I just finished typing up comments on my students’ first drafts of their final paper. Eight-ish hours of reading drafts, at this point in the school year, makes me feel a bit kooky. I think I’m going to sleep before trying any more major brain activity. But doing a teaching-duty stretch like this ensures that I can wake up tomorrow to do my own work! Yay! By now I’m really ready to read a book! I really don’t like having papers hanging over me, so I get them done as soon as possible, preferably all in one sitting, so that I can assess each student within the context of his peers’ papers.
But I’m going to go to sleep with “In the novel Persuasion, by Jane Austen, a major theme is . . .” in my head. Here’s hoping I don’t have nightmares about a Jane Austen novel–that would be too sad for words!
Erin
Alan Schmierer
You know you’re going grading-crazy when you start writing weird comments in the margins. One of my students answered simply “I don’t remember” to one of the questions on his quiz, and I wrote back, “Thanks for your honesty. -L”
I had to refrain from sending any sorts of global e-mails to the student body with “life lesson” type messages. Things I would have liked to have pointed out included: the proper spelling of “imminent” and that Castro is the leader of Cuba, not Mexico. Oh, undergrads.
-L
you really need to post ridiculous student-happenings, like Lisa just did.
my senior year, my best friend was a grad-TA for human development, which was apparently a gen-ed for some majors (my department wouldn’t go “that low”)… they had to write papers interviewing old people, middle-aged people and young people about stuff like the war in Iraq, gay marriage, church/state, and whatever other interesting things they could come up with.
the highlight of my day was when she would copy their poorly written excerpts about what their grandparents thought about rap music and send them to me. 🙂
Haha. I’m getting my Ph.D. in Human Development. I hope you don’t think less of me…
-L
That’s okay, Lisa; if you start to get worried about your degree, you can always pull out a few lawyer jokes to send back Heidi’s way! 🙂
Speaking of which, Heid, what are some good lawyer jokes? I’m assuming you know a few by now.
So far the only interesting comments in my students’ papers are things that require a bit of knowledge about Persuasion to find truly funny. My students get caught up in the “Mr. X,” “Captain Y,” and the three “Misses Z,” so I have lots of paper where the students screwed up names. It’s a lot of fun writing in the margins, “Take a look at what you’ve written. You currently have Anne marrying her father and, on the second page, Captain Wentworth making eyes at his sister, who also happens to be a married woman. Please reconsider.”
As an added note, I also have a lot of students who can’t get past the idea of Austen’s characters marrying their cousins (first or otherwise), something that shows up in a lot of literature from this time. So I have final papers that read, “Henrietta is set to marry her cousin, her first cousin, Charles,” implying that we’re supposed to be worried about this. I find this all very funny, as my students in a not-so-prudish time are getting their hackles up about Jane Austen marriages within extended families. I’d rather they took note of the glorious nature of old-fashioned courting, but unfortunately I can’t dictate everything they learn from the book.
Erin
Oh, sorry Lisa, that’s really not what I meant to imply! My friend just finished her masters in human development and I think very highly of her!
It was actually more a comment on this particular class, which has very low requirements and notorious for filling up quickly with student-athletes.
You’d be surprised to know that lawyer jokes aren’t common at the law school. We make the same nerdy jokes about our subject matter…
Example:
Student A — hey can you spot me $1 for a coke? i’ll pay you back tomorrow
Student B — i know a gratuitous promise when i see one! *snort*
Student A — haha, ok, how about i offer a sip of my coke as consideration on the contract?
Student B — *snort* done!
But here’s a lawyer joke for your amusement anyway
Q:You’re trapped in a room with a tiger, a rattlesnake and a lawyer. Your gun has only two bullets. What should you do?
A: Shoot the lawyer. Twice.