Because Writing Is Just Not Enough

On Wednesday and Thursday nights I devoted myself to a cause: writing fifteen pages. Fifteen pages isn't really all that much; I've written more, but this paper was of a different style. I am used to writing creatively for fifteen pages, or analyzing a text for fifteen pages, but this paper I was not ready for. It was a literature review, and there is something about writing a document that is almost entirely referenced that makes me feel incredibly less accomplished than if I had written fifteen pages of my ideas.

I finished the paper Thursday night, and was ready to spend Friday relaxing watching television letting my brain turn to mush. That was not what I ended up doing. I met with The Professor Friday afternoon to discuss a class that I will be taking with her independently, and as the discussion wound down we decided to go get some coffee and grade the students' third reflection paper. We each had ten, and she finished a bit before me, but had other work to do so I wasn't left alone. It took me three hours or so to grade them. This may seem like a long time to grade ten papers of two pages in length - and it probably is - but I'm getting better. Earlier in the semester it would have taken me much longer, and this time I did it in one sitting.

The students' papers were still riddled with errors that we've discussed in class - run-ons, citations, possessives, etc. - but the grades were higher, and it is evident that the students writing has improved from the beginning of the semester. On top of this, at the beginning I was apprehensive about grading, but this is changing. I'm not the most assertive person in respect to judging people, and I'm not always so sure if I'm grading too hard, or not hard enough, but The Professor read two papers that I also read, and we both gave them the same grades within a plus or minus.

In the end, grading papers was probably better than wasting away on the couch with radiation shooting at me from the wall. And, believe it or not, it was relaxing. By the way, that isn't a picture of me.