In class earlier, I had a student giving her considered opinion on a rather difficult article we’d read.
“It’s not good,” she said.
“What’s wrong with it?” I asked. “There’s something wrong with this article,” I agreed, elaborating. In fact, the article was a rather exaggerated rant that I’d adapted from a US newspaper website editorial about the horrors of government regulation. I expected the students to eventually figure this out, and express it somehow. “What do you think is wrong with this article?” I probed.
“I think… ” she began, thoughtfully. “In my opinion… after thinking about this a lot,” she continued. I was expecting her to nail the problem in the article at this point – she seemed to be on to something, anyway. But then, she concluded, “It’s too long.”
