Yesterday, I finally got all the middle school work graded. Late. Very late. I hate that I took so long to get around to grading the midterms -- but this year has really been tough. Of course, as I type this I wonder if I would listen to a student who had that kind of excuse. I've always felt bad when I set due dates and then lingered over grading the papers. How can a teacher take points off a project or paper when s/he is late grading the stuff? I've never been able to reconcile that quandry - and probably never will.
The mid terms focused on analyzing think writes, and most students did a great job. Some, however, fell into the "trap" of grading spelling and mechanics rather than content. A think write is just that . . . writing about thinking, and as such should not be graded for spelling or grammar or mechanics. I'll be sure to allow them to do the think writes again; the important thing to me is that they learn how to use them for an assessment . . . not when they learned how to do it.
Friday, March 10, 2006
Workshop VI
Well, I'm going to try to post an entry while everyone else is rereading through their professional journals. I reread my blog, and noticed that I often have real insights as I write about what happened in class, but my problem is remembering the insights. I have kept a professional journal since I began teaching at the college level. At first, it was a way to vent my frustrations -- when I first started teaching in college, I assumed my students would be more . . . more . . . more something than my high school students had been. But they often forgot assignments, just like the high school kids; they often did just enough to get by, just like the high school kids; they often were more interested in a grade than in learning, just like the high school kids; they had excuses for not doing work, just like the high school kids [only more creative or bizzare]. It never occurred to me that perhaps I was not helping them to be more thoughtful or more reflective or to consider issues at a deeper level. Just like when I first encountered the ideas in what was then called content area reading -- I had assumed that students weren't doing their homework because they were "lazy" or "didn't care" -- but I discovered that in reality I was not teaching in a way that supported their ability to do the homework, or the reading -- I was the problem, not them. As I look back over this blog, and reflect on the 15 years worth of professional journal entries I have made it occurs to me that I've written a lot - and thought a lot, but that the missing piece for me has been to reflect on the reflections!
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