Ten Essays and a Cup of Tea

Grading papers is a necessary chore for faculty and it is one that is the subject of much dread and complaint on the part of most of us.  I’ve been doing it now for over 30 years so it is no surprise that I have developed my own techniques for getting the job done. By way of background, grading takes different forms for us. One type of grading exercise involves individual student papers (typically on different topics) that require significant comment and critique. Such papers are very labor intensive, time consuming and require a high degree of intellectual engagement on the grader’s part. Often these papers come to us in trickles throughout the semester. Depending on length and topic, each of these papers likely requires several hours of a professor’s time. Another type of grading involves mid-term exams. Here, students typically are responding to a set of questions and professors are looking for a set range of acceptable responses to each question. There is a predicable component of repetition in this grading exercise and, because of this, we are challenged to find ways to stay alert and engaged. Final exams or papers are another type of grading exercise and, given end-of-semester time demands, we are not required to provide comments. All other papers or exams require comments geared to provide students with useful feedback on their performance.  Staying positive and providing constructive critiques requires effort, much patience and more than a little kindness. Gone are the days (I hope) when irascible professors felt free to write comments such as “How did you get admitted to William and Mary?”

So, how do I approach grading? Well, I can’t stand to have papers hanging over my head-especially around the holiday season. Consequently, my way of dealing with the inevitable is to take a “marathon” approach to the task.  I block off huge chunks of time, I stay at home and I force myself to deal with the piles of papers. I usually start before 7 in the morning and I often keep going until well after dinner time. Now, this level of intense activity requires strategies and tricks to keep sane. That’s where the cup of tea becomes important. The tea becomes the reward for getting through a set number of papers-usually it is ten for me. In recent years I have switched to decaf tea-heresy for an Irish woman but necessary to keep my nerves from getting totally out of whack as the day progresses! Another technique I use to keep things interesting is to assign questions that allow me to see how students have progressed over the semester.  In my introductory sociology class, for instance, I always ask a final question that requires students to analyze how their race, social class, age, gender and sexual orientation shape how they construct their daily lives.  Their answers are fascinating in their detail and rewarding for me as their teacher because I can see how their insights and analytical skills have improved over the semester. Thus, grading brings its own rewards and, as the piles diminish, one inevitably feels a sense of victory and relief that one has conquered the pile and lived to tell the tale.