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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This is my tenth year of being an English professor. I teach at a liberal arts college ranked in the 75-100 range on US News and yes, I have seen a difference in my students’ abilities since I began. Their writing skills have declined and there is much more of a need for what I call cookbook (or recipe) style academics — many of them seem need (and ask for) an exact, specific set of directions on assignments, much like a recipe.

I do think that AP classes contribute to this. It is a very formulaic-style of learning that does not replicate the skills that one needs to succeed in a college class. For example, this is the type of question that one would see on say, the AP Government exam: “Describe the Tenth Amendment.” This type of question, that requires nothing but memorization and recall on the part of the student, really does nothing to facilitate long-term learning or critical thinking skills. [/quote]

This reminds me of the fact that they gave out rubriques for writing. Put this in the first paragraph, this in the second, this in the last, etc.

They sort of turned a writing assignment into several short answer questions. And told you in advance, how many points you got for each little thing. Yes, very specific directions like a recipe, which does not lead to creativity or strong writers.

Ugh!![/quote]

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