The Mormon Monk

A few weeks ago, this Monk and newly minted PhD received a letter from the Brigham Young University English Department: The letter invited me to join the only university led by living prophets and to teach early American literature there, but there was one problem: my (now former) address was horribly misspelled. Actually, it's a small miracle that the letter even reached me. I asked myself--how could divinely inspired leaders get my information so wrong? Shouldn't they KNOW? And then I remembered Symonds Ryder (also, infamously, Simonds Rider), who was once placed in something of a similar situation. I quickly decided that maybe spelling wasn't the most important thing, even for an English professor, and suffice to say that I'm now happily on my way to BYU. Wahoo! Give me your tired, your poor, Your starving students yearning for knowledge . . . Send these, the young, the media-addled to me, I lift my books beneath the Y!

Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints affirm that “[w]e believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law” (AF 12) and that “[w]e believe that all men are bound to sustain and uphold the respective governments in which they reside, while protected in their inherent and inalienable rights by the laws of such governments” (D&C 134:5). This guaranteed exercise of basic rights, including the right to “worship how, where or what [we] may” (AF 11), is a necessary precondition for our support of government because “[w]e believe that no government can exist in peace, except such laws are framed and held inviolate as will secure to each individual the free exercise of conscience, the right and control of property, and the protection of life” (D&C 134:2). In other words, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believe that the primary function of government is the protection of indi...

This is the fifth part of a five-part series on the mysteries and realities of the AP English Language Exam and its grading process. For more on the marathon that is AP exam grading, see Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3 , and Part 4 . You’re probably sick of hearing about the AP exam—but before I go, I want to give you a look at the single worst essay I graded during my time in Louisville and a piece of the best writing on humor I’ve ever seen. First the (worst) essay: “Many people try to be comedy, act funny, and even draw humorists things but personaly that is just a gift that you have to be born with. “If Mr. De Botton wasn’t a natural this process was very hard for him probably due to the fact that he has to try to impress people and a lot of people get intimated by that. There are also risk of being talked about and laughed at and even dead silences. So Mr. de Botton probably went through a lot to be as well known as he is now. “In conclusion success doesnot just happen over night it ta...