Jock the TA Octopus

My friends and I have been grading a lot lately. It's that time of the semester. Reading students' papers can be very interesting and rewarding, but it also (as I think most teachers would agree) frequently tends to be a frustrating experience, when it's not simply mind-numbing. Often, we fantasize about ways to make grading easier. Tonight, an exchange about grading between fellow Comp instructors on Facebook somehow led us to imagine sea slugs writing papers, and thence (naturally) to the idea of an octopus TA. 

It's actually not that far-fetched. I recently read some articles about octopus intelligence. They use tools, play, solve puzzles, are amazing escape artists, can crawl around on land, and have awesome camouflage skills. Then Abby shared this little article about Jock, an octopus in Scotland who has taken to cleaning his own tank. Feeling that an intelligent cephalopod like Jock might be interested in switching from janitorial to clerical work, in a moment of stress-relieving silliness, I invented Jock the Octopus TA. Below, I share some of Jock's recent assessments of student writing. Also, apparently octopuses refer to themselves in the third person. They are solitary creatures who evolved at the bottom of the ocean; their brains are not like our brains. Don't question it.

"Jock says your source is invalid. Try JSTOR next time. Jock loves peer-reviewed articles almost as much as he loves rearranging his tank furniture to be more feng shui." 

"Jock wishes to use this paragraph to scrub the scum off the side of his tank." 

"Jock is not interested in how comprehensive sex education is the solution to the failure of our entire educational infrastructure. He thinks you should write a paper about cephalopods' right to privacy." 

"QUOTING ACTUAL SCHOLARS! Jock approves."

"Jock finds your mastery of academic style over substance simultaneously impressive and depressing." 

"Jock is intrigued by your thesis statement, but finds your argument's credibility hampered by poor paragraph organization and weak source attribution."

 image source: dailyvisits.co.uk

 When Jock is not grading papers or cleaning his tank, he practices playing his bagpipes. He and Paul II, a German octopus guitarist, are hoping to start an international Octopus band. Paul II's predecessor was allegedly psychic, but Paul II is an empiricist and doesn't believe in such pseudoscientific nonsense. Inspired by his high-achieving bandmate, Paul II thinks he may have a future in academia as well--perhaps as a research assistant.