Wednesday, April 20, 2005

Final Exam Post-Mortem [Updated]

Return here after Wednesday, when the grades are submitted, for a post-mortem of the course final examination ....

Update: The class did hearteningly well on the Final examination: that is, the modal average was commendably good. To answer Mr. Vatne's comment below, it was your competancy which had gladdened my heart when he encountered me. I will blog some details tomorrow.

If you wish to discuss any particulars of the course grading, please arrange to come and see me in person in my office on the Burnaby campus (AQ 6094) at your convenience. As a security policy I do not give out grade information over email.

Update II: Here's just a few passing observations on your Finals.
  • "She was in essence as much a Canadian as those who had trodden..." is a quotation from Ethel Wilson, as most of you got correct. However, only one student who attempted the question identified the speaker correctly as Rachel, not Topaz.
  • Just under five percent of you gave ten successful definitions and a few more had several correct answers. On the whole, though it was an opprtunity lost for too many of us. Please forgive my nagging, but an unfamiliar word encountred while reading fiction is an invaluable opportunity to improve your vocabulary. Look any new word you encounter up in the OED and the small investment in time and effort will embed the word in your memory. As I tend to repeat, the practical benefits of a strong vocabulary are incalculable and extend to almost every part of your life.
  • "minimall" by the bye is a characteristic coinage of Willian Gibson's: adapting a fragment of lexicon to a new purpose in the free-market almost-future.
  • Answers on the academic virtue of comparing blogs to fiction were mostly in support; though several successful essays found cause to cavil. The common theme of several essays in support was the recall of the nature of classical dialectic as a pedagogical device: that is, blogs are similar in some formal sense to fiction, which gives a template against which the greater structure of fiction can be seen in clarifying comparative relief.
  • I was particularly heartened to see that a majority of your essays expressed a greater knowledge and appreciation of this city of ours as one consequence of our course of readings of Vancouver fiction. A few of you even hit for a six the ability to increase sense of shared communal integration as one, important, "quality of fiction."

On the whole, very well done and a pleasure to read. This was a favourite term of mine, and I hope many of you follow through on your committments to read fiction more regularly. Those of you who expressed interest in taking English as a Major are welcome to drop by my Office Hours at any time to discuss.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Perhaps it's the opium muffins.

Dr. Stephen Ogden said...

Your grades should be posted very soon. They were due into the English Department last Wednesday, and they are then passed up to the Dean of Arts and then to Registrars.

Dr. Stephen Ogden said...

Dear Brent:

Best news! But it's worth paying up anyway - drop in at Burnaby campus when you get a chance & we'll off to the pub. We'll toast your first book in advance ....

xcentrik9 said...

I'd be in for that pub "excursion" as well.

Steven

xcentrik9 said...

Haha,

I know that I'm not definitely not in the "under 5 per cent of people"