grading

Talk to just about any writing teacher or, I'm guessing, any lit teacher and he or she will tell you that the worst part of the job just might be grading. I wouldn't bet a ton of money on it, but I'd bet a large white chocolate mocha. So there.

I tend to agree. It's not always always true, but mostly, I hate grading.

Let me be clear, though. I DO NOT hate reading my students' writing. Typically, I really enjoy that. And it's not exactly that I hate the act of evaluation, because, at least often, that seems useful and important to me. But there's something about sitting down to a stack of essays and knowing that my purpose in reading them is to comment and grade. Comment and grade. Grade, grade, grade.

I try to think about grades as a form of communication, but that's not entirely fair. I do think that a B communicates something, but what it communicates may not necessarily be clear. What I intend by telling a student that she earned a B might not be what she hears. Even if I comment A LOT (and I do). Even if I work very hard to make the grading criteria clear. Even if my students and I develop and agree on the grading criteria. Even if I spend a good deal of time explaining on the page why the student earned the grade she did. 

But we're also -- or I'm also -- in a system where grades are necessary. Scholarships, advancement, graduate schools, these things expect grades. So I grade. And it's not like it's strange to me; I was always graded in school, too. I'm externally motivated, so grades work for me.

But grading -- not reading, not responding, but grading -- is not my favorite thing. And, if it wasn't obvious already, it's basically what I'll be doing all weekend. (Plus, I'm pretty sure I'm getting a cold. And if it's the cold that everyone else in my department has been getting, it's BAAAAAAAAD. awesome.)