Reading Rebeccas article she says “humanist insist writing leads to the crafting of sharp argumentative skills”, but this skill is not necessarily needed for each trade. This leads me to ask are essays really relevant as a college or high school student. Essays are hated by students and teachers. The fact that most people hate essays have raised the question can this issue be solved? First of all teachers hate grading essays. It’s very time consuming, student papers highly outnumber the teachers. College essays can be long as 100 pages. Grading a 100 page essay for 15-20 students can get extra stressful if you ask me. Not to mention that they actually have a life to live. Rebecca stated in her article that “I’ve graded drafts and assigned rewrites, and that helps the good students get better, but the bad students, the ones I’m trying to help, just fail to turn in any drafts at all. Meanwhile, I come up for air and realize that with all this extra grading, I’m making 75 cents an hour.” I can definitely sympathize with teachers on this issue. To fix this problem I would suggest that the teachers could assign grading assistants (Students that actually like writing and are top of the class) this would allow the teachers more time to live life, tutor and relieve some of the stresses of grading. Although essays are assigned students still are not learning to write factual papers. Looking back at Schuman’s article she quotes that her “friends who actually work in such fields assure me that most of their colleagues are borderline-illiterate.” For example my personal experiences with essays throughout school (high school to college) have been horrible. I have had some A’s but I have also received D’s for papers I thought deserved at least a B-, while I’ve witnessed teachers give out grades to their favorite students or athletes
