This seems to be a good track to start the week. Roxanne Emery is one of my very favorite singers. Kind of a dark song if you really listen to the lyrics, but most dance music has pretty sad themes now that I think of it.

This week is halfway full of meetings and other obligations, and the second half is pretty empty. Well, not exactly empty, but full of grading.

Grading is one of these things that isn’t so bad once you realize you are there to help the students gain another understanding of their words. You aren’t correcting it, or calling it bad, but showing them another way to understand their own understandings.

Grading is more evaluation and comment than anything else. There’s an ongoing grumble in higher education these days about assessment, and how assessment is not grading. Professors don’t like that because for the most part they really enjoy holding power over students, and assessment requires you to stand alongside students and look at the work together.

At least that’s what I think it requires, but there might be as many ways to assess as grade. I just use grades to get the students to do something productive, and try out new things with their writing and speaking. Assessment is much broader than “did you follow my rules?” It’s more along the lines of, “what can you do?”

Grading is very, very hard to start, but once you are in it, it’s super enjoyable. I really like reading and listening to student work. I wonder if they like reading and hearing my comments as much? Grading is such a personal thing – people tend to take the grades you give them personally – so there’s not a lot of space for a comfortable conversation about them. I wonder if that could be altered in some way.