It always struck me as weird that EFL teachers, once they get trained, start using technical terminology that sounds silly. Like “Rubric”, which always meant “lesson” in the old days but now seems to be “ranking system” or “evaluation system”, especially one with explicit markers to measure competency level. Me, I’m growing fundamentally opposed to any non-crucial grading, since grades, as an arbitrary and artificial system of hierarchic ranking, mostly distract people from the more useful feedback they receive. It’s a pragmatic objection as much as a philosophical one, here, since in my experience Korean students are conditioned to focus …
Month: March 2007
Writing Up a Storm
My progress bar plugin congratulated me today for writing up a storm, but I accept no responsibility for the downpour that’s been falling off-and-on over the last few days. I have been writing a lot, though. I just polished off a 2nd redraft (meaning a 4th draft total) of a story that’s still being called Solvjaynghi’s Christmas Wish. It’s an 8200-word seasonal beast that’s next in line for criticisms with my regular crit group. Aside from this story, everything else has been light work. The light work hasn’t been that light, however: a couple of drafts ago, I had a …
Spiders on Crack (&c)
Blame (or thank) Tina for this one:
Clarion West 2006
Here’s a website, created by Tina, tracking sales by my Clarion West 2006 classmates, as well as providing links to their various webpages and so on. Go have a look: Clarion West 2006.
Death threats against bloggers are NOT…
Not cool. Not acceptable. Not to be tolerated. Blogger Kathy Sierra at Creating Passinate Users has apparently been receiving death threats, and having her likeness posted in all kinds of sick, Photoshopped ways. Which is so beyond not cool it makes me feel sick. To my stomach. (via Min Jung Kim‘s site)