Finals Done

Turned my grades in only 2 hours late today! Woot!! Some special angel must have been watching over me because the registrar's office didn't turn off the electronic grade entry portal the way they typically do if you are late. So I didn't even have to make the walk of shame from my office to the administrative building to submit them.

I do, however, already have my first grade email from a student. She was making an A in the class before the final and ended up with an A-. She got A's in all her other courses even her HARDEST course. How in the world did she end up with an A- in mine - she asks. I'm quite certain she'll turn up in January demanding to see her final... I wonder if I should write comments on it now to save myself the trouble next semester?? I probably won't because I don't want to touch anything resembling student papers until mid-January.

Avoiding the Walk of Shame

If I graded like Daniel Solove, I'd never have to do the Walk of Shame again.

Grading Exams

I am usually pretty laid-back when it comes to grammar while grading exams. I tell my students that as long as they write sentences that make sense and put them in something that looks like a paragraph, I'll be satisfied. I never bother with misspellings or fragments during timed exams because I'd rather they concentrate on demonstrating that they know and understand the material.

Usually, this works out fine and I have no trouble recognizing FDR, WWI, or even the symbol for 'women'. However, I do think New Zealand is taking things a bit too far. The year New Zealand students are going to allowed to use text-speak to answer questions on the national exam. So instead of spelling out complete words they can use U for you, txt for text, and D-bag for Douche-Bag (see this post if you don't think a student would never use that in an exam).

I think this is going a bit too far. Not because I think that text-speak is going to bring down civilization as we know it, but because how the heck are the graders/professors going to know for certain what the student is trying to convey? Does everyone but me recognize these terms? Is there even a standard interpretation of them?

I propose we all stand up to the text messengers and demand that our students continue to use vowels appropriately and if you don't like it -- FU.

It is that time of year again

Well, I've hit the point in the semester where I am so over my head in keeping up with my classes and getting my grading done that I bribe my students with candy. Today they get their choice of saltwater taffy or those Halloween peanutbutter chews.

Update: According to my students - Halloween peanutbutter chews are the worst Halloween candy ever invented [these are things wrapped in oranage or black paper].

The Pains of Grading

I try to be a bit informal with my students and I never get too uptight about exactly how they choose to discuss the material on their exams. I figure if they have the information correct, basically understand the big concepts, and are able to support their points - that I can over look a little informal language.

But, I have just read an exam that makes me want to sit down and give my entire upper-division level American Foreign Policy class a lecture about appropriate word choice for exams. The offending sentence reads: "Our exclusion from the League of Armed Neutrality demonstrated that Europe is subject to douche-baggery."

First of all, I think douche bag can only be used as a noun and second -- when the heck did such terms become proper language for exams? I can just roll my eyes at how later in the essay the student refers to the French as "sorry Frogs," but surely at some point I have to address this lack of judgment.

I think one reason I am offended about this is that douche bag really is open to interpretation about what the heck it means. Maybe, instead of broaching this topic to the class in terms of 'inappropriate language' I can approach from the perspective of 'imprecise' language. Sounds more scholarly and less prissy that way.