So my little sister, Emily (she played mafia here a while back), had to miss a day of school to attend a family reunion over Labor Day. The school policy is that they have three days to make up work missed because of an absence. Her English teacher, however, refused to let her turn the work in late because she had known about the absence ahead of time, so she wanted Emily to turn everything in before she left. My mom and Emily kept at the teacher until she caved and allowed Emily to turn in an essay that was due the day she was gone.
Emily is a very good writer. She did very well on the essay. One of the things the teacher was being a huge stickler on was the use of first and second person. There was to be no use of
I or
you anywhere in the essay.
Emily missed a single
you somewhere in her essay.
The result? The teacher gives her a zero (out of sixty points) on the essay and writes, "See me tomorrow in access."
I'm guessing the zero isn't really about the
you so much as it is about the power struggle over Emily's absence. Still, that kind of non-mistake costing her full credit on a fairly major assignment? Come on.
If this doesn't get resolved on its own, what are the next steps? Would Emily have any sort of case to bring to the principal or a counselor? Is grading pretty much the realm of the teacher, subject to her whims? Might Emily be able to transfer into another teacher's class?
I read my mom Jonathon's essay, "Arrant Pedantry," and she cheered with me over certain perfect lines. Oy. This is really annoying.
