It’s Not on the Rubric
By Archpundit nails it. In reference to Palin’s interview with Katie Couric:
One of my various part time employments from time to time is grading AP exams for the Government and Politics Exam. Sometimes students who clearly don’t know what they are talking about back into a few points by hitting accidentally on the points in the rubric.
It hadn’t occurred to me before, but this is exactly right; Sarah Palin, in interviews, seems to perpetually be struggling to find “rubric” points, and consistently failing. She’s had a ton of unfamiliar stuff about foreign policy and national economic policy crammed into her head for the last month, but she can’t quite seem to retrieve. Rather, she does her best to noodle on for a couple of paragraphs, in the hope that she’ll accidentally stumble across a point or two. Of course, for readers this is the most annoying kind of essay; one that we actually have to read closely and pay attention to, but wherein the student clearly doesn’t have the faintest what she’s talking about.
In fact, now I’m looking forward to next year’s grading, such that I can say to my table neighbor “Damn. Another Palin. Can you read this mess and see if there are any points in there that I missed?”
Rubric explanation and context here.