Student Course Assessments

I'm convinced that the only way to survive as a community college developmental English instructor is to keep laughing. Here's why:

(On how they've improved/what they need to improve at the end of a semester-long grammar and basic composition class)

• At the end of an extended paragraph about why subject-verb agreement is the most important thing she has learned this semester: "Now I know that subjects and verbs always needs to agree."


• In class I have learn lots and lots of grammar. Writing is something else that I done in class."


• I believe I still need more improvement on commas, dangling and misplaced modifiers. When I use commas I need to understand when I need to put one in my sentence; even though I got better on my second essay."


• "So now instead of one ruff copy I have three or more sometimes." (Maybe he needs four.)


• "I've learned a lot of grammar. For example, I've learned that instead of saying, 'I had my hair done,' I should say, 'I had my hair did.'"


• "Yes I have improved greatly. In the fact that I now look for incomplete and runon sentences, all the time." (Do you really?)


• "I have improved on languagewise, how to punctuations, what thesis statements mean and to relate topics when writing an essay." (Amazingly, this really was a "languagewise" improvement.)


• "I need to improve on what run-offs are." (First he should probably learn what they're called.)


• "I have improved my skills using commas and apostrophe's. Because in my first essay I would just throw them in anywhere."


• On where he still needs improvement: "I would say I still need it in fragments. Because I write the way I think it and then it ends up being a fragment. I do understand them." (I would say you need some work on that, too.)


• "But the main thing that's very clear to me now, is using commas in the correct places." (Don't be so sure.)