grading exams/papers

8. How genetically similar are homologous chromosomes?

A. They are identical opposites.

This answer is kind of beautiful to me, such a koan that I don't want to mark it wrong. Rather, I want to find a niche universe where identical opposites can exist.

i would like to train a monkey to grade my papers

I think I am too laissez-faire at everything, including grading here. I just don't want to mark certain things wrong bcz I get all Holden Caulfield about how sort of left-field they are but OTOH I don't want them to fuck up on tests.

just mark them wrong, Abbott. otherwise you spend 3 hours on one test.

These are little worksheets, getting about 4 minutes each.

My favorite thing in the world was when my prof handed us back a bunch of papers and told us "the bottom of the pile all got As because I had been drinking for six hours when I got to them."

oh okay. lol bitter, sorry!

I don't want them to fuck up when they take the actual tests bcz they've been looking at how I've been grading things and then the tests are graded by the prof and they're all like 'wtf why do I suck balls so hardcore.' (I teach only part of the class.)

clearly you should grade some of them after drinking for 6 hours

I grade 40+ papers a week.

Okay is there a point in writing in the margins where they went wrong in their answer (so they'll know how to do it for future reference)? Do peeps (students) even look at this stuff?

probably depends on the student! I say leave notes in the margins, maybe they'll be appreciated and then they can't come back and say the feedback was poor.

Also, after asking, I discovered I basically can't not do it.

grading

is it midterms for anyone else?

I'm behind on grading. Shit. Thank you for the inadvertent reminder.

i'm here to serve. and evaluate.

Okay is there a point in writing in the margins where they went wrong in their answer (so they'll know how to do it for future reference)? Do peeps (students) even look at this stuff?

I always appreciate comments in the margins! I'm also usually pleasantly surprised that anyone would go to the trouble of doing it, so it's a bit of a respect booster too.

i found these particularly useful during revision, so yeah, i try to do that.

I had a prof who wrote 'lol' on one of my papers.

I had a teacher in school who told us one summer he was correcting the end of year state exams on his boat, and a load of them of them blew away. He wouldn't tell us what happened next tho, just said it all turned out okay. Probably As for all.

agggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
grading

I've gotten to a sort of mindset where I feel sort of guilty/self-conscious in front of TA's and professors, in the sense that I'm aware of my being a cause of inconvenience to them, my existence taking an extra 15 or so minutes out of their life to mark my work. I guess it's a sort of improvement from the (what I gather to be the more typical) narcissism/naivete of early undergraduates who believe their first year essays on Locke vs. Hobbes or whathaveyou to be actually relevatory for those marking it.

have about 3 more reports to go through before I have to finalize grades and submit them. yikes :/

frustrating thing is that most of these reports are on about the same level but the coordinator is strongly encouraging us to conform to a bell curve. so I have to artificially elevate and dock papers to achieve that nice curviness

I submitted my grades last Thursday! Drinking wine!

la bell curve sans merci

some manna dew would be pretty good right now

I finished this afternoon and then went to our awesome schoolwide holiday party. I karaoked (shakira "suerte"), ate ropa vieja and salsa danced with an old man. So fun!!

I submitted grades for my seminar today, and tomorrow is the final exam for the lecture course I'm teaching.
And then . . . eight months of paid leave! hello academic sabbatical WOOOOO-HOOOOOOOOOO!

just finalized my grades - still need to write comments and such but woo! that's a monkey off my back

And then . . . eight months of paid leave! hello academic sabbatical
and to think i was excited about ropa vieja, 1 free drink, and karaoke :-/

MIDTERMS!

i wrote a new rubric for the writing portion this year, so i hope it goes over well with all of the instructors i coordinate. it should make grading easier/clearer/more fair, but i'm sure someone will complain about SOMEthing.

I graded 107 papers today. Most of them were good