Has your essay ever been marked with meme stickers?

25 Oct 2018

As an international student, you may have experienced alternative forms of assignment marking as your teachers back home may have preferred a different grading method.

Perhaps they underline mistakes in an assortment of colours or add sticky notes to the essay paper.

Marking styles change from school to school. Source: Giphy

But did they ever used memes to express their concerns or approval?

A blessing or perhaps a curse of the digital age, memes are undoubtedly everywhere. These entertaining media formats come in all shapes and sizes, populating millions of social media profiles across the world.

Serving as universal humour, memes unite online users worldwide.

Noticing the impact memes have in this day and age, a high school teacher based in Illinois (US) named Ainee Fatima chose to use them to mark her students’ homework – and it’s taken the internet by storm.

I love grading with my new stickers! pic.twitter.com/4K66qQblSJ

— axneef (@axfxq) October 17, 2018

Fatima recently told The Daily Dot, “It’s sometimes important for teachers to meet their students at their level. Including pop-culture and media in their curriculum will get your content and instruction across way farther than sticking to age-old content.

“Plus, I think memes and GIFs are so a part of texting culture now that we have a reaction and meme to everything. I thought why not use it for grading?”

Since the reveal of the meme marking, Twitter users have taken to their accounts and posted praise for the tactic:

Create a classroom culture that resonates with students and excellence shows itself. https://t.co/U0qdlS5ndI

— Laiza (Lay-sa) (@lzixxaa) October 18, 2018

Nah but for real @axfxq, this is an amazing idea. We need more teachers like you who make education fun for kids.

— X (@XLNB) October 18, 2018

I bet this one would find it’s way into someone’s paper. pic.twitter.com/4h3nqUVO29

— adnan(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻ (@werzadnan) October 19, 2018

So, what’s your opinion of meme marking? Would you like your university professors to follow suit or do you think it’s merely a phase that will soon run out of traction?