06 November 2010

Foolish consistency = hobgoblin of little minds

I'm grading late into the night again. Question of the hour: why, when I have provided my students with the proper format for citing an essay from a book collection (on the assignment sheet, so they didn't even have to come to class for this), and most of them (not all: why don't you actually read the assignment sheet?) successfully reproduce it in the Works Cited section, do they then italicize the essay title in the body of the paper?

No, never mind, I know: they're not actually paying any attention to what they write.

I'm interspersing the actual grading with visits to the "Bang your head" thread over at the Chronicle. At the rate I'm going (working backwards, not forwards), I may exhaust the thread before I finish the papers.

Basement Cat is chewing my colored pens. Maybe he thinks I should stop now.

2 comments:

Ink said...

I get it. And I do not know the answer to why it is impossible for them to pay attention to a handout/guidelines/assignment description. And I *especially* do not know the answer to why they think they should STILL get As despite not paying attention to all requirements.

Deep sigh.

Maggie said...

I feel your pain!