Page 224 - WhyAsInY
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Why (as in yaverbaum)
in one paper, a “composition,” at each class. Therefore, there would be three compositions to write each week. The compositions could be as long or as short as we desired. Moreover, as the instruction sheet said, in the past, students had handed in perfectly respectable responses to assignments that were not typewritten. Some were handwritten; some were even drawn with crayons or in another medium; some were done without the use of words at all. Whatever form the responses took, the next class would be devoted to what had been turned in, through a dis- cussion centered on the second document.
That document came to be called the “shit sheet”; it contained (anonymous) portions of the work that had been turned in or, in some cases, an entire paper. Although the course was taught in sections, everyone had—and therefore had the ability to talk about—the same assignment. Similarly, the shit sheet, having been the product of a meeting of all of the professors who were teaching the course, was identical for everyone. If you recognized that a portion of your work was on the shit sheet, you would hope that it was there because it exem- plified a good thought or two, but—more often than not—the samples were printed because the flawed thinking and writing that they embod- ied (hence, the “shit sheet”) would be very useful to spark conversation in class.
As it also turned out, at each session each student would have his product returned to him, without a grade but with oceans of red ink in which the professor would make caustic comments, pose pointed ques- tions, and—maybe worst of all—correct usage, grammar, or spelling, something that was well below the level of the course. Virtually every sentence, if not every word or phrase, earned its own response.
The first assignment contained words similar to these:
You’ve often heard the expression “You’re entitled to your own opinion.” What do you mean when you say, “You’re entitled to your own opinion”? Describe a circumstance when you used that expression.
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