Hope you're enjoying Thanksgiving weekend. It's been a rainy, cold one here in St. John's, but it's sure nice to have a couple of days off from classes and grading essays.

I returned the marked essays in my English 1080 classes on Wednesday, so I imagine the shock has had a chance to settle in for most. As always, some people did way better than they expected, partly because expectations for first-time essays is generally low. Others certainly performed worse than they are used to, but most of the students who've contacted me are pretty realistic about it and know they just have some work to do. The most important thing, for me, is for you to know that grades almost always go up as the semester goes on. Of course, that depends on you--grades don't go up if you don't put in the work and pay attention to what I'm trying to teach you. That's just a natural law.

These weren't the best essays I've ever graded, but they were far from the worst. In fact, I was very encouraged, hoping to see an above-average number of A's and high B's this time around. The average number of A's, for what it's worth is anywhere from 1 to 3. But in any given semester there might be 4, 5, or 6. It really depends on the class itself. If I had 30 students in a class who deserved an A, I would have no trouble allotting them. That's just so you know. I have no expectations except that you will listen, work hard, and reap the benefits. And there's less than two months before the semester is over on December 4th. Now that's something to think about.

I told you I'd post the list of abbreviations I used (though I did explain them on the essays as well):

sp. means "spelling mistake"
t.s. means "tense shift"
c.s. means "comma splice"
s.f. means "sentence fragment"

Later, I'll post an explanation of what these terms actually mean and show you how you can fix them.

Other than that, I want to reinforce that I'm truly trying to teach you how to be better writers and thinkers. It's not about grades for me. You're at MUN to receive an education, and I want you to be able to look back on your three months in my class and say you learned something. If you can have some fun doing it or enjoy classes, that's bonus. To me, that's all a part of a good learning environment. But if you can learn something that will make you a better writer and perhaps help you see the world around you a little more clearly, then I've done something useful, and so have you. So let's work on it together. "The hour," as Dylan says, "is getting late." It always is.

That's all for now. It's Saturday night, and I'm going to get some fiction writing done before I settle in to watch some Leafs-Penguins action.

Happy Thanksgiving. Hope you've got a lot to be thankful for right now in your life and that you're the kind of person who is capable of being grateful for what you've got.

Talk to you again soon.

GC