Thursday, September 26, 2013

Help! I've got another acute case of Too-Much-to-Grade Syndrome!

Sigh...

I've been doing a pretty good job keeping up, but I think this time I'm stuck with a weekend overshadowed by grading. Why in the world did I schedule a test (4 pages long! nearly 40 students) on a Thursday? :-)  Oh, and today my students also had quizzes at U#1 and I have two quizzes and a test from U#3 to grade (they were scanned and emailed to me, but I didn't get them printed out until last Tuesday, and today).

In any case, last week I had even more stuff to grade, but it was all on Tuesday and I miraculously managed to grade it all by Wednesday & Thursday. So... a free weekend!

In fact, I would gladly grade those tests tonight, if it were not for the "small detail" that I have nine 3 page compositions to grade. It's the first draft, so I need to make TONS of comments. And I am annotating those electronically. Sigh...

And they HAVE to be done by tonight because students are turning in the final draft next Tuesday.

So... I've got to go and grade!! NOW!!! I'll be back later to report on my progress.

P.S. If there's one small silly thing that would totally be a big plus of continuing to teach basic language classes for the rest of my life it is how easy the grading is. Grading essays is SOOOOO BORING! And time consuming versus grading a pile of language tests or exams. The worst part for me is really writing good comments that "justify" my grade. Rubrics help, but just slightly. I think therapy (for me!) might help -- I hate to be judged, evaluated, criticized, so I can't stand doing it to others. It's painful!


1 comment:

jo(e) said...

I love lots of things about my job -- but I really hate grading. I spend most of my time being supportive of my students, and then suddenly I have to judge them. Ugh.