We have a bookshelf full of free books in the hall near my office. We put books there for students to pick up, and (we hope) read and enjoy.
We also have numerous book buyers coming around; they come around and pay some minimum money for fairly new books we might have around that we don't want. Mostly, they're interested in freebie textbooks we've been sent that we didn't adopt, but that they can resell where someone else has adopted them. Okay, free enterprise and all that. (I tend to donate my books to the student organization with separates out the ones that might be useful for overseas donation and sells the rest off for money to mail the useful ones. If the book buyers were offering real money, I might be tempted to sell them. Most of what I have, they wouldn't want anyway.)
But it bugs me when the book buyer goes from my office to peruse the free shelf. It shouldn't, right? But it does.
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We worked on thesis statements in the writing class today. One of the students had a word up, and didn't know what it meant. Not just wasn't sure about double meanings, but really hadn't thought about it at all.
It bugs me when people don't think about the words they use in a writing class.
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It also bugs me when someone puts a thesis up in the writing class and then acts all bored by a basic question. If someone in class asks you for an example of something related to your thesis, you should have a better response than "I dunno" with a side of shrug.
In all honesty, I should not be thinking harder about your essay than you are at this point.
wellll, it might be obvious to everyone, even mr. dunno, that if he has a thesis statement and no idea how to support it, he's floundering.
ReplyDeletetotally relate about teh free books. my town has a book exchange at the recycling center -- which i think is great. but the last couple of donations i brought, professional re-sellers snatched them up immediately, once even before i was out of the parking lot. [how do i know? that one was looking up titles in what i guessed to be a pricing book; and my entire donation from the day before was gone.]
I'd be bothered by the bookbuyer trying to score free books, too. Maybe a sign saying "These are for students"? Or stand and look over her shoulder?
ReplyDeleteNathan,
ReplyDeleteI've deleted your ad because I don't put advertising here for commerce and many of the school you're advertising are for-profit enterprises. I don't think most readers would actually find your content helpful.
"In all honesty, I should not be thinking harder about your essay than you are at this point."
ReplyDeleteOr *ever*, though why do we teachers so often feel this way? Grrr. High five for articulating that, Bardiac.
"But it bugs me when the book buyer goes from my office to peruse the free shelf. It shouldn't, right? But it does."
ReplyDeleteI think that it should bother you, too. It's not like the books were just dumped on the street for anyone to pick up--they were placed on the shelf for a specific audience, not someone else's profit. That's just sleazy. (And I do sell my books to those guys, so it's not like I'm even speaking from a particularly high ground!)