Pain Management: Grading: Part I
by teachbad
A few months back I asked people to take the one question Teacher Annoyance Survey. The purpose was to see which of the three unavoidable annoyances of teaching is most bothersome to most of you. The vote was split almost exactly into thirds between 1) Tedium and Predictability, 2) Bell and Chain, and 3) No Career Path.
Here is part one of Tedium: Grading.
However one deals with the daily homework side of grading, there still await the tests, quizzes, projects and papers. Little might hope to be worse than your very own stack of 85 English papers or Algebra II final exams to grade. There will never be a good time to do this. They will sit in a pile and taunt you until you give in. They can wait, but they will not be denied. It is simply the way of things.
There are two basic ways to approach the grading of a giant stack of essays or exams. The first is to start in on them right away. Just dig in; knocking them out a few at a time whenever you have a few minutes. It starts immediately,
