Casa Free-Ride, the location for the primary cave of grading, is currently abuzz with hammering and sawing and other noises, not to mention colder than usual on account of the removal of a ceiling and a bunch of obsolete insulation. So, I have decamped to a local cafe that has tables, heat, free wifi, and food and drink, establishing a remote grading outpost until it’s time to move in a soccer-ward direction.
I have always operated under the assumption that, if I’m going to occupy a table at a cafe to plow through grading (or writing, etc.), it is appropriate to purchase food and drink. (Today’s purchase: large coffee and chocolate truffle cheesecake.) The food can be a useful carrot (though not a literal one) to help me press through the task at hand: get through grading this section of the exam on 30 more papers and earn three more bites of cheesecake.
But, such a grading strategy carries with it the risk of getting chocolate truffle cheesecake on the papers being graded.
Indeed, in my grad school experiences with industrial scale grading (largely of exams for general chemistry and first term organic chemistry), there was nearly always some sort of food in play while we graders were marking the hundreds of papers we had to mark.
And, since solo-grading makes my mind wander, I’m now wondering what kinds of conclusions students might draw from the various and sundry stains that accompany the check marks and comments on their returned work. What might they make of
- Coffee (cup ring)
- Coffee (spilled)
- Red wine
- Tequila-scented salt crystals
- Orange smudges consistent with Cheetos or Doritos
- Smeared Cheez-Whiz
- Pizza grease
- Bacon grease
- Chocolate
- Creme Fraiche and/or raspberry coulis
- Cigarette ashes
- Singe marks and/or holes burned through the paper
- Fish scales
- Blood
I haven’t returned papers with each of these extra additives, and students seem not to comment (to me) on the odd coffee or chocolate stain on an exam paper.
My hunch is that they cannot detect the presence of tear stains at all. But maybe empirical research is in order here?
I am in the cave right now and it SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKS
“cigarette” ashes. Uh-huh. Sure.
Just remember, the scent of patchouli is a dead giveaway…
Wait….why would you have bacon grease?
Drugmonkey, I have left relatively few of these on student papers, and as you note, some on the list I wouldn’t have occasion to leave on ’em (including the bacon grease, fish scales, and cigarette ashes).
However, that doesn’t stop me from speculating upon what conclusions a student might draw *if* a paper came back with such traces.
Because honestly, such speculation is more entertaining than grading the same item on the 130th paper in a row!
I had the unfortunate experience of sneezing so violently that my nose started bleeding during a make-up math exam in high school. (I must have missed the test with a sinus infection and hence both the test in the hallway and the nose bleed.) The teacher wondered if I’d spilled coffee on the test and so that’s what I went with.
I’ve wondered that myself! Although this year we have pretty much moved all our marking online anyway so all that crap would go on my laptop instead and they will never know.
Also funny is that I use blog reading as my proverbial carrot on a stick. I’m doing analysis of some mouse behavioural data. Each minute worth of behaviour analysed (obviously takes longer for me to anlyse!) etitles me to reading a post (or 3-4 paragraphs if it was a long one) or make 1 comment.
Chick-Fil-A sauce.
I know they are bad guys, but they are IN MY BUILDING and is the only place to get lunch that doesn’t take 25 minutes.