The same goes for 'purple alerts' rather than 'red alerts'. If purple had originally been chosen for the US flag, then purple would have the connotations implied, not red. Secondly, if the images displayed were normally produced in purple rather than red, then no one would notice because the concepts described (danger, authority, patriotism etc) are arbitrarily linked to the colour red. So there's no symbolic link between red and failure. We use red for marking up corrections on proofs for pretty much the same reason - ease of recognition. It's used to distinguish the teacher's comments from the students and as students write in a range of colours (but never, it seems, red) then red it is. So an 'A' paper could have as much red ink as an 'F' paper. aren't we missing something here? Two points spring to mind.įirstly, red is used for all comments, positive as well as (hopefully) constructively negative. A bloody looking paper now will look better than a pink slip later. But the red ink flowed pretty heavily, and I know I got better results.Ĭall me a sadist if you want but red is a powerful teaching tool. Next semester was totally different true, it could've been my experience level increased, or a better class chemistry. I didn't feel the class took me seriously, and didn't follow through with my suggestions. I did use green ink for grading during my first semester. Everyone cringes at the sight of it, and the gasps of disbelief when I start marking-up their layouts is music to my ears.ĭuring my training weekend, the college tried to persuaded the new batch of instructors to grade with purple or green for all the same reasons you mentioned Armin, soften the blow and whatnot.
During our class critiques, I always have an uncapped red pen ready to rip apart my students’ work. On Nov.13.2004 at 07:30 PMĪs an adjunct typography instructor at the local community college, I feel red is essential for grading, I love the fear it evokes. If their paychecks came with a fifty dollar deduction for silliness and the i in “fifty” were dotted with a little flower they’d think daisies were a universal symbol of oppression.
Had their teachers marked their papers in lavender they would find that to be the insulting color. The relationship between the signifier (red ink) and the signified (acknowledgment of inadequate school work) is in tradition/common use only. It is what linguists call an unmotivated signifier. Red may be traditional for paper marking but its utility is in its readability and contrast with the pencil, black ink, and laser printer toner of the assignment being marked. If they’d written their assignments in red then black would have been the color of insult.
The teachers may see red as aggressive or insulting and other colors as milder but that’s because their papers were graded down in red.
Like so much else that comes out of the self-esteem factories of our universities’ “education” programs, this is based on a basic misinterpretaion.
0 kommentar(er)
