Essay Box (nm) on Charms

Professor Taylor

September 20, 2009 11:27 AM

Advanced Charms, Lesson II by Professor Taylor

It was with a somewhat unpleasant expression on her face that Lorraine Taylor greeted her Advanced students as they walked in the heavy door. On her desk sat a pile of parchment, marked up in red ink—in some instances, it may have been difficult to read the actual black ink in between all the red. The last time the students had come to class, they had turned in a rather long essay on the theory behind movement charms (from the basic Wingardium Leviosa to the much more complicated variations of Summoning, Banishing, and Locomotor charms) and Lorraine had been very disappointed in the results. Some of the essays seemed as though they’d been hastily scrawled twenty minutes before the class, whereas others displayed a particular and complete misunderstanding of what appeared to be most aspects of the prompt and the charms.

Normally not a tolerant or kind woman, Lorraine was not planning on being nice about the essays. The seventh years had an increasingly short amount of time before they took their end-of-school exams, and the gray-blonde woman refused to have her students receive anything less than Es. She was of the opinion that all of them were capable of this.

As far as the sixth years went, they were just along for the ride today.

“Abysmal,” Lorraine said shortly as time came for class to start and the heavy door banged shut. With a flick of her wand, the papers distributed themselves face-up to their owners, who reacted with varying stages of emotion. The results were, for the most part, rather unpleasant.

“Since it is abundantly clear,” the woman continued, flicking her watery blue eyes around the room in clearly expressed irritation, “that none of you have the vaguest understanding of the theory behind movement charms, you will be spending the rest of the period re-writing your essays. If your edits do not correspond with my suggestions, you will attend mandatory Saturday tutoring until I feel you do understand the concepts and have the ability to follow directions. Get to work.”

Lorraine turned and walked stiffly over to her desk, before turning back around to face the class. “And I suggest you work in pairs,” she added before seating herself and returning to work on the first and second years’ last tests.

OOC:
You know the drill. If you actually want to turn in an essay for bonus House points (between, say, 10 and 20), post it to 'Essay Box' below.

Subthreads:

Essay Box (nm) by Professor Taylor

Never claimed to be good at theory by Saul Pierce

0 Professor Taylor Advanced Charms, Lesson II 0 Professor Taylor 1 5

Saul Pierce

September 21, 2009 4:05 PM

Never claimed to be good at theory by Saul Pierce

Saul had been coasting in most of his classes this year. It was his seventh year and the RATS meant less than nothing to him. Sometime since midterm had finished, senioritus had hit him hard and he'd come down with a severe case of it. When he did his homework at all, his level of effort tended to be affected heavily by how interesting he found the material at hand. Movement charms were incredibly useful, but not terribly interesting. The essay he was getting back today had been slapped together while he ate breakfast the morning it was due. He'd probably put as much orange juice into the paper as he had thought.

This was clearly indicated by the amount of red on it when it came back. He could barely see the writing of his dictation quill. The T on top was neither unexpected nor or any concern to him. If he passed this class at all, it was going to be through his practical skills, not his understanding of the theory.

Usually, though, he did manage to pull a Dreadful, or occasionally even a Poor, on his Charms essays. Troll grades were usually reserved for his History papers.

And Professor Taylor looked ready to spit nails. Saul flinched a little in his seat as her irritation fell on him before it moved on to the next underachiever. He had no doubt that he'd easily maintained his position as the lowest grade-holder in the class, but usually his peers managed not to incur teachers' academic wrath. This must be a harder topic than he'd given it credit for.

He read over the red comments, more because he was told to than because he had any interest in their contents or felt an inclination to improve his performance in class. Writing the essay had not be fun the first time around. Re-writing it held even less appeal.

He looked to the person seated nearest to him and grimaced unhappily. He was probably more at fault than anyone else in the room, but if he'd been the only one with a bad essay, they wouldn't be redoing it as a class exercise. He tried not to hold it against his neighbor personally and turned his frown into a weak grin.

"Mind being stuck with the class idiot?" he asked, showing them his red washed essay with the circled T as the most prominent mark on the page. "On the plus side, I think I've got enough of the Professor's writing on here to make a full essay just by copying her."

1 Saul Pierce Never claimed to be good at theory 82 Saul Pierce 0 5