Grading Jail

Okay, new day, new dollar. I'm teaching today, and I've spent the morning grading. Back when I decided I wanted to be a teacher, I never knew how much grading papers suck. I really like talking about books, and even teaching people how to write essays & learn stuff about grammar and style and formatting and stuff. (note: the overuse of the word "stuff" signifies my complete lack of brain power after grading all day. Just live with it).

But I HATE assigning grades. It's partly the whole laziness thing cause it takes forever to grade. But another part is that I do know that a lot of students do tons of work and get poor grades just cause they're not good writers, and a lot of students take 20 minutes and get a good grade cause they're just naturally gifted at writing. There are universities that assign only a "pass" and "fail" grade, and I kind of like that idea. But how do they know how/what to improve? I guess in that case I'd still be doing all the writing on their papers and making changes & suggestions, and revision would be important, but I wouldn't have to make the distinctions between an 89 B+ and a 79 C+. They'd both be passes, just one would be better written.

::le sigh::

Anyway. I'm exhausted-- it's physically draining to sit at a desk and grade 50 essays. Pffffhhhttt. Piffle. Blech. Ick. And other one-syllable words that denote tiredness and irritation.

Now I get to spend a day listening to oral presentations. Joy.

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