Is it normal for english teacher to be this lazy?

I use to love English when I was in high school. I would go beyond the requirements and when they ask for 5 pages I would give them 20. I always would try very hard in English and always did well in it. My scores were always advanced and every time they tested me said I was 2 years advanced in English. I was always above the other students. this fact kind of annoyed me. I thought this was great but my teacher would get upset when I did extra work. She said she did not feel like reading all of it. Yet at the same time she would encourage other students in the class who did not do half as much and say they are the brightest kid in the class. I had another teacher that I loved and he loved all my extra work he would encourage me to do a lot and said he loved reading my stuff. I guess I feel kind of cheated since I tried so hard and the teacher really did not seem to appreciate the work I did. I mean should a teacher not encourage there kids to go above and beyond? Is it me or is this just a lazy teacher? I mean the teacher would encourage us to do the minimum just because she did not feel like grading everything. Why take a English Career if you do not love your job? After my junior year I stopped caring about English and most of my classes.

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53% Normal
Based on 55 votes (29 yes)
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Comments ( 19 )
  • ProseAthlete

    Throwing a lot of words at a page isn't writing; it's typing. If the assignment was to write five tight, cogent pages, and you provided 20 pages of bloviation, you deserved a low score.

    I'm a professional freelance writer. If I go over a client's allotted space for a magazine article or blog post, I'm told to edit until it fits.

    If you're planning on a career involving English, it's good that your teacher's taught you that quantity isn't a substitute for quality. Keep at it, and learn to edit. It's at least as important a skill as writing.

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    • Daysie21

      Couldnt agree with you more!
      The shorter the sweeter- My English teacher always said this to me as i would always add unecessary blabber.

      I will never forget when he once gave away an A+ to a student in my class that wrote a paper consisting of merely 300 words when the required amount was 1000!

      He said he was taken away by the piece.

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    • coolio75650932

      wtite me a story mr.free lance.

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  • Avant-Garde

    That's not being lazy.
    She asked for exactly 5 pages, but instead you gave her 20.
    She shouldn't have to read all of that.
    You might as well put those extra pages to good use and make a novel.

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  • Darkoil

    At my university if you go over the word count you get penalised. I also concur that your grammar is atrocious, at a quick glance there are no less than 13 mistakes in the single paragraph you have written.

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  • BurnaBaby27

    Why would anyone want to read 20 pages worth of crap when the guidelines specifically said 5 pages? Sometimes teachers want you to be able to make your point using as few words as possible.

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  • From reading your story I find it hard to believe you are considered advanced in english... your grammar holy crap I can see why your teacher doesn't want to read your extra work

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    • Lockets

      I agree! There are several grammar, spelling and punctuation errors in this story. Maybe he/she did that deliberately to make it clear that he/she has stopped caring about English.

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    • myboyfriendsbitch

      Well guys, this person did quit caring about English. Just like anything else, when you quit caring about it you don't do as well in it.

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  • ubiquitous_joe

    Look, I love English and I also felt unchallenged by my high school English teachers. I had a fabulous 9th grade teacher (which for me was Jr. High) but then my 10th grade writing class felt like a sad, redundant version of everything we'd done the year before. The next year, my American lit teacher demanded the shallowest essays: 1-page "which character did you identify with most" kind of drivel; that’s not asking a lot from 17 year olds. Most of these people did not seriously challenge my writing ability, even the ones who liked me. I did well because I already cared about the subject and my father was an excellent writer who helped give me a foundation for revision. So I'm more on your side than our friend the “Prose Athlete” up above.

    But he’s not wrong. Running a marathon is not the same as running a fast mile. A 5-page paper and a 20-page paper are simply different beasts. And often if you change the scale of the paper you have to change the nature of the assignment. It is hard to imagine reading two-dozen pages of an essay without some kind of outside research component. Often shorter English assignments have none.

    A skilled teacher would be able to tell you this but still find ways of engaging you at your capacity. A bad teacher will blow you off. You are right to be angry if that happens. If you have the chance to go to college, you will find better experiences there. But in the meantime, it is possible to write a glimmering short paper without phoning it in, whether you have a shitty teacher or not.

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  • Lynxikat

    Why any teacher would want to read a twenty page paper when they asked for five is beyond me. If the teacher has fifty other papers to read, which already takes up a huge amount of their time, why would they even want to read a twenty page paper? I had an eight page research paper for Sociology that I worked really hard on; was I suppose to go the extra mile and make it thirty pages? Was I a slacker because I didn't make it twenty or thirty pages? Was I being lazy?

    Going above and beyond means giving a friggin awesome paper with the requirements- in this case, it being five pages long. You're saying from this one experience that you've stopped caring about English all together? My English teacher in my senior year of high school wasn't that great, and I hated her taste in books, but that never made me hate the subject.

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  • Spiritvoice

    It really depends on what kind of assignment you were going 'above and beyond' on. If you were doing a creative writing assignment and your ideas couldn't be contained within the minimum page allotment, then she should have been happy that you had such a vibrant idea. If she wanted it under a certain amount of pages, though, she should have specified (for instance, saying she wanted a minimum of five pages, but didn't want more than ten).

    On the otherhand, going too far over the specified page number on an essay or research paper can be a problem. My AP English class use to write at least one 5-page paper a quarter, and my teacher would accept anything between 4 and a half pages to 6 pages, because she knew that it was sometimes hard to get a precise amount without having to cut out possibly important things or BS another half a page. Anything more than that, and it meant you probably had more than you needed and could easily cut out part of it without losing anything overwhelmingly important. If this was the case, you should have talked to your teacher about helping you figure out what was important and what wasn't. If you're planning to go to college, or already are, and find yourself having the same problem with keeping within the correct page numbers, maybe you could talk to your professor about helping you figure out what you can cut out?

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  • Justsomejerk

    English is your second language, no?

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  • Lockets

    I loved English when I was in high school. I would go beyond the requirements, and when they asked for 5 pages, I would give them 20. I would always try very hard in English and always did well in it.
    My scores were always advanced and every time they tested me, they said that I was 2 years more advanced in English.
    I was always above the other students. This fact kind of annoyed me. I thought this was great, but my teacher would get upset when I did extra work. She said that she did not like reading all of it.
    Yet at the same time, she would encourage other students in the class (who didn’t do half as much), and say that they were the brightest kids in the class.
    I had another teacher that I loved, and he loved all my extra work. He would encourage me to do a lot and he said that he loved reading my stuff.
    I guess I feel kind of cheated, since I tried so hard and the teacher really did not seem to appreciate the work I did.
    I mean, should a teacher not encourage their students to go above and beyond? Is it me or is this just a lazy teacher?
    I mean that the teacher would encourage us to do the minimum just because she didn’t feel like grading everything. Why take an English career if you don’t love your job?
    After my junior year, I stopped caring about English and most of my classes.

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  • green_boogers

    Sorry I wrote such a long report, sir. I didn't have the time I needed to write a shorter one.

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  • joeh37

    You can't be bitter. She set the page limit so she would have time to read all of them and return them. Your failure to follow simple instructions has cost you!

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  • Dad

    There is also another side to this.

    There is an old concept that if you encourage the ones doing the worse job, with 'Well done, keep it up, excellent improvement'. They tend to do better next time. This also catering for the fact why they were at that stage to begin with.

    As for the students who have initially done very well to say, 'I don't see any improvement on your work, you need to try harder, not one of your best'. They tend to see this is as a challenge (as you have done) and show themselves up next time around. This also catering for the fact why they were at that stage to begin with.

    You will see this also when two boys have been in a fight, and the 'smarter' one of the boys, 'Should have known better!' Whereas the not so smart other boy may not even be suspended. ie He didn't know any better in the first place, poor child!

    You seem to have taken this too much to heart. Pick up the challenge and try harder next time, otherwise all those illiterate students will eventually pass you by.

    Anyway, that's my view.

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  • BlueJeansWhiteShirt

    "Not encourage there kids to go...". Are you sure you are advanced in English because shouldn't it be their instead of there? And that's basic grammar. I learnt that at 8/9 years old.
    Writing a lot doesn't mean you are good at English either. Being able to write within and close to the word limit is a skill. If you write more than the word count in college and university, your paper will be disqualified.

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  • iEatZombies_

    To answer your question of "Why take a English Career if you do not love your job?"
    Money. Easy job, decent money. That's what they were probably thinking.

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