Yesterday, I started grading my first batch of short papers from the “Introduction to Ethics” class for which I am a T.A. (Since it’s my first year in the Ph.D program, it’s also my first year as a T.A. I teach two hour-long “recitation” sections during the week, plus grade papers and exams.)

The first paper I read was a utter nightmare of incomprehensibility. It did not contain a single grammatically correct sentence. In fact, the grammar was so twisted that I could discern only a single coherent claim in the whole paper, despite great time and effort. Thankfully, the subsequent papers have gotten much better, although I’m not sure that they could have gotten much worse.

Unfortunately, grading is taking me forever — even though the papers are just 2-3 pages long. But I’m starting to get a sense for what constitutes A, B, C, D, and F papers. But still, it’s slow going.

At least I’ll get to watch some football while grading today! I’ve give any paper read while Peyton Manning throws a touchdown pass an automatic A! (I’m kidding, of course.)