Discovering the Stapler

The other day, in the class that I am a TA for, I finally received the first written assignment that the students had to turn in. I had about 70 papers that are about 4 pages long. And now the task I need to do is to read them and grade them.

Fun, eh?

Not so much. But at least we have guidelines in grading them, so it wouldn't be a hassle. However, we need to do some precautions to ensure that students are not playing the system.

But anyway, the weird thing is that some of these papers are not worth of being called a paper that was submitted by a college student. Like, hello, has anyone not heard of the instrument called the stapler? Seriously, some students only have the top left corner dog-eared so that they all come together, and then they write their name on all the sheets of paper, but really, is that how you turn in a paper?

There's this thing called a stapler, it is metallic in nature, it allows a piece of metal to go and puncture the papers you have and then the metallic piece folds, so that the sheets of paper go together. They are all found in office places, including libraries and printer places. Using them is free, and would only take a small exertion of physical effort, burning perhaps a calorie or two but nothing more. Totally doable.

And yet some students don't even entertain that thought in their heads.

Bizarre.



(Ceiling Once More, from my Library of Congress Series)