I tend to grade by descending into what I affectionately call “grading hell” – where I do nothing but grade and sleep for however long it takes to make it through all the levels of hell and back out the other side. I tend to not stop to eat – hence many of my papers containing coffee and food stains. I enjoy reading student work, but I don’t particularly enjoy assigning grades. Grading is one of those things where I just have to give it all of my attention, and not focus on anything else until it is done. Unfortunately, this typically happens right around New Years, as grades are due on January 2nd.
This year, I tried to space my end of semester grading a bit more, so I am in the midst of grading a bunch of papers from my microeconomics class now, to be given back before the end of classes next week. I find it very frustrating to grade papers, make comments in the margins, etc, and then have no one pick it up the following semester, and this way they will all get the papers back to look at before they leave.
Oh, grading hell…this will be the eleventh time I have entered your depths, only my red pen to guide me, provisions of coffee and chocolate to keep me going. Will I emerge, once again, triumphant? By triumphant, what I mean is – will I be finished by New Years Eve? Or will there be the always unpleasant question of – do I grade New Years Eve, or plan to do it New Years day, with no possibility of a good answer. Sigh.
