Today’s vocationally minded students view World Lit 101 as forced labor, an utterwasteof their time that deserves neither engagement nor effort. So you know what else is a waste of time? Grading these students’ effing papers.
In a prickly and provocative essay for Slate, Rebecca Schuman argues that universities should stop forcing students in required classes to writer papers and instead give them “old-school, hardcore exams, written and oral.”
Her argument doesn’t put a lot of faith in students, but she does make some interesting points.