Grading Hell
I love teaching college. I really do. If I could just lecture and do research, I would be in heaven. However, as I am not lofty enough to have teaching assistants working under me, I am forced to deal with the pit of despair I refer to as "Grading Hell." Also, as I work at two community colleges, the quality of the students' works are more along the lines of high school.
Who am I kidding? I sometimes wonder how these kids even graduated high school. My 15 year old nephew writes better than a lot of my students.
Don't get me wrong. I like most of my students and I get some diamonds in the rough, but I also get a lot of the "my parents are making me go to college and I don't wanna be here" types. Therefore, what they hand in is usually crap.
That is bad enough.
What makes it all worse? I am teaching only Intro classes this semester. All my sections are the exact same classes with the exact same assignments. This means I have 120+ versions of the same fucking paper. This makes me want to shoot myself. It really does. At the beginning I thought it would be easiest as my health hasn't been the best lately and this would only be one prep straight across the board. What the fuck was I thinking?
I have tried a number of strategies to make this less painful. First, I tried to just grade the assignments by grading one assignment at a time. After 120+ versions of the same crap, I started banging my head against the desk.
Now, I am working by class instead of assignment. At least this way I notice patterns with certain students more easily, including the one kid who plagiarized 90% of his papers. It also helps me notice which kids put in half-assed efforts. Guys? I'm giving you super easy assignments like watching people. How can you fuck that up? And yet, they do.
And yes, I am procrastinating. I am very far behind in grading--as usual--and am looking at 12 stacks of papers to grade. Thankfully they are all online rather than hard copies. At least this way I don't have to look at the Leaning Tower O' Doom, as I used to call the physical papers that would pile on my desk waiting to be graded.
I'm just wondering if I should start drinking now or wait until I get the inevitable headache from the half-ass-ery that I will see in their writing. Oh wait. I don't drink. Damn.
Who am I kidding? I sometimes wonder how these kids even graduated high school. My 15 year old nephew writes better than a lot of my students.
Don't get me wrong. I like most of my students and I get some diamonds in the rough, but I also get a lot of the "my parents are making me go to college and I don't wanna be here" types. Therefore, what they hand in is usually crap.
That is bad enough.
What makes it all worse? I am teaching only Intro classes this semester. All my sections are the exact same classes with the exact same assignments. This means I have 120+ versions of the same fucking paper. This makes me want to shoot myself. It really does. At the beginning I thought it would be easiest as my health hasn't been the best lately and this would only be one prep straight across the board. What the fuck was I thinking?
I have tried a number of strategies to make this less painful. First, I tried to just grade the assignments by grading one assignment at a time. After 120+ versions of the same crap, I started banging my head against the desk.
Now, I am working by class instead of assignment. At least this way I notice patterns with certain students more easily, including the one kid who plagiarized 90% of his papers. It also helps me notice which kids put in half-assed efforts. Guys? I'm giving you super easy assignments like watching people. How can you fuck that up? And yet, they do.
And yes, I am procrastinating. I am very far behind in grading--as usual--and am looking at 12 stacks of papers to grade. Thankfully they are all online rather than hard copies. At least this way I don't have to look at the Leaning Tower O' Doom, as I used to call the physical papers that would pile on my desk waiting to be graded.
I'm just wondering if I should start drinking now or wait until I get the inevitable headache from the half-ass-ery that I will see in their writing. Oh wait. I don't drink. Damn.
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