That being said, I'm writing my paper about ways that teachers, especially language arts teachers, can manage the potentially overwhelming amount of papers that cross their desk for grading. I've heard horror stories about how awful it is to teach English because of the endless supply of papers to grade. I don't want this to be me:
So all you veteran teachers out there, what ways have you found to manage your paper load so that you can still love your life and love teaching? SOS!!
5 comments:
If you are a reading and writing workshop lover, then you know to "grade" the process all the way along. Reflect on each stage of the writing process; use checklists and conference notes to capture your noticings. Give your students targeted areas for self-assessment so that they are with you in the process of "grading" all the way along the run of the writing. Target your assessment of the product by thinking about your goals and teaching for each writer based on pre-assessment, and "grade" the final product with these targets in mind. In other words, don't just gather up the papers at the end and give the product a grade. This is time-consuming (read overwhelming) for you and not very instructive for your students. They will benefit way more from ongoing feedback that will help them continually grow as writers. And remember, the writing is never "done," as long as there is a possibility for revision.
I used to look at journals...5 a weekend. And students always had their choice about what they wanted to publish for rubric grading once a quarter. I had 150 on my team and that sometimes was overwhelming. I worked at conferring along the way and then found that I wasn't looking at sometimes the whole paper, maybe the lead...or use of transitional sentences etc. I would love to see your paper when you are done. xo
I'm still looking for ways to manage the paper load. I tend to take them with me everywhere. I grade in the car, watching soccer games, waiting on my daughter during piano lessons. I find I do better if a just do 5 -10 at a time and then do something else. I''d love to know what you find out.
Great venue to seek some feedback! I am careful to not have kids do work that I won't look at, unless we talk in advance about WHY they are doing it (for example, when I teach them the revision process, or the peer feedback process, they have to have some writing to look at and I may not look at that). Anyway - I split my work over the course of the day/week, too. I tried to cover 10 pieces/day. 2 in the morning before the day started, 2 on my prep, 2 at my lunch, still giving me time to get a quick walk in and say, "Hi" to a person or two, 2 before I left school, and 2 that came home with me. I found that if I looked at 2 at a time, my eyes and my brain didn't get fuzzy and rush through the process. And, I REALLY enjoy reading my students' writing, so reading 2 was kind of a way to get re-energized about my kids multiple times throughout the day. I also did not look at every aspect of writing for every piece. So, I would focus, for each student, on the area I knew they needed the most feedback on. For one student, I might be giving feedback about content. For another? Conventions. I kept my eyes open over the course of the process, which is where my "grades" came from, but reading their work weekly, and giving weekly feedback, was really important, and effective, for me.
Thank you all for your feedback!
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