Gladly Would I Teach

Yesterday, I drove 6 hours in order to see my niece’s baby girl. Since I couldn’t figure out a way to drive and grade papers simultaneously, much to the relief of other motorists, today I am facing a huge stack of papers that I must grade by tomorrow.

How many other professions end the week with a stack of work that they must complete over the weekend during their free time?

Writing, like reading, is taught best by allowing students to practice their skills as often as possible. For example, teachers who want students to become better readers must assign more reading and then find time to discuss the reading with the class or with individual students.

The same process is true with writing. To help students, we must require lots of writing, encourage students to write, and then provide feedback. There’s the rub!  When students write, particularly older high school students, teachers must then spend hours and hours reading and responding to their papers. Is it any wonder that teachers require few writing assignments?

So, here I sit in my home study. I will be sitting her all day grading papers and wishing I could have found a way to grade part of them as I drove all over Georgia  yesterday.

For those of you who think I wrote this post just so I could interject a photo of Sophie Catherine at 18 days, I plead guilty!

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