In case I forget tomorrow morning--ita and Dana, I hope you both have awesome first days, and end up loving the jobs.

Yeah. I have a lot of students. And they do a lot of writing. The grading isn't horrific though as I have pledged this year to not work harder than my students. Also, some of the best writing gurus have lately been coming down on having less feedback (especially in terms of corrections) and more on focusing on one area to fix.

Given both of those, I'm not letting grading take over my life this year. I have two sets of essays each week that I grade and I grade them the way the EPT at the CSUs grade and or the way an AP scorer grades, which is to say 30 seconds per. Then I figure out one or two questions and one area that I liked a lot. Then I teach minilessons about big repeating problems. It's what I did last year too and it seems effective for my students.

And I've also given myself permission to not grade everything they write (especially sonnets/villanelles/sestinas) and to give full credit if things sit longer than a week. It's remarkably liberating!

And all of my grading is done for the night and my grades have been submitted for this quarter AND I wrote my syllabus for the new course they gave me on Thursday....lots of true crime, some Barry Glassner, a piece on Juvenile Justice and to start, a miniunit on Surrogacy.... all topics I care about! I forgot how much I love expository writing classes... so off to bed for me. I've been more efficient than I anticipated.

sounds like a plan -- I might have learned more quickly if one major error was pointed out -- instead of everything. Especially if it was an error I repeated a lot. By the time I fixed one -- then something else would show up. By the end of a year I'd be aware of my most common writing errors.

I like it. If I knew that was going on -- less fear of errors, more attention on weak areas, and in the end a better writer.

Given both of those, I'm not letting grading take over my life this year. I have two sets of essays each week that I grade and I grade them the way the EPT at the CSUs grade and or the way an AP scorer grades, which is to say 30 seconds per. Then I figure out one or two questions and one area that I liked a lot. Then I teach minilessons about big repeating problems. It's what I did last year too and it seems effective for my students.

I need you to teach me how to do this.

I mean, I don't do the whole "editing for them" thing, but I really need to learn how to speed up.

The two of them together are starting to be a handful.

Ah ha ha ha ha! Luckily they are still absurdly cute, I bet even when they are tag teaming you.

WRT grading, I would have nightmares if I had as many essays to grade as you do, Kat. You are a hero. I have been trying to get better at giving less corrections, more holistic feedback, but sometimes that's just not feasible with my really weak writers. I am lucky if I finish 3 paper sets in a week, it's usually 2.

Thanks, Perkins. My father called at 7 to see if I was already gone to sleep. Hmmm. Of course, I should go now. I've set my phone, my laptop, and my stereo to wake me, so I should be good to go in the morning. Like I've slept in that late all week anyway.

Off too sleep.

Good first days to Dana and quester, and good days to everyone else.

Those children are definitely going to be ganging up on you as often as possible, Kat!

Ugh, I got very little done today. I've been trying to finish off this cross-stitch piece ASAP so I can have it done before I have to get going on my cleaning-before-Mom-arrives next Wednesday. I've now only got four more little sections to finish, so barring anything unexpected, I should have it done by the end of the night on this Wednesday, and still get a little cleaning done in between (namely, the bathroom which is in dire need of it).

It's not even a present for anyone, just a Christmas piece I'd like to get mounted and in a cheap frame so I can put it up with my Xmas decoractions on Thanksgiving weekend. Since I'm not giving it to anyone, I'll changing the little poem about "Merry Christmas from me to you" in the corner to some lyrics from a favorite carol, probably "O Come O Come Emmanuel." I'm leaning agnostic, but I do love the old-fashioned church carols. (If I really wanted to be a geek, I'd use the Latin "Veni Veni Emmanuel" instead, but that'd just be obnoxious.)

So happy for all of the new jobs and the First Days! Best of luck to all of youse.

(If I really wanted to be a geek, I'd use the Latin "Veni Veni Emmanuel" instead, but that'd just be obnoxious.)

not if you give it to a Buffista for Secret Santa

Oooh, now there's an idea!!! And then I CAN be a geek!