elle_lavender (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
elle_white) wrote2013-05-06 01:52 pm
elle_white) wrote2013-05-06 01:52 pm
(no subject)
For the last week or so, I’ve reverted to a depressed state. It is over uni stuff. I put a lot of work into an essay about the conventions of fantasy. I talked about how the conventions of fantasy were embodied in the texts I chose, and the social implications of those conventions. However, my teacher dismissed my arguments, and denied their were any social implications in fantasy, even I’d arduously tried to argue that there were. The teacher disregarded it, making many vague refutations. She quoted an academic, whose name I don’t recall, who claimed that “because magic exists, you can have a chosen one.” I found that such an obtuse commentary on the genre. The teacher’s agreed to have someone else look at it, and I’m grateful for that. But to have tons of research and a carefully built up argument dismissed with a quote … really hurts.
I’m feeling terrible. I’ve even been physically ill over this. I have a cold because my immune system is shot from stress. This has triggered my depression and anxiety. My confidence is extremely low right now. I just feel kind of hopeless right now.
no subject
I'm still sorry to hear she isn't addressing anything you've got to say, but I'm glad to hear she's agreed to pass your work to someone else. At the very least, you deserve somebody to comb through your paper with a neutral, critical eye rather than just shooting down your argument entirely because they may disagree with you. The point of writing an essay isn't to make everyone agree with you. The point of an essay is to support your stance on something and explain yourself and why you feel that way, source your shit and the texts you use to support your argument, and relate all of your points to each other. Yes, there's room to agree or disagree, and an educator is more than welcome to bring up a point and see how you respond to it, but ultimately that's what point of essay writing, more or less.
Hopefully you'll get better feedback from somebody else? I empathize with how a dismissal would affect you so badly. It's not just a matter of opinion. When it's your own writing, and somebody doesn't even want to really look over what you've written after working on it... it can definitely be a punch in the gut. :\
Apologies for the constant edits, by the way! It's late where I am, and I keep making typos or forgetting to add something.
no subject
Yeah, that's the purpose of an essay. Initially, when my teacher said she didn't agree there was social context, she also told me I hadn't argued there was one. She didn't explain how I had failed to argue that. All she did was mention that quote in my post. I had tried to carefully and logically build up an argument about a genre based on my main texts and secondary references. I wouldn't mind constructive criticism. In fact, I'd like it. I could improve that way. But she didn't provide that. "Because there is magic, you can have a chosen one" tells me absolutely nothing. I put a lot of work into arguing that fantasy was more than just escapism, but she obviously ignored that. I pointed out in my email that her comments seemed vague and didn't actually explain anything. But as I said, she didn't specifically address any of my points. She never explained what she thought was wrong with argument, exactly.
She spent little time talking about the build up of my argument over three texts, and focused most of her time on one, and her opinion on it. This was a text that she admitted had a big influence on her. As I said, I find it extremely hard to believe her when she said it didn't matter that she disagreed with me.