Super-intelligent

I wanted to write something uplifting, happy, and somewhat intelligent today. I really did. I considered writing about the weather, how it reminds me of the fall in the south of France. I considered writing about Halloween, and how I am actually considering giving into the whole decorating-insanity that our entire neighborhood has apparently fallen victim to. But instead, I started to grade student papers, and once again my spirits have plummeted into the depths of all creations.

The phrase that set me off this time was "Some of the major symbolic symbols".
Yes, "symbolic symbols". I'm not sure what else symbols can be, other than symbolic, but apparently this student really wanted to make sure I understood the symbols were, like, symbolic, yeah, like a whole lot, dude.

The papers I'm grading today were assigned for a course on persuasive communication. Personally, I like to think of this course as one of my less stringent ones. There are no scary statistical calculations, no extremely complicated theories, and no long-dead and possibly slightly insane philosophers to consider. Instead, we discuss all the facets of persuasion, use lots and lots of examples, analyze a few famous propaganda movies, and then focus on the effectiveness of persuasive communication. I would in fact go so far as to claim that it's one of the most interesting courses I teach.

One of the major assignments the students have to complete is watch several propaganda movies, and discuss them in terms of the techniques and definitions presented in class. Which do they use, what are they trying to achieve, etc. In my book, that's as easy an assignment as I can create.

Wrong.

Although some students jump ahead, writing lucid, unpretentious, well-researched papers, covering every angle I could possibly think of, others appear to drown in the material, flailing for the shore, holding on to poorly defined terms for dear life, and generally make a mess of it.

Take one of the movies, for instance. It's from the second world war, and features the dictator of all dictators. Students have to watch an excerpt, and are provided with a link to re-watch it at home if they have to. In spite of all of that, one of my students managed to claim that Hitler called unfaithful Germans "Un-American". Of course he would. Someone else happily took the theory that the director of the film (Leni Riefenstahl) had an affair with Hitler and ran with it, making, among other head-turners, the unforgettable statement that she thus "wasn't so much working for him as she was under him". And yet another student made the claim that this movie was propaganda for it "presented Hitler as a family-oriented man". Hmm. Never married, no children, yet family-oriented. Excellent. There was also a student who decided that using formal writing language is a waste of everyone's time, and who decided to call a failed attempt at persuasion a "snafu".

Then, of course, there is the random use of Capitalization, the complete misuse, of, commas, the all-too common "you're missing a", the fragmented sentences that I for the life of me can't imitate, the use of then instead of than, or maybe it was then after all, and those sentences that just seem to run on and on and on without an end in sight as though the student is afraid to just put that period down and be done with it.

You will, however, be happy to know that I have found one pinprick of light in the darkness: No plagiarism thus far. My reign as the Terrible Queen of Anti-Plagiarism is finally paying off. Can we have a hooray?