May 6: "Dictionary Wanderings," Strange or Dirty Words, "Final Exams"

Billy Collins checks his spelling . . . 

Dictionary Wanderings

by: Billy Collins

The two silent "els"

in talk and calf

find a place

of prominence in llama.

As a kid, I loved wandering through the dictionary, window shopping for strange or dirty words.  I learned a lot about life (and sex) by doing this.  And I probably doomed myself to be a poet.

I spent most of the day and night grading papers and exams.  Final grades are due by noon tomorrow, so I'm under the gun, so to speak.  Currently, I'm wading through my students' essay exams for Intro to Mythology.  Prior to that, it was reading journals for my Good Books class.

I love teaching, but I'm not a big fan of grading.  I may be in the minority of educators, but I truly believe that grades interfere with a student's ability to learn.  Instead of trying to grapple with course content, students spend their time worrying about what they need to do to earn an "A" from their instructors.  It's pointless.

I would much prefer a Pass/Fail system of evaluation.  If a student demonstrates mastery of the course material, the student passes.  If the student still doesn't know the difference between "to/too/two" at the end of the semester, the student fails.  Simple and easy, eliminating all the stupid competition that occurs in higher education.

Of course, Saint Marty has been grading for about 16 hours today, so that may be influencing his judgement a little bit right now.

Final Exams

by:  Martin Achatz

Grading them

at 1 a.m.

reminds me

of cramming for them,

minus the gin and panic.