Well, I had the conversation, all right.
I eventually got tired of rehashing the same ground over and over and just took the bull by the horns. I didn't come right out and use the phrase "well beyond the scope of this course" but it was a VERY narrow thing.
I very definitely DID use the term "good enough" though he deliberately misunderstood that phrase and I had to go back a couple of times and rephrase/explain it. I helpfully used the example of my DD working and reworking and reworking a pair of little five point questions on that quiz today in my explanation. I seriously do NOT think that he has ever actually heard of/seen a hard-core perfectionist in full flight. :sigh: I found it a bit frustrating, though, to get half way through an explanation only to find out that he was still "stuck" on something I'd said at the beginning.
Come to think of it, this explains a lot about what he doesn't care for in my daughter's writing as well. One point which he cleared up definitely sheds some light on things.
He evidently expects students to "assume that they are offering an explanation to someone who has NO background in the material." Whoah. Really? NONE? Do they have good English skills? Know that we have a single POTUS at any one time? Should one explain what is meant by terms like "governance?" What about "representative?" Is this mythical tabula rasa a foruth grader? A college student? A dog?
I pointed out that this particular requirement is a little... er... idiosyncratic. (He seemed to be a bit nonplussed though entertained by this word, by the way... perhaps it was new? Anyway-- that's what I meant about frustrating.) I did explain that in most coursework, students are encouraged to answer exam questions as though they were addressing: a) a reasonably competent classmate and/or b) the course instructor. Ergo, while there may be nothing wrong with his standard, it is most certainly NOT normative, and probably requires a bit more emphasis for students to understand what he intends there.
At any rate, I feel that he IS understanding that I'm hardly looking for him to apply some kind of 'softer' grading standard to my child (which he at one point suggested gingerly, and I quickly dismantled), but on the other hand, I'm ALSO not looking for him to go deciding what HER goals ought to be for this class, and the fact is, he's just transformed ALL of her former goals into "do not fail to obtain 93% average in class," which supercedes learning in importance for her.
Kind of shot himself in the foot if he was looking to make that a "formative" assessment.
If it was "summative" then he needs to rethink how he's looking at grading, since he made quite contradictory statements to me about what it is he's "really looking at" in evaluating students. On the one hand it "isn't" about particular phrasing, buzzwords, etc. It's about the student's underlying understanding of the question, etc. On the OTHER, apparently, it IS about stating things in particular ways. Since he repeatedly has stated both verbally and in writing that my child KNOWS the material well, and that the problems were about her not stating her answers "directly enough" or with enough "specificity," or "clearly labeling" examples/evidence referentially with respect to the questions. In other words, this is MOSTLY stylistic. But when I pointed out that I'm not sure that she CAN learn to do what he's looking for on future assessments since she doesn't know what's in his head beforehand... well, he's not looking for any particular buzzwords, just understanding of the underlying ideas... and strong, clear statements...
(Yes, I know. He didn't seem to understand a lot of things that were wrong with this line of reasoning... and the fact is that he's attempting to parse 'style' points with someone whose style is VASTLY different than his own, and also didn't understand the terms summative and formative. AUGH.)
If this is how historians all write-- using subjective/ambiguous statements/evidence with emphatic value judgments attached, I mean-- then I think that DD is probably doomed in this class. I also begin to see very clearly why physical scientists regard this kind of "scholarly activity" with such ill-concealed disdain. :sigh: He apparently objects to my daughter's tendency to choose evidence, offer plausible ("it may be" not "it is so") explanations and let the reader make value judgments. I have to wonder if part of the problem isn't that her writing choices are a bit sophisticated for what he is actually LOOKING for. He seems to want very choppy sentences that make SVO statements and TELL the reader WHAT TO THINK... (yes, he did say that).
Anyway, we left it that he'll at least review what she turned in this morning (I had her pull out her exam and REWORK the questions without looking at the graded version), and she gave him that along with a scanned copy of her handwritten notes re: the essay questions. He'll set up a phone conference with her once he's had a chance to go through that material. He is also (still) going to discuss this with the Ap Lit Barracuda to find out how it is that she can insist on "highly demanding standards" year after year without shutting my kid down-- which he SORELY needs to learn.
This kind of thing is just crazy-making, frankly.
