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Thursday, December 7, 2024
By Steven L. Taylor

Dr. Nokes provides some End of Term Follies (some reproduced dialogs with students over their grades–all of which are sadly familiar).

One of Scott’s mini-plays includes the ever popular “is there anything I can do to bring my grade up?”

With a sense of catharsis (and because if I write it here, I might forestall actually saying it to a student) I present you some theater of the mind:

Student: A D? But I needed an A!
Me: I know it is a disappointment, but as all my syllabi say, “If you need a particular grade, start working towards it from DAY ONE. It is difficult to be sympathetic to students who “need to get X” at the end of the semester who did not put effort into the course from the start of the semester.” As promised, I don’t have that sympathy. Why didn’t you seek help after you failed the mid-term?
Student: Is there anything I can do to bring my grade up?
Me: Befriend the Doctor and talk him into using the TARDIS to take you back in time so that you can do the work that the class required in the first place.

Ok, I have more grading to do now…

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7 Responses to “Grading Season”

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  • pt
    1. B. Minich Says:

      Niiiice. As someone who has, in the past, gotten bad grades (taking on too much in a semester – the course I nearly failed was amazingly, one of the courses I should have aced. I got the hard ones that year.), I know you have to do the work. If I ever become a prof, I’d tell my own student woe story, and then say “look, I did alright. You need to do what I did – pick it up next year.”

    2. Dr. Steven Taylor Says:

      Sometimes that is all one can do.

      The ones who frustrate me are the ones who obviously don’t do the work. I had a grad student recently who wrote their major research paper at the last minute, yet was asking for extra credit. This was the same student who inspired my rant about Wikipedia on Sunday.

    3. Anon Says:

      Presumably you’ve all heard the joke about the attractive blonde woman who goes to her professor and tells him suggestively that she would do anything to get a better grade, anything at all.

      The professor responds, “Would you study?”

    4. Chris Lawrence (guestblogger) Says:

      I’d be afraid of using the word “Tardis”… an ignorant-of-the-bliss-that-is-Doctor-Who student might think I was insulting them.

    5. Dr. Steven Taylor Says:

      Yet another reason to avoid the conversation… :)

    6. Jan Says:

      You could avoid the TARDIS reference altogether and just tell them to slingshot around the sun to go back in time. :)

    7. Dr. Steven Taylor Says:

      Well, there is that.

      But time travelin’ via TARDIS is time travlin’ in style.


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