Ciao!

Tell them they cannot preface answers w/"well, I guess ..."

It'll serve them well to rid themselves of qualifications and ad libs. Esp. for the few who will inevitably go on to law school.

I think you're too critical and have forgotten how it is to have 9 credit hours and English being your second or third language and have to read at least 500 pages per week beside other stuff. It doesn't allow you think much about the readings before coming to class. At least Tanner and other professors understood that. If we would understand and know exactly what we read for a specific class, maybe we wouldn't need a class after all, right? N.

Tanner was one of the hardest on people who didn't read. I took 642 w/ him a while back. He just grilled people, publicly, for not having come to class prepared.

Also, I don't think this is a language issue. You & I know other foreign students who did very well, and read well in advance of class. And I've seen many US students who are equally flaky.

Plus, this isn't me complaining about people not picking up some trivial detail out of a reading. It's about arguing, for example, that the authors argue that democracy can't be imposed (we read Huntington's Third Wave & the O'Donnell/Schmitter piece I posted above) when the authors make explicit arguments that this was the best way to ensure democracy (and even sadly bemoan the fact that such an option is no longer available at the end of the 20th century). Both readings spell it out clearly, and prominently, early in their arguments (Huntington, especially, dedicated a lot of space to the proposition).

That's just one example.