Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they)
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katjathieme.bsky.social
Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they)
@katjathieme.bsky.social
Into words, sentences, genres.
#writingstudies #teamrhetoric #cdnwrds #genai+writing
https://katjat.medium.com/
Pinned
If you've ever found yourself in a position of inventing some sort of story that might explain uneven student evaluation scores—your own or someone else's—then this blog post is for you.

#writingstudies #cdnwrds #rhetcomp #teamrhetoric
Teaching Scores, Storied Averages, and Small Classes
University administrations are very keen on student evaluations. Behind the scenes, they are a managerial lever in employment decisions and…
katjat.medium.com
Reposted by Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they)
„This is a standard playbook. We are now all arguing about the details of a grading rubric, while the practical outcome on the ground will be to continue the project of giving conservative students & activists veto power over educational institutions & curricula.“

Don’t. Argue. About. The. Grade.
I wrote much of this several months ago, about Ezra Klein's response to the Kirk assassination, and then never ended up publishing it, but I think this UO "controversy" is a such a perfect example of how TPUSA et al actually advance conservative power that I decided to revive and rewrite it.
What Liberals Can Learn from Charlie Kirk
Over the last few days, if you’re active on political media, you have probably seen references to the “controversy” over a student’s failing grade on an essay at Oklahoma Un…
nathangoldwag.wordpress.com
December 2, 2025 at 2:17 PM
Reposted by Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they)
„Curth—who received an Outstanding Grad Teaching Award from OU’s Dept of Psychology—is now on admin leave. The uni emphasized its commitment to ‘protecting every student’s right to express sincerely held religious beliefs,‘ which is a fascinating way to describe giving a bad grade to a bad essay.“
December 3, 2025 at 12:41 AM
Reposted by Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they)
„Fulnecky’s demand for better grades, and the mobilization of con media to achieve it, is far from extraordinary. In Sep, after a Texas A&M student recorded a prof discussing gender, the school fired the prof. A&M has now a policy banning profs from talking about ‘race or gender ideology‘ in class.“
What Liberals Can Learn from Charlie Kirk
Over the last few days, if you’re active on political media, you have probably seen references to the “controversy” over a student’s failing grade on an essay at Oklahoma Un…
nathangoldwag.wordpress.com
December 3, 2025 at 12:20 AM
Reposted by Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they)
“This essay was originally published in The Free Press” Haidt I’m gonna stop you right there
December 2, 2025 at 3:16 AM
Reposted by Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they)
"I am *unsettled* that ChatGPT, fed on the plethora of articles I and others have written on the subject as well as my own chat history has reproduced a rough sketch of our arguments back to me, this is *chilling*!"

This guy has massive influence on tech policy. Wonderful.
December 2, 2025 at 3:13 AM
Reposted by Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they)
Oliver Traldi has richly Koch-funded thoughts on how many unhinged Bible reflections he's used to seeing in a psychology course he's never taught and will never teach.
December 2, 2025 at 5:54 PM
Reposted by Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they)
I ended up drafting an email that didn't really lean on research specific to grade school education, but expressed my concerns in the most basic terms.

I removed the personal details and have shared it as a template here for folks who might find it useful:
bit.ly/TeacherEmail...
December 2, 2025 at 4:39 PM
Reposted by Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they)
If youre equivocating about the actual fairness of the numbers of the grade of a paper that you managed 2 read because it was shared by the stochastic nazi terror org whose mission is to make colleges places unsafe for queers and POC might I suggest you've lost the fucking plot
December 2, 2025 at 5:30 PM
WTF. And I say this sincerely. WTF.
I asked the machine if you had joy 💀
December 2, 2025 at 5:57 PM
Oliver Traldi quoted as an alleged expert in instruction in the field of psychology. Please.
@chronicle.com, what please is this? How to miss the entire story.
December 2, 2025 at 5:38 PM
Reposted by Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they)
i refuse to call the slop that these flawed correlation models output “hallucinations”, that is an insult to anyone who has ever actually experienced hallucinating.
December 1, 2025 at 9:29 PM
„This is a standard playbook. We are now all arguing about the details of a grading rubric, while the practical outcome on the ground will be to continue the project of giving conservative students & activists veto power over educational institutions & curricula.“

Don’t. Argue. About. The. Grade.
I wrote much of this several months ago, about Ezra Klein's response to the Kirk assassination, and then never ended up publishing it, but I think this UO "controversy" is a such a perfect example of how TPUSA et al actually advance conservative power that I decided to revive and rewrite it.
What Liberals Can Learn from Charlie Kirk
Over the last few days, if you’re active on political media, you have probably seen references to the “controversy” over a student’s failing grade on an essay at Oklahoma Un…
nathangoldwag.wordpress.com
December 2, 2025 at 2:17 PM
Reposted by Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they)
Recent grizzly attacks in B.C. and Alberta have some calling for the provinces to re-open grizzly hunting. But experts say there is scant evidence that hunting reduces conflicts between bears and humans, writes freelance journalist @camfenton.bsky.social. thenarwhal.ca/grizzly-atta...
Grizzly hunting won’t reduce attacks, experts say | The Narwhal
After recent attacks in B.C. and Alberta, some are calling to re-open the grizzly hunt — but experts say there’s no evidence it would reduce conflicts
thenarwhal.ca
December 2, 2025 at 1:49 PM
Reposted by Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they)
Why is the media consistently saying "energy," when they actually mean "oil and gas"?
"Alberta energy deal" rather than "Alberta oil and gas deal" etc.
This is obfuscation.
It serves to present these agreements as beneficial to all, rather than specifically beneficial to the oil and gas industry.
December 1, 2025 at 11:49 PM
Reposted by Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they)
There’s extensive public health research on this that shows that needles on vaccine stories contribute to lower vaccine uptake because people have phobias of needles. So unless your health journalism has no purpose, you kind of have to figure out an alternative. At least acknowledge the problem.
December 2, 2025 at 1:00 PM
Reposted by Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they)
Fund the arts because they are a source of joy and human happiness and thought. Not just because a scientist may get an idea off a line in a play. (Though that's great too.)
December 2, 2025 at 1:47 PM
Reposted by Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they)
Hey Team Rhetoric -- Bill Hart-Davidson Memorial Scholarship 2025 Giving Tuesday Campaign

The scholarship requires $50,000 to be fully funded and start supporting students. As of 11/30/25, approximately $40,000 has already been raised.

givingto.msu.edu/causes-to-su...
* | Giving to Michigan State University | Michigan State University
givingto.msu.edu
December 2, 2025 at 11:01 AM
Reposted by Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they)
Adding alt text to this because this is fucking amazing and everyone deserves to read it.
December 2, 2025 at 9:28 AM
„Damià Barceló is a hyper-prolific scientist, who publishes a new study every five days or even less. He has authored some 1,800 papers in his lifetime, more than 200 of them in Science of the Total Environment, his own journal. His name appears numerous times as editor of his own studies.“
The fall of a prolific science journal exposes the billion-dollar profits of scientific publishing
One of the 15 publications that put out the most studies globally has been expelled from the indexing system for irregularities. Its publisher, Elsevier, has a 38% profit margin that reached $1.5 bill...
english.elpais.com
December 2, 2025 at 11:35 AM
Reposted by Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they)
“We will not stand idly by while governments collude behind closed doors and come up with ludicrous notions of attempting to get yet another fossil fuel pipeline to coastal waters,” Grand Chief Stewart Philip said, calling the MOU “the most egregious dismissal of our constitutional & legal rights.”
December 2, 2025 at 7:08 AM
That cancelled TV show you'll never stop thinking about
December 2, 2025 at 7:12 AM
Reposted by Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they)
There seems to be a strain of thought that goes: given that Timothy purchased a sandwich with a faked lunch ticket, faked tickets and sandwiches are interchangeable now—and whoa in the near future the fake ticket printer is going to feed our school, isn’t it!
These aren't just random words you're publishing, and you don't want us to think they are. What do you think you are gaining by making the claim ChatGPT could just as well have written the same paper?
November 30, 2025 at 9:15 PM
Reposted by Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they)
„In an era of increasingly fragile international scientific cooperation, the objective is more than ever to regain sovereignty over our scientific choices and decision-making so these are guided by enhanced transparency achieved through using open tools with more transparent methods.„
December 1, 2025 at 3:38 PM
Reposted by Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they)
Could someone tell the ARC and other agencies in Australia to follow the CNRS’ lead? Their obsession with WoS metrics is stupid beyond belief.
„CNRS began this process by unsubscribing from Elsevier's Scopus and is continuing today by cutting access to Clarivate Analytics' bibliometric database. This will help the org save €1.4 mill annually in subscription fees, redirected towards promoting open science & development of open databases.“
From January 1st 2026, the CNRS will cut access to one of the largest commercial bibliometric databases, Clarivate Analytics' Web of Science, along with the Core Collection and Journal Citation Reports.
December 2, 2025 at 4:15 AM
Reposted by Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they)
The end of academic freedom, Flowchart Edition.
TX Tech has a flow chat for guidance on what can be taught in the university system. Two things:
1. Very little content seems to be permitted. This is partisan control of the curriculum.
2. I would not enjoy teaching under these conditions, but I really would not want to be a Chair or Dean.
December 2, 2025 at 1:38 AM