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[senay]

I've made it to my office, revived the dying plants, and checked my email.  No more excuses.  Pure power grading.

[new_bus_prof]

Printed off the grading rubric, attached them to the student assignments, now to actually grade...

I wish most of them had followed directions, to which I clearly told them points would be taken off for not doing so. There will be numerous Fs.

Senioritis has officially set in and we are not even to Spring Break.

[concordancia]

This would be so much easier if I didn't have to take the time to point out why their essays don't make any sense.

[kedves]

This would be so much easier if I didn't have to take the time to point out why their essays don't make any sense.

What's slowing you down is your taboo against writing "WTF?" on the essays.

[amiens]

Well, I'm done with the big class.  Of course, I now realize that I have proceeded in error.  Sure, the big class is twice the size of the seminar, but grading the seminar's work will take twice as long because a)they're really good and demand a lot from me and b)my backlog on their work is worse.

Crap.  Time to go eat lunch or something.

[concordancia]

Yes, if only I could make my own rules:

Spelling the author or the title wrong = 0, no comments
Putting your name, course and date as the header, and never putting last name and page number as the header = 0, no comments
Referring to novels as stories, poems as essays, etc = 0, no comments
No title on your essay (actually, I think I have finally gotten them over this one) = 0, no comments
Incorrect citation style and no bibliography = 0, no comments

I would so be done with this by now. I don't think anyone would pass my class, but I really don't think they should. This is a senior level class, they really should have these things straight by now.

[whatsmyname]

How much time do you give yourself to complete exam or paper grading? These little buggers ask me for everything the day after, which, to put it delicately, annoys me greatly.

[senay]

I've reached this gem, which makes me want to throw myself out the window:

"Women are more sensitive than men and only understand the importance of marriage if handled with care and love."

WTF?

Whatsmyname, I usually take no more than two weeks.  Telling them about the many other things I do as a professor also helps them to understand why the papers are not back the next class period.

[sugaree]

CAN'T GO ON MUST STOP GRADING NOW....

Break is long over, assignments/exams have been steadily coming in over the entire semester, which I never have THAT many to do at once, but then, I never seem to be done either. There has to be a happy medium somewhere between piling up and constant steady dribble. Sigh.

[concordancia]

CAN'T GO ON MUST STOP GRADING NOW....

Don't give up now, WE CAN PREVAIL!

The grades I have in front of me right now (out of 5): 2, 2, 2, 1. The first one was originally a 1, but the latest is so incomprehensible that I remembered that only incomprehensible + incorrect information gets the lowest grade. They whine too much if I give out zeros for completed work. 1/5 isn't really going to help them pass the class. Especially this student. I actually wrote that it looks like she translated the essay while pretending that she had never studied the language. I can't even get google to make this bad of translations.

[senay]

Just finished the second set of papers.  One more set to go.  *bangs head on desk*

[concordancia]

We read a novel in class in which, after getting out of jail for unspecified reasons, a woman goes to live with someone in her old neighborhood. This person tries to persuade her to become a prostitute and basically locks her in the house until the woman ends up killing the pimp in order to get away.

Student essay: The woman is actually a prostitute...

[mountainguy]

"Women are more sensitive than men and only understand the importance of marriage if handled with care and love."

Maybe it's the same student who wrote a paper in one of my classes last year stating that "violence is an admirable trait in men." Where do people get these ideas?

Whatsmyname, I always tell students to expect a turnaround time of a week to two weeks, which I both announce in class and post on Blackboard. Most of them are quite understanding, but it doesn't stop a few persistent buggers from asking anyway.

[t_r_b]

Okay, I'm through two midterm essays. The first offered lots of evidence but no thesis. The second offered a sweeping thesis completely unsupported by evidence. Between the two, there would be a decent paper. Too bad they are writing on different topics.

[john_proctor]

I didn't realize you guys were here.

Grading mid-terms for Intro to Religion.  Posted the following on another thread:

From the ID/terms section of a freshman exam:

"Qur'an/Koran.  This is a book read by Jewish people who are Arabs.  It consists of Gensius, Chrosanthians, II Gaberial.  It does not include the New Testament."

I gave him .5 points out of 3 possible (for the last sentence).

I think he may not be doing all the reading.

For the curious:

According to this year's mid-term survey, 9 out of 84 College freshmen can not identify/define the Qur'an.

This is after 2 weeks of class and on-line discussion/lectures on Islam, reading (or having assigned) more than 50 pages of readings on Islam (half of which, you guessed it, were from ...) and having an Imam from the local masjid do a guest lecture for a day.

And a study guide.

I think I can see some possible reasons behind our "student retention issue."