<p>So I ended AP English with a B+ this year. I really don't care about the grade, I just am very aggravated with how I got it. </p>
<p>So the first day of school he told us that there was not a wrong way to interpret a book, as long as we have evidence to back it up. So the first semester I did ok, I got an A-, but I didn't argue with him at all. He sits there and talks to us the whole time and we always go off on tangents about other issues and nobody ever disagrees with him because he has that attitude of "I'm right, even if I say your opinion matters, it really doesn't."</p>
<p>So this semester I was just sick of what he was telling us and starting disagreeing with him. All of a sudden my grade dropped form like a 98 to an 86 because he gave me a C on my paper. When I asked him why he told me that "I misinterpreted the novels." When I asked him how he just said that it wasn't right. I had plenty of examples to support my thesis and it made sense. When I asked a former APE student to look at it (she had the same teacher last year) she said it was a great paper and didn't deserve a C. When I told her that this was graded after I had disagreements with him, she told me that this had happened to other people before. When other people disagree with him all of a sudden their grades drop. </p>
<p>It's just very irritating. Please don't misinterpret this as me being made about my grade. The difference between a A- and a B+ is no big deal to me. It's the fact that he grades you differently if you disagree with him. </p>
<p>Does anybody else have teachers like this? I understand that there will always be teachers like this, but I wish that they could do something like getting rid of our names or something while they grade papers so they could grade them blindly. Actually... that makes sense lol.</p>
<p>i have a little tendancy to argue with my teachers. and yes, I have seen some teachers take it out on me. it sucks but im happy with the grades i get and my classmates love that i always stick up for them</p>
<p>^^ Haha don't get me wrong, I'd do it all again. I didn't mind arguing... Actually, I think the thing that really bothers me is that other students don't argue with him. They all suck-up even if they don't agree with his views.</p>
<p>I had an AP English teacher that was very much the diametric antithesis of yours. The first day of class he explicitly told us that active daily participation was the only way to manage an A in his class, and that mechanically sitting there or agreeing with him constantly could not net us more than a B. You needed to contribute new ideas to the daily literature discussion, and the size of your contribution would largely determine your grade.</p>
<p>I was quite possibly the largest dissenter and I had the highest grade both semester (like 2 96's; the other part of his grading system involved notoriously difficult tests and very meticulously graded essays).</p>
<p>I had a teacher similar to Moodrets this year. However, it wasn't that we had to disagree with the teacher.</p>
<p>You just had to contribute a lot to the discussion. He himself never gave any of his opinions unless the discussion came to a stand-still (somewhat rare; I went to an outspoken high school where we were taught to voice our opinions like nothing else), but he certainly didn't object to opinions that differred from his.</p>
<p>Several times he noted that different opinions were better than his own.</p>
<p>^^ That's the thing though, I do go to an extremely outspoken high school. We have demonstrations, protests, and a very active student body. But for some reason people just clam up in his classroom.</p>
<p>How big was your class?
The two classes I'm thinking of (each a half year English IV class) had 6 and 18 students; class discussion is a lot easier when the classes are smaller and you don't always need to raise you're hand (in the larger one we often had to because everyone had something to say).</p>
<p>I hate teachers like that. They wildly exhibit what little authority they've been given for instruction to satisfy their own egos.
For some, lording over teenagers is the only thing that makes their ungrateful lives and pittance of a salary look good.</p>
<p>Yes...actually i just had my AP English teacher be like that...</p>
<p>we have "critical lens" in NYS which basically are, longer versions of the SAT essay that you need to use books for (<em>Random quote about freedom</em> Prove with two novels..., for example). Well, she'd assign us endless practice ones-and say we were "free" to do them any way we wanted. </p>
<p>However, she would casually mention, literally 30 secs, of an outline of a sample essay for each lens. So, as I knew she was BIG on "her way", I did like that & got a perfect paper. My friend wrote a similarly good paper, but argued the opposite; she got a 60? It was a pretty horrendous grade. And the teacher was like, You could only answer this one way.</p>
<p>her whole class was like that. it was such a culture shock-because my teacher last year ENCOURAGED differing viewpoints, and hated when people spit back her words. She was like Johnson's more than Moodret's teacher-she was big on discussion, and wouldn't explain her opinion until we were "talked out". I thought it was incredibly difficult at the time-because I was tearing apart word by word, all these great classics, and I was stressed so much that I wasn't thinking enough in her class. Luckily, I'll be able to appreciate that teaching style in the future.</p>
<p>Good luck, hopefully you'll have a better teacher!</p>
<p>As a wise woman once said, "the only way to succeed in school is to find out what your teachers want, and give it to them with a smile and a spring in your step."</p>
<p>If they want you to be a drone, assimilate away. If they want a dynamo, start fights like a feminist in the Playboy Mansion.</p>
<p>^ I don't mind em if I earn em. But I'm never going to conform to a teacher for a grade. I don't let my life revolve around grades, I stand up for what I believe in. Teachers are supposed to encourage discussion, not make their students conform to them.</p>
<p>I agree with Zamzam. Though in my day, I took the B's. I had a teacher like that. She was one of the most popular teachers in the school. A real radical. Everyone thought she was the coolest thing around. And she was, until you disagreed with her. I wrote a pro-Nixon paper. Got a C. Every point I made was backed up. I was not pro-Nixon. Just decided to be a devil's advocate. She truly could not stand anything that was contradictory to her opinions. So, I spent the rest of the year deliberately disagreeing with her, and getting a B in the course instead of an A. Cost me val and sal positions, but I kinda liked doing it.</p>