If Paperwork = Marking this is Me

'Tis the marking season here at Liberal Arts U. I purposely went out of my way this semester to make it a "soft landing" for my students with all the majour assignments due two weeks ago. But somehow it just always happens that I have a pile of orphan / late lab reports, term papers and lab portfolios to mark, each one pretty much squeezed out of some orifice of my students with no time on the clock and therefore each one looks, reads and smells like a first draft. When they are marked and returned I can look forward to the line of students at my door all with the message "I know my mark in your course sucks because I didn't do any work during the semester *but I care now*(1) ... what can I do to improve my mark?". It would be a great service to me if you could provide me with some completely impolite, unacceptable responses to the question.


(1) *but I care now* is an expression that I have begun to hear from students and I think they are confused by what I mention earlier in the semester where I will say "Show me once that you have mastery of the content of the course and I can/will adjust the values of the tests and exams to reflect that you understood the course material". Somehow they are translating that as "Show me once that you care". Meh, back to marking.

This made me laugh and remember when they renamed a number of fish here on the East Coast because city people wouldn't eat Cusk, Pout and Suckerfish. They also renamed rapeseed to canola for the same reason.