No matter how good writing is (say, essays, or journals), there's a point where reading them is just work. I'm at that point with one of the assignments I'm grading. The first few were good to read. The next few tolerable. And now I'm to the part where they're just work to grade.
In writing a journal assignment, one of the writing students said zie was in the class because zie had to be. Seriously, I know how that feels. I'm in the class because my paycheck depends on it. Every day, I'm in the class because my paycheck depends on it. And I try to make it a really good class and a good learning experience because I think that's my ethical responsibility and also because doing poorly would make me less happy. But it's not like I come to work and teach comp just for the sheer pleasure.
I went to bed at about 8:30 last night, and I feel so much better today. Sleep is a wonderful thing!
I usually feel the same, specially when grading writing-intensive assignments (I don't mind language exams). I try to mix the good, the mediocre and the ugly while grading, to make it more tolerable. In my upper level classes, I usually already know their level. So I say to myself that if I grade two incomprehensible papers/essay question assignments, I can "reward" myself grading a good or brilliant one. The problem is that the ratio good:mediocre:bad is not always appropriate for this type of grading.
ReplyDeleteYes, it's work, even when it's all good.
ReplyDeleteI'm feeling aggrieved because grad student administering quiz in the morning class thinks zie saw two students cheating. Grabbed the two paper and, yeah, looks like it but not a 'smoking gun' level of proof. Going to move to 2 different quizzes for next go round and distribute them A, B, A, B to deter future occurrences.
That's another example of when it becomes just work and not so much joy, eh?