“How many more of these reports do I have to grade?” Jason, a bored 45-year-old English teacher, counted them. “Let’s see, 26 students and 12 are graded, so I have 14 more.” He threw his pen onto his desk. “I’m going to be here all night,” he thought. He went to the refrigerator and got a can of Bud, his third one. “This will probably improve the grades for these papers,” he said.

He wasn’t actually talking to anyone. Recently divorced, he was home alone in his apartment. It was getting late. The weatherman said earlier that snow might fall in the early morning hours, which could close schools. He considered betting on the weatherman and not grading the papers, but he knew too well that was a bad bet almost every time, especially in a seashore town. Still, he peeked out the window for a sign of snowflakes. No such luck.

He had assigned his class a poem by 19th Century poet, Matthew Arnold, called Dover Beach. “Read it carefully and then write a full-page interpretation of the writer’s intent,” he had told his high school juniors. Every year, one student was sure to ask, “Why this poem?”

“We live in a beach town. Listen to the ocean. Maybe it has something to tell us,” he would say, a wry smile on his face. Most of his students read the poem, he was sure of that. Some took a crack at understanding it and spoke their minds. Others read critiques they found on the Internet and did some work disguising what they’d read, trying to pass it off as their own work. Still, a few others just copied the critiques word for word, hoping he wouldn’t notice. 

He graded each report accordingly, giving an “F” to the students who let others do their thinking for them. It tickled him a little, because at least a few of those papers he suspected were written by a parent. He could usually tell when a parent wrote an “F” paper. He would get an email from that parent, who would say something like, “I read Luke’s report before he handed it in. I thought he did an excellent job. I’m wondering why you gave him such a low grade.”

He usually ignored such questions and never heard from the parent again. Occasionally, though, a parent would be more aggressive and schedule a conference with him, concerned about the effect of an “F” on their child’s grades. In those situations, he slowly walked them through the paper, pointing out grammar and punctuation errors as well as faulty logic.

One parent, though, a woman in her early 40s, listened to everything he said and then pulled out a sheaf of papers. “When I saw the grade you gave my son, I went to the library and did some research.” She leafed through a few pages and came to the one she was looking for. “You criticized his assessment where he said that the author believed Christianity was fading as science revealed more and more about the universe.” She pushed the paper in front of him to read what she’d just read. She lowered her glasses on the bridge of her nose, and waited, triumph on her face.  “Now, having seen this, will you please explain why you gave him an “F”?

He smiled. “I gave him an “F” because he copied it word for word. That’s plagiarism, isn’t it? I wanted him to think for himself. Isn’t that what you want?”

Her face turned red. She stood. “Obviously, I’ll have to discuss this with your Principal.” She took her papers and left. She didn’t visit the principal.

He graded a few more papers before going to the window again. Was that snowflakes? No, not yet. He sipped more beer. He thought of the last six lines of Arnold’s first stanza

Listen! you hear the grating roar

Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,

At their return, up the high strand,

Begin, and cease, and then again begin,

With tremulous cadence slow, and bring

The eternal note of sadness in.

 The eternal note of sadness. No snow. More papers to grade. He opened another Bud.