"Let�s say a student who received a C grade on a paper asks you to reread it and change their grade because they 'worked so hard on it.'"

8 professors compose a response directed at the student, including one that begins "Dear C Student" and another that begins "Dear Student Who Must Be Out Of Their Mind" and is signed "Sincerely, Dr. 'I know you didn�t just come to me with this foolishness' Amin."

I don't believe this is really how professors respond to student requests. A polite refusal is all that's really needed. But these are letters written not to real students but for publication, and you might find them funny. Myself, I don't find them funny. It's too much the "punching down" kind of humor that really should be avoided by someone exercising power. A student may be thinking it doesn't hurt to try. Maybe it could work. And it's an institutional problem if students feel that way. Is somebody else raising grades in response to mere begging?

(At my school, teachers aren't allowed to change grades unless there's a computational error. You can't reassess the quality of the exams. There's also a required curve, so the grades all exist in comparison to the grades that other students received in that class. In a system like that, it doesn't make sense to redo your thinking for one exam. You should have to redo them all. And if anyone needed a higher grade, it should probably mean someone else should have to get a lower grade.)