Identify where you think students may fail in an assignment in your syllabus, and how you will use that at a teachable moment by design. If you didn't produce a syllabus, discuss the relevance of this week's readings to your future workplace.

Hoping against hope, I hope my students don’t fail any assignment! Most of the assignments that I have designed are narrative essays with little room for right and wrong. I want my students to be as opinionated as they can be and want to be. Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that our job in the department of English is not only to produce good writers, but also good thinkers. 

Even though most of my assignments require students to think and express their point of view, there is one assignment that is very tricky. I think my students might stumble while attempting the “grammar(err)” assignment. It is where I ask them to express their opinions on the importance of grammar. I ask them whether they think grammar is important or just a way to create an elitist class that can look down upon others. While it would be interesting to see their answers, the trick is that there is a right and wrong to this question. This assignment is almost a mean test on my poor, unsuspecting students. I am afraid they’ll fail this one. Not only am I expecting a right answer, but also impeccable writing while arriving at that answer.  Yes, this sounds like a trap. It is one! But it is one that hope will be the only one that they fall into as far as the importance of grammar is concerned. No safe place my classroom, eh! 

When they turn in their assignments and when I'll have graded them, I will explain to my students why good grammar is important. I will teach them how it lends to a person’s credibility and strengthens his/her argument. The kind of research that I am expecting them to do for this assignment should help them clear a lot of their doubts. I expect them to cite at least one prescriptivist and one descriptivist for this assignment. Let us see what they come up with!