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[nucleophile]

S1153685F4614740 I bolded the atoms so that you might see them in this sea of numbers! This is what of my gen chem students calculated for a molecular formula! Maybe it's some kind of polymer??

Now that's a hefty molecule.  I know that the "di-" prefix means two atoms, and "tri-" means three, but I'd hate to have to figure out a prefix for 1,153,685 of them.  Who's had Advanced Latin for Really Ambitious Chemists?

Especially considering they were told in the question that it's a gas at 20 degrees Celsius!!

[cc_alan]

S1153685F4614740 I bolded the atoms so that you might see them in this sea of numbers! This is what of my gen chem students calculated for a molecular formula! Maybe it's some kind of polymer??

Now that's a hefty molecule.  I know that the "di-" prefix means two atoms, and "tri-" means three, but I'd hate to have to figure out a prefix for 1,153,685 of them.  Who's had Advanced Latin for Really Ambitious Chemists?

Especially considering they were told in the question that it's a gas at 20 degrees Celsius!!

<considers the balance needed to weigh 1 mole of the substance>

125 megagrams. Impressive!

Heavy, man...

Alan

[ls410]

cc_alan:
What did the cheaters complain to the dean about?  I was actually hoping my cheating athlete would do this; he got off way too easy by withdrawing from my course.

[tamiam]

OK. Getting ready to crack the stack of 2-week old open book essay exams for a class of graduating seniors. Gave them 10 questions to prepare in advance, asked two. I'm trying to maintain optimism. And actively practicing avoidance behaviors.

Will you let us know how that turns out?  I would like to try that approach.  I am not satisfied with my exams.

FINALLY Got them done and handed back. They did really well. I was very clear about how they would be graded, used a rubric for each question which showed exactly what a correct answer would have looked like, and I have to say I'm very pleased with this format.

[cc_alan]

cc_alan:
What did the cheaters complain to the dean about?  I was actually hoping my cheating athlete would do this; he got off way too easy by withdrawing from my course.

The first student said that I was singling him out in class. I moved him up to the front so I could both watch him and get him away from the A+ student he was trying to copy from. The dean told him that I was singling him out- with the dean's permission! My problem was that I couldn't simply fail him for cheating because he was so frikkin' sneaky about it. Multiple people told me about him asking to copy (once during the exam which shocked me since I didn't hear it).

I finally got something to use when I caught him looking at his neighbor's paper TWICE. I also gave the A+ a different exam (same concepts just different questions) and the cheater failed the exam.

The second student complained about the lack of accommodations in my class before he cheated so that one doesn't count.

Alan

[baphd1996]

Maybe this was mentioned before, I didn't read all of the previous 21 pages, but...

Students:  "We're confused, can you tell us EXACTLY what is going to be on the test?"

Me (to myself): I thought I just spent the past three weeks doing just that.

[concordancia]

What part of "we cannot diagnosis a fictional character" did you find confusing?

This is normally one of my better students, but in the rewrite she still claims to "examine the character's symptoms to see which mental illnesses he may have suffered from."

I am pretty sure that no edition of the DSM covers a perfect memory brought on by a blow to the head.

[frogfactory]

What part of "we cannot diagnosis a fictional character" did you find confusing?

This is normally one of my better students, but in the rewrite she still claims to "examine the character's symptoms to see which mental illnesses he may have suffered from."

I am pretty sure that no edition of the DSM covers a perfect memory brought on by a blow to the head.

Your student is hardly the first to try this.  I remember Simon Baron-Cohen's (yes, Ali G/Borat's cousin)'s annoying attempts to diagnose both fictional and historial figures with various autistic spectrum disorders.

In any case, it sounds like your student's answer is more likely to lie in neuropsychology than psychiatry. 

Which book is this, by the way?

[conjugate]

What part of "we cannot diagnosis a fictional character" did you find confusing?

This is normally one of my better students, but in the rewrite she still claims to "examine the character's symptoms to see which mental illnesses he may have suffered from."

I am pretty sure that no edition of the DSM covers a perfect memory brought on by a blow to the head.

It sounds like a clear case of hyperactive hypothalamus syndrome to me!  Quickly, Robin, to the Quack-mobile!  This is a job for...

<insert cheesy fanfare>

Imaginary Syndrome Person!

[baphd1996]

How hard is it to put your name on your exam?

[magistra]

What part of "we cannot diagnosis a fictional character" did you find confusing?

This is normally one of my better students, but in the rewrite she still claims to "examine the character's symptoms to see which mental illnesses he may have suffered from."

I am pretty sure that no edition of the DSM covers a perfect memory brought on by a blow to the head.

It sounds like a clear case of hyperactive hypothalamus syndrome to me!  Quickly, Robin, to the Quack-mobile!  This is a job for...

<insert cheesy fanfare>

Imaginary Syndrome Person!

I've seen published articles by "scholars" do this.  I once did a project on Artemisia Gentileschi, and you wouldn't believe all the crap that has been written about her.  Not only is this process psychiatrically suspect, what I saw was historically suspect -- dates of events were twisted rather farther than they could go  -- and they used evidence such as her letters to her patron, written years after events.  No consideration that possibly, just possibly, a stray surviving letter written to the person who gives you money wouldn't be quite an accurate portrayal of your real opinions or state of mind.

And this was more than one author. 

Not that it still burns me up or anything.

[thenewyorker]

Imaginary Syndrome Person!

I've seen published articles by "scholars" do this.  I once did a project on Artemisia Gentileschi, and you wouldn't believe all the crap that has been written about her.  Not only is this process psychiatrically suspect, what I saw was historically suspect -- dates of events were twisted rather farther than they could go  -- and they used evidence such as her letters to her patron, written years after events.  No consideration that possibly, just possibly, a stray surviving letter written to the person who gives you money wouldn't be quite an accurate portrayal of your real opinions or state of mind.


[/quote]

Ahhh..the irritating Artemesia Gentileschi "scholarship."
Chime.

[jossi66]

I told a student that she had to turn in her sources with her paper.  She said that this would be a problem, since she did her research by sitting in the bookstore and reading her materials. 

[present_mirth]

Dear Often-Smart, Occasionally-Out-In-Left-Field Student:

No, I'm not telling you that you should write what I want to hear, or that the only interpretation of this poem that I'm willing to accept is that it's about the seasons.  I AM telling you that if you're going to argue that this seventeenth-century poem in praise of the patron's country estate is actually accusing said patron of wild sexual indiscretions, you really, REALLY need to show how the text supports this interpretation.  And no, "this poem mentions birds and the OED says that 'birds' can mean young men, so clearly it means the patron is sleeping with all of these young men" does not constitute sufficient support.  It just doesn't.

[concordancia]

What part of "we cannot diagnosis a fictional character" did you find confusing?

This is normally one of my better students, but in the rewrite she still claims to "examine the character's symptoms to see which mental illnesses he may have suffered from."

I am pretty sure that no edition of the DSM covers a perfect memory brought on by a blow to the head.

It sounds like a clear case of hyperactive hypothalamus syndrome to me!  Quickly, Robin, to the Quack-mobile!  This is a job for...

<insert cheesy fanfare>

Imaginary Syndrome Person!

I've seen published articles by "scholars" do this.  I once did a project on Artemisia Gentileschi, and you wouldn't believe all the crap that has been written about her.  Not only is this process psychiatrically suspect, what I saw was historically suspect -- dates of events were twisted rather farther than they could go  -- and they used evidence such as her letters to her patron, written years after events.  No consideration that possibly, just possibly, a stray surviving letter written to the person who gives you money wouldn't be quite an accurate portrayal of your real opinions or state of mind.

And this was more than one author. 

Not that it still burns me up or anything.

That is actually an issue with both this student's essay (but really, for a perfect memory -Borges' "Funes the Memorious"?) and with the magical realism we will be covering this evening. Another student wrote her Borges essay attempting to demonstrate why another story is a perfect example of magical realism. Wrong on so many levels, but I have certainly seen published works that basically assume if it is from Latin America in the twentieth century and it isn't perfectly realistic, it must be magical realism. Heck, I teach from an edition of a Garcia Marquez novel in which I tell the students to ignore both the editor's insistence that we find magical realism in the novel and the editor's conflation of Garcia Marquez the author and the first person narrator. An argument could be made in this case, but the editor of this student edition just pretends like we don't even need to acknowledge that this is a novel.