05 December 2005

I need a shovel.

How did this happen? It's now officially the last week of classes. Yikes! In minutes I will be lugging a pile of student papers downstairs, to emerge again....when?

At least they're all very good (honors class), and I can cheer myself knowing it's my last stack of papers of the semester (obviously not counting all of the poetry portfolios), but I still want to go back to bed and forget all about papers. My grading secret of many years past is no longer feasible; gummy worms en masse, I just can't stomach 'em, but they really used to give me a boost. You can only eat so many Fig Newtons before feeling like the grit queen.

Would anyone else like to borrow my student-paper-burying shovel when I'm done?

6 comments:

Gary L. McDowell said...

Yes, please send your shovel my way when you're finished! I just got 30+ essays to grade. I have until Wednesday morning to put together portfolio assessment sheets for each of my students. It's gonna be a wild and crazy next couple of days!

And hi, my name's Gary! I linked to you through Julie Platt's blog. I too am an MFA student at BGSU.

P. J. said...

I have about 47 critiques left and 105 research essays (with research portfolios),as well as 100+ forthcoming image journals and final exam essays.

I spent the weekend playing Soul Calibur III and watching football.

marybid said...

Hi Gary, and welcome! Good luck with all of the papers.

PJ, my mantra today (even before reading this) is something to the effect that I can grade these, because surely PJ has more than I do, and he wrote his thesis overnight...

Hey, and btw, tell your folks thanks for sending us our first Christmas card of the season! They are organized.

Justin Evans said...

I am going to have about 70 sophomore papers to look at in a week. Fortunately I will only really be looking at general structure and organization of thoughts. It isn't a full blown grade at this level.

P. J. said...

Will do! They've got their shopping plan-of-attack all mapped out, though the level of greed in our house makes it easy, because we all bring detailed wish lists to Thanksgiving dinner. My new brother-in-law was appalled.

I've given up telling my students that "I'll have your papers for you on ---day." But the way my syllabus works, if you get Ds on all your papers you still can get a B- for the class. Stupid new syllabus! Remind me to never toy around with point systems again!

marybid said...

PJ, remind me of the same. My "points" ended up as 90 instead of 100. Damn poet math.

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