Frazz by Jef Mallett follows the adventures of an unexpected role model: an elementary-school janitor who's also a Renaissance man. While he's sweeping the hall, he's whistling Beethoven. Or Lyle Lovett. He paints the woodwork in the classrooms; he paints a Da Vinci on the cafeteria wall. He's a trusted authority figure who is every kid's buddy. He took the janitor's job while he was a struggling songwriter, and when he finally sold a hit song, he decided to stay on at school. Frazz appears in 200 newspapers worldwide, including the Los Angeles Times, Seattle Times, Chicago Tribune and Detroit News. "A few years back, I wrote and illustrated a children's book," says Mallett. "When I was traveling around reading it at school assemblies, I noticed that often, the most respected, best-liked grown-up in the building was the janitor. And I thought, 'Hmm, there's a comic strip in that.'" Often praised for its intelligent wit, gentle spirit and effortless diversity, Frazz won a Wilbur Award from the Religion Communicators Council in 2003 and 2005 for excellence in communicating values and ethics.
© Jef Mallett - All Rights Reserved.
Frank & Ernest by Thaves
Fred Basset by Alex Graham
Comments (37) (Please sign in to comment)
runar
said, 6 months ago
Speaking as a former teacher, BS in essays is easy to catch and fun to tear up.
Randy_B
said, 6 months ago
There’s always hope that something in an essay answer will get you partial credit.
vwdualnomand said, 6 months ago
what is the point of essays?
Alexikakos said, 6 months ago
@vwdualnomand
You’ll have to essay the point to find the answer to that.
AshburnStadium said, 6 months ago
To me, multiple choice is much easier than passing off what some people consider male bovine dung!
Randy_B
said, 6 months ago
Better still: put your answer in the form of a palindrome, or in the form of an acrostic where both the full text AND the text composed of the first letter of each word form part of the correct answer.
furrykef said, 6 months ago
Given how strict the comics page is, I’m surprised this was considered printable.
zoidknight said, 6 months ago
@runar
Especially in the essay question themselves, when they are not based on anything taught by the teacher or in the textbook.
Ewal Doh said, 6 months ago
Regarding grading scales: with half knowledge
T/F- Know half & guess, 75%
MC- Know half & guess, 60% (5 choices)
Essay- Might get you 50% if you write well.
So what should be a passing grade?
Varnes said, 6 months ago
To state the obvious, both methods should be used. One is quicker, but doesn’t really asses understanding, and an essay question can show a level of understanding, but takes a lot of time to asses. If you can’t explain something, you don’t understand it…
Ewal Doh said, 6 months ago
@Varnes
MC might be quicker to grade, but essay questions are easy to create … Discuss the important points in ch. 5-8.
Good MC questions are difficult to create with distracters that might appear to be correct to the ill informed. Better yet to give partial credit to the answers that might almost be correct.
It is still significant to be aware of the guessing factor in assigning grades.
DutchUncle said, 6 months ago
Essay question:
1. Shows you remember more. Fewer hints from the question text; no chance of randomly choosing right answer.
2. If done well, shows you have ability to reason from one step to the next, or at least remember that it was presented that way. Most jobs rely more on reasoning than just memorizing some facts, so it’s a more important skill to develop.
3. NEGATIVE – I’ve also seen questions on tests that were clearly designed to prove that the teacher still knew (or had read) more than the students. (And I’m not talking about “extra credit”.)
4. OTOH: I had one teacher who gave “extra credit” questions who told us during the last class before each test EXACTLY what the extra credit question would be. If you didn’t take the trouble to read the extra few pages, it was your own d*** fault.
Dave M said, 6 months ago
Strange that no one mentioned how much time it takes for the teachers to grade essay type exams. . .
Bandit said, 6 months ago
@runar
Speaking as a former student, some teachers seem to prefer BS. Specifically, the BS they espoused. Not all teachers but some are that way.
Tacopielvr said, 6 months ago
@furrykef
What are you talking about?? Nothing about this site is “printed”. What do you mean “how strict the comics page is”, what comics page?? Certianly not this Frazz or the comments attached would offend anyone. Maybe go back and find the other side of the bed to get out of?