was lecturing-- and probably thinks I was too stupid to notice). On his last document, he got a grade based partly on the fact that his last project wasn't quite the way I asked it to be from class discussion-- something I talked about in class lecture, and gave multiple samples of, dozens of times, and virtually every other student did properly.

He comes up to me and says "his sister was a tech writing major" and she was the one who took out all the personal stuff-- which is why he got a B. Well too frickin' bad dude. Just because your sister did fine in tech writing, doesn't mean that she has any idea what I was looking for! She would understand the concept of audience-- and me as audience told you to do it one way. You're the one who was in my class, and should have heard my discussions of what to include. I don't care that she is a tech writer for company XYZ. This is not, exactly, a tech writing course. It's technical communication, and the grade standards are BY ME. If you have a problem with your grade, take it up with your sister, dude, not me. She gave you bad advice. And then, as I'm explaining this, he gets all huffy and says "I was just talking to you about it, asking for more explanation" like I'm being mean to him. And said "I'm not challenging the grade or anything." Yes you are man. Bringing up the "my sister is a tech writer" says "she's more of an expert than you are." Tough toenails. Tough toenails. Tough toenails. (Repetition deliberately added for emphasis).

Here is a tip from me to you, if you're a student. Don't get all up in your teacher's face about grades. Consider exactly what you want to say before you do ask questions. If you think your teacher is really unfair, then that is one thing, but if you just have some lame-ass excuse for why you didn't work very hard, and somehow think the teacher is too stupid to see what kind of work you put into a document, (and therefore deserved the grade it got) then suck it up. You know what you really really deserved. Never ever ever ask your teacher to justify your grade to you. This is directly confrontational, and a way of you trying to weenie your way out of the grade you deserve. If you want to point out an error in the numerical grading, or point out a thing the teacher missed, or ask a question like "how could I have made this better," then that is fine. But standing there with your paper in your hand and saying essentially "I think your grading sucks and you're wrong about what I deserved" doesn't get you anything. I know people will think I'm being a jerk about it. But the deal is this. There are certain things that a teacher does to come by your grade. If you have a certain grade, chances are really good that there are many reasons for it. Especially in a writing course where there's not a 1::1 correalation between points deducted and your score. It's not completely quantitative; sometimes it's a quality judgement. Maybe that seems unfair, but again, DUDE, who ever told you life was fair?