January 18, 2022

Good Morning. Your Class Sucks! covid-19: day 661 | US: GA | info | act

After a big winter storm moved through Sunday morning, our Internet access was down all day, so I spent the day reading. It was an unexpected, but lovely break from the norm. Yet, there’s always a price to pay. Yesterday morning, the email at the top of my inbox read:

“ Good evening,

It took me awhile to find your email. I am just going to be straight forward with you. Going outside D2L and using sites like Reddit and this grlucas.net I have NO idea what is going on in your class. I can not find anything on Reddit or your website. It is going to make this class near impossible to complete because non of the information is easily obtainable like all of the other classes here at MGA

”

Just what is the purpose of this communication? What is this person really hoping to accomplish? There were no questions, no specifics—just a email letting me know that my class sucks and this student does not approve of my methods. What a way to begin the semester. At least it had a “Good evening” salutation. Imagine the entitlement this student must feel to be able to send something like this to me. This is exactly what I’m talking about when I say I choose not to use D2L. I just don’t have the energy to list all the implied assumptions here; good thing they’re so obvious.

I politely suggested that this student simply switch into one of the many other online sections of ENGL 1102. I wonder if that solution will be acceptable. I hope so.