On . . . Teaching and teaching writing

I've buckled under the workload.

Now, I'm not one to whine about my workload. We are all busy and work hard. Just because I have to grade essays doesn't mean I have it any harder than anyone else.

But the load of 50 College Comp I and II students is crushing me.

I didn't do much for grading this weekend. Last weekend I spent the bulk of my Sunday grading College Comp II essays. And it's not fair to my family. Kristie remarked, quite rightly, "What about us?"

So I'm making a conscious effort to limit the at home grading.

My problem is that I check drafts. In College Comp for most of our themes, I assign three different topics - and drafts for each. Then from those three, students can choose one to develop into a second draft, peer edit, and then submit for a grade. This works very well for them. I can give them crucial feedback early on in their writing careers. I think this is the best way to teach writing, but it is a lot of reading.

Throw on top of that my mammoth College Comp II class (32 writers), and it's next to impossible to read all the drafts and then grade 32 essays in anything remotely close to appropriate time.

And this still leaves me with a Lit and Language 11 class with 26 students in it. Like it or not, they often get the short end of the stick in terms of writing. I hit them with a lot of literature and tests, but precious little writing.

That's just a sad state of affairs as the board decided to not fill a position when one of our department retired several years ago. I think, too, on top of that that we are down another half time position.

What makes this semester so damn difficult is that my L&L 11 class needs me to keep them in line every minute. Don't get me wrong. They are nice kids and I enjoy the class, but they are not the most motivated group. So I've adopted this strategy: assign homework and quizzes. Then grade them ASAP and return their work to them ASAP along with grade slips. This is an every other day reminder of how they are doing. But all that grading eats up a lot of my time during the day when I could be grading papers.

Luckily, I have a student aide to help me out here.

A colleague of mine - who teaches AP - asked me a couple of years ago how I stayed on top of grading essays. I didn't have a good response - other than I just do. But that was before Kenzie came a long and suddenly weekend were a lot more precious than I ever dreamed.

So I've decided to stop reading drafts in my College Comp II class. I'll check them, but I simply don't have the time to read through them and offer the same feedback I did when these same students were in College Comp. They'll have a chance to peer edit before submitting them though. Plus, these kids are some of the top writers in the school . . . and some are fresh of my first semester College Comp course, so, hopefully, all of that feedback I tried to give them on early drafts will pay dividends now as they take that feedback, internalize it, and use it on their drafts.

We'll see.

But all of this makes for one quick day.

College Comp II always cruises by. I give them a lot of work time, which really isn't fair - since it's a college level class and most college level classes ger precious little work time, but to be honest, if the kids were taking this at NCTC, they'd meet three times a week for maybe 180 minutes. Instead, we meet five days a week. Add in our 85 minute block and that adds up to 925 minutes. Even though it's unfair to those who don't teach College level classes, I do let students out early on occasion. And I do build in my 5 "accommodation" days per quarter. When we aren't working, we usually get some pretty good discussions going - though I'm still waiting for everyone to jump in and contribute.

Second block is my prep. I spend this one of two ways - correcting papers or planning lessons.

Third block brings in College Comp. Again, this is a great class. And after having 32 kids in College Comp II, having just 18 makes the class seem almost empty. They too get work time, during which I usually read their drafts or grade essays. Often times, though, we get some really good discussions going too.

Then it's on to lunch. I haven't taken lunch down in the staff lounge yet. I'm usually getting ready for my final class because I've been grading essays or reading drafts.

Fourth block brings my Lit and Lang 11 class. This means returning their work from the previous day and giving them grade reports to keep them involved. Unfortunately, this class dispises discussion. So that means I usually have to resort to notes to keep them on task before giving them some time to work or read. I'd love to skip the notes and just have them work the entire block, but they wouldn't be able to handle that much time.

Then school is over and I hardly know what hit me.

Don't get me wrong. I love it and feel challenged constantly. And I am honored to teach some of the very best students in this school. And I pale in comparison to the teacher who used to teach the class when it was College Prep Comp. Believe it or not, she only had 9 weeks to do what I get done in 18. Now that is true work!

But I still leave school without a true sense of accomplishment because I know my bag is full of papers that I won't get a chance to correct.

Until the next day.