Just a note:

My semester grades are in! The whole weeked without a single paper to grade...no, not a single one!!!!!

Can you who are not English teachers imagine what it is not to have a single folder of twenty + essays to grade over the weekend? This is the first weekend since school started in September that I have had completely free, including Thanksgiving and winter breaks. The way our semester grades came due on Friday was a bit of a miracle because usually we've pretty much begun the new term--but not this time!!!

What a great sense of freedom to look at this weekend and its possibilities. Even during the recent ice storm I had two folders of compositions that I plowed through, hoping to find slants of light.

It takes approximately four hours, sometimes more, sometimes less, to grade a set of compositions. This doesn't include coffee/tea/sometimes stronger spirits to get the objective, fair voice inside to wake up. Sometimes the work is too boring because the topic didn't work--and the students were unsure of how to crack the nut open.

Additionally, there are so many building lessons to work up to a correction area point to be included in oncoming essays, and those building lessons include:

drills
exercises
quizzes
tests

...all to be graded...and that doesn't include vocabulary and spelling tests. I'm probably the only high school teacher I know who still gives spelling tests, but because my students misspell basic words such as whenever, wherever and probably, they do benefit from basic review. Also, spelling tests are easy and they help boost the students' averages a little. I don't count such tests very much, but every point helps.

Anyway, I just want you all to know that it is a glorious thing not to have a single paper in any shape or form to grade this weekend. Five months nightly grading and weekend labor have come to a halt.

So I shall spend my weekend...reading and learning 'el' words.

Pardon this outburst of enthusiasm. I hope it has been a little educational about English educators.

Some think that the students are the ones most happy with no papers to write, tests to take...or reaching the end of a semester! HA!

Thanks for the elucidation - sounds like an 'ell of a change from all that elbow grease!

btw, have you considered that you may just be suffering from a case of perfectionsism - perish the thought that you lower your personal standards, but protect yourself for the long haul, eh? You are too valuable a teacher to do otherwise.

Mav', retirement in four years after this one makes me think I may be able to live through this.

My daughter gets vocab tests from her teacher. The tests, however, are multiple choice - and it's often graded with this automated grading system. You know those tests like the ACT, GRE, SAT, etc., where you circle your answer and the machine grades it? Well, that's what they're using - only it's in the school ... I've always detested these things... and my daughter, too. She gets a long string of straight As and then a D ... (that's what happens when you get one of those pissant pieces of stupidity out of sequence).

I loathe them. OTOH, she gets more assignments. And of course essays are not graded this way. I'd complain vociferously about it except she loves her English teacher, and I've noticed a dramatic improvement in her writing skill in the last few months. She's still a little weak, but there is noticible improvement. She's taking this thing called IGCSE, combined English and History. I was skeptical at first, but I'm a big believer now. It's really good. She complains about how much work she has and how hard it is: I'll come in with a cup of coffee for her and a coupla cookies ... without looking up she starts complaining about how MUCH work she has to do ... "You have NO IDEA how hard it is, " she pules, but then she looks up and says to me, "God, I LOVE Ms X!" hahaha... I turn and leave. She complains and her grades are down, but she's happy and she's learning. Hey, I'm thrilled to death. The grading fiascos aside, I got nothing to complain about.

Anyway, congratulations on getting done. As much as I hate those pieces of crap, you might see if your school can get one of those grad-o-matic things (not sure what they're called).

k

We do have GradeQuick into which we enter data and the computer automatically calculates all our averages.

However, it is the labor of grading individual compositions, quizzes, etc., that takes such a long time. It is very unusual to have a weekend free--and this past weekend was a joy.

its not that hard to write a multiple choice type test and to create a 'correct' answer key to grade it.(i did it in basic a million years ago (my ex was a teacher))

it wasn't that hard; set up a data base (an array) of questions, and then select questions in a random order
so the 'same test' (ie set of questions) could be easily 're-ordered' --which discourages cheating, since the pattern of correct answers, (aabcbdacda) for one test would not be same pattern for another test..(and it was easy enough to have the computer generate the answer key for each test.)

it there educational software for this kind of test making? i would be surprized if their wasn't..

but english is best learned by writing, not by multiple choice questions.. and there is no shortcut for correcting essay's!

Wordwind, I know that you aren't looking for thanks, but thanks. Although my own two boys are now college men, they continue to be blessed by the efforts of devoted English teachers. My Mom was an English teacher, as was her brother. I saw them sacrifice many of their weekends and evenings at the altar of hope, literacy and clear thought.
I worked for this ____ who said that teaching was a scam. "...work 5 hours a day for half a year…" I’m now employed by a literate person. ____ isn’t.
O’bow

well said, O'bow. Good teachers need all the positive feedback our society can give them - they substantially define our future.

Point of order, Maverick. Teachers direct the future and those whom they teach define it.

A necessary distinction.

And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, "Speak to us of Children." And he said: Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts. For they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far. Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness; For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.

- Kahlil Gibran

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And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, "Speak to us of Children." And he said: Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts. For they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday..." ~ Kahlil Gibran
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I never was taken by Kahlin Gibran until I read the paragraph above. Now I am taken.
But sadly, like all men who
are lucky enough to extract a profound truth from life... he keeps on talking.
In Gilbran's case it is all that stuff about arrows and archers and such.
And in my case above it is everything after "Now I am taken".

Thanks billigerentyouth, you are wise beyond your callow years.