[Englecturers] Re: Timed Tests

[englecturers at lists.ucr.edu]

Just a comment on what Devon said in regard to the limited number of texts we can use in so many of our classes.  

Re: English 4, we were recently asked for suggestions of texts we had not used before in our program, because John Briggs was worried about plagiarism, presumably students copying papers that were submitted by other students in previous years. And yet, it seems, there will be only one novel for all of us to use in English 4. (Am I wrong about that?) (Can long-term lecturers choose their own books as we used to be able to do?) With everybody in every class writing about the same book I anticipate a good bit of plagiarism--especially of the kind that's hardest to discern and thus to punish, that is, copying someone else's mediocre paper.

I realize there are administrative problems in allowing teachers to order their own texts, when some teachers are hired at the last minute. But if we know what we'll be teaching ahead of time, we could each order exactly the number we need from the bookstore. I think the bookstore would prefer that to ordering large numbers of texts for huge mega-"classes" like Eng 4 etc., many of which don't sell while others get sold quickly out. If TAs need to be monitored and last-minute hires need books ordered for them, the department could still do that. But let the rest of us be the professionals we are!

Cynthia Tuell