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January 21, 2008
Breaking
Because that's what my mind will do if I don't take one from the grading.
I love my students, I really do. I want them to be the kind of students they should be, based on how smart they are. And I feel like I've failed them because they still aren't getting some of the basics of writing a paper.
I'm sure a big part of it is my fault. I wasn't as strict about it as maybe I should have been last semester, and I thought they might learn from example, rather than through my specifically focusing on how to create a thesis statement and support an argument. Plus, I assumed they were getting that in English Composition. (I still think they should be. I'm not sure why that isn't happening.) Anyway, I can only grade so many papers at a time before I start feeling like the most useless teacher in the world.
So I am grading fewer papers at a time and taking more breaks as I go. Just now? I tackled a job I've been needing to do for over a year. I cleaned out two shelves of my clothes cupboard and got rid of a bunch of stuff I never wear (and won't ever wear again). It says something that I would rather do that than grade papers. And yet, I keep assigning them.
Posted by sally at January 21, 2008 01:41 PM
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