Shakedown

There's a sort of a shakedown that any new school term goes through, when the students are getting used to the teacher and the teacher is adapting to the new classroom of students, and generally by the end of this period, you have a pretty good idea of what to expect.  This can be disrupted by reality knocking, and that's usually in the form of the first essay to come in to be graded.  Which happened this week.

The results, roughly:
Two A+ papers
Four A/A- papers
2 B+/A- papers
Two B papers
Bunch of C papers
One paper I refused to grade because the student didn't turn in the required copies of her source materials
Three papers I stopped grading because 1) either the student is trying to use another paper from another class to get by for this assignment and it missed the mark by a mile or two, or 2) the student never read the assignment sheet again after we went over it in class, relying instead on their brilliant memory, or 3) the student is clueless.

It took about 18 hours to grade this stack.  The B+/B/C/Redo papers I'll see again in about a week, for their mandatory re-write.  We'll see if the A papers want to do the same, but I'm praying that they won't.

I started working on this class the second week in August, about five weeks ago, and it's been a constant grind getting this baby afloat.  I've had a few hours here and there where I just refused to write another assignment, or blog post, or quiz and either did quilting, or stared at any screen (computer, iPhone, iPad or TV) for a while, candidate for Vegetable of the Week.

And finally, tonight, after taking this show on the road for five weeks, I feel somehow I might be just turning a bit of  corner.  Just gliding over a wee bit of a hump.  Just the tiniest bit of pressure escaping.

If that's the case, I guess I can lay that red pen down for an hour or two.  Maybe even a day.