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Post by Zeller on Dec 10, 2003 23:28:10 GMT -5
Yesterday we had to read short stories we wrote for english class. An aqquaintance (shamefully) wrote a story that used the n word several times very casually, and really for the sake of authenticity. She wrote the story well, much better than most of the other stories students wrote; it flowed, it held interest, and made excellent use of dialougue. Her story was a cheap gangsta story that she made work. It was authentic, and I thought it was amazing. Our professor pretty much failed her becuase she couldn't get over that word. She stopped listening after she heard it, and didn't consider why it was there at all. The professor said it was tasteless, which was not at all the point of the assignment. What do you think?
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Post by Amphagorey on Dec 11, 2003 1:30:36 GMT -5
Wow. Professor Stupid! I had a similar experiance. In the beggining of the school year, we had an English assingment to write a piece on a place, and discribe it like we were writing a travel brochure. Well, our English teacher comes up to us the day after and ask's us if we know what plagarisim means? We do, (No duh!) and then she goes on to accuse people of plagarising actual travel brochures, because some people used words like "trendy" and "Insane heights" which sounded much too grown up for an eight grader, and therefore must have been plagarised. None of our pieces were, I can tell you that. Then one girl said she looked over some of her older work, to get words or phrases, and then she goes on to tell us plagarising from yourself is worse than plagarising from someone else. Professors are weird. (I can't spell plagarisim very well, so don't comment, I already know.......)
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Post by Zeller on Dec 12, 2003 18:52:21 GMT -5
well, the way this student used it was as a slang term meaning about the equivalent of "homie" or something. I'm not saying that i would have written that, or that i particularly like that term used like that, but that if she hadn't used it, that her story wouldn't have seemed authentic. And also that our professor shouldn't have made such a collosal deal about it. You don't deserve to fail because you used a word that made our professor (pretty sure it was just her) feel uncomfortable.
Yeah, we didn't skip over it either when we read excerpts from Mark Twain. It was very embarassing to say it so casually in class, but after that amazing year, we were used to almost anything and were proud to be able to SAY almost anything.
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Post by ss4 on Dec 12, 2003 20:59:01 GMT -5
Oh, well, I being a person who really hates extremely dislikes bad words. To me, the H-word is bad. This case, I would say that if it was a really good piece of writing, yeah, the prof. should listen to it, but should take off a few points. As long as no one is offended or gets hurt.
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Post by Amphagorey on Dec 15, 2003 11:06:24 GMT -5
Exactly. If it adds to the story, then it is good. But if was just there, with out needing to be, then it would be bad. What race was the teacher?
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Post by Colton on Dec 17, 2003 1:58:46 GMT -5
the.. n-word... is often used my white people where i live, but thats cuz most of the blacks are out of control and widely rude. i think, if they dont want whites to call them the n-word, they surely shouldnt call themselves that.
about the story, THAT SUCKS. that teacher had no reason to do that. as long as the story was good, and the presence made it authentic, then i dont see a problem. teachers suck. mine is ok, i guess, because its my mom, because i homeschool, but i have had real teachers before and i got like 4 assignments to write about vacations and i had no choice because i could only remember one... so i wrote four stories about it...
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Post by Fire on Dec 22, 2003 19:49:15 GMT -5
Sorry, N-word?
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Post by Zeller on Dec 23, 2003 0:11:53 GMT -5
Our teacher is white. But i don't htink that's her deal at all, i think it's more that she has the free thought capacity of a teaspoon and assumes that we do too. You have to understand though that our entire sophmore class is incredibly spoiled when it comes to english teachers. Freshman year, our class was basically like the disturbing discussion section in relation to literature. We wrote a lot of critiques and wrote them properly (with meaning we derived ourselves). Cliches were absoloutely forbidden, except in dialouge. She just expects us to be normal disd students, i guess. ugh. i miss bennet.
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Post by Amphagorey on Jan 1, 2004 17:17:51 GMT -5
Eh, can't win em all.
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Post by SnicketFires on Jan 3, 2004 18:35:45 GMT -5
Really, the teacher shouldn't have done that. It was the student choice. If the teacher didn't like it, she should have looked past it anyway, if it fit in the story.
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Post by JM on Jan 4, 2004 14:46:31 GMT -5
i'm hispanic but i look sorta white man racism is bad and now there a c word for whites it's called cracker some people might know i hate rasism come on black or white asian or hispanic does it matter i means it's the inside that's what makes us .................................. us
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