Archive for April, 2008

I’ve previously posted on why my uniform does not include a sidearm, but it’s good to have reminders now and then of why this is so.

It’s final grading time hereabouts right now, and I’m getting close to the end. All that remains is for me to grade the essay component of an in-class final for my “knobs” (i.e., freshmen). The subject was meant to be reflective; I asked them to look back on their first year at The Citadel, to argue about the advantages and disadvantages of the “knob experience.”

Settling into my office this morning, I prepped the stack of essays, clicking and reclicking my red pen in anxious anticipation of bloodletting — er, grading. I eyed my nearby warhammer with a sort of longing. Then I pulled the first paper off the stack, cricked my neck, and read the following (here typed up verbatim — I’m a trained paleographer, you know!):

The knob experience, ment to seperate “the men from the boys,” but is it adventagious to go through, I say yes they do.

I stared at this for a solid minute before deciding not to grade that one just yet. Best to wait. For the sake of the carpets.

So I set it aside and pulled the next one off the stack. The first sentence:

No one said life was easy.

This, too, I stared at for a bit. Then, sighing, I returned this second paper to the stack and retrieved the first.

Yeah, I know, smartypants. No one said it was easy, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t mind if it was.

I’m grading graduate student research papers this weekend, from my course “Medieval War and Peace.” It’s a nice change from marking up freshman composition papers. There are fewer egregious grammar issues and more attempts to say something of solid merit.

Sadly, though, not everything is different.

For example, these graduate papers were supposed to be 20-25 pages in length. It turns out that about 25% of them do not meet this most basic requirement (that’s actually quite a bit higher than the percentage among my freshman papers). And two of them are not only short, but short even after font-padding (wherein the student oh-so-cleverly uses a wide-set font to stretch the length).

I take the last point somewhat personal, as it supposes (to my mind) that I’m an idiot who doesn’t notice such things. Alas, it seems I do.

After a brief chance to catch my breath earlier this week — a couple days to bang out two more chapters of Four Shards — I’ve now entered the homestretch of the semester. Finals.

For students, finals week means studying. For teachers, it means grading. For all of us, it means late nights and lots of stress.

On the plus side, it’ll be over in a week. Then I’m jumping in the Jeep and driving out West to hunt Anasazi ruins.

Seriously.