Friday, December 09, 2005
Grading Marathon
Sorry to be so unbloggy lately. It's the end of the semester, so I've been doing lots of grading, hand holding, and wrapping up of semester projects. In the last 3 days, I know I've graded over 110 essays - some of them rough drafts, some of them revision drafts. And I'll be picking up final drafts and one revision draft from everyone next Wednesday - unless they turned it in early and I've already graded it and given it back.
Grading is tasking, but the thing that takes up most of my time is plagiarism. When I have a suspect paper, it probably takes me 30 minutes to an hour to track down the sources, write comments, document the cheating, etc. Yesterday morning, I got to the office 3 hours early so I could finish grading papers for 2 classes, but I had 3 plagiarists, and that took up over an hour of my time just dealing with that. By the end of the day, I'd found 4 more. Today, I found 5 other papers that were plagiarized (these were all from students that have previously done this).
And, I had a paper from a student that has struggled all year, making Ds, but whose latest paper is a high B. I knew it wasn't his work, but I couldn't find anything that wasn't cited. Then, a student came in and told me he overheard this student saying he was going to have his sister write the paper. Why? Because he thinks I'm out to get him. His previous paper did not follow the assignment at all, so I allowed him to redo it. The revision was better, but it still did not follow the assignment. Plus, it was obviously not his work. Now I know that his sister must have written that too, though he told me she was going to "help" him, she in fact had to have written it completely.
Okay, enough complaining. I will say that my grading will be significantly less next week because I had so many outstanding first drafts. I gave As and Bs to many students for their first attempts. And I'm thrilled that most of my top students in ENG 1113 have enrolled in my TR ENG 1213 class next semester. Oh, that should be a fantastic class.
Well, I'm off to see a play. A friend of my, Kevin Worden, is part of an acting group, and they are opening a show tonight in Ada. Several of us from the college are meeting for dinner and then attending the show. Tomorrow I'm going Christmas shopping with Mom, so that should be fun.
Have a great weekend.
Grading is tasking, but the thing that takes up most of my time is plagiarism. When I have a suspect paper, it probably takes me 30 minutes to an hour to track down the sources, write comments, document the cheating, etc. Yesterday morning, I got to the office 3 hours early so I could finish grading papers for 2 classes, but I had 3 plagiarists, and that took up over an hour of my time just dealing with that. By the end of the day, I'd found 4 more. Today, I found 5 other papers that were plagiarized (these were all from students that have previously done this).
And, I had a paper from a student that has struggled all year, making Ds, but whose latest paper is a high B. I knew it wasn't his work, but I couldn't find anything that wasn't cited. Then, a student came in and told me he overheard this student saying he was going to have his sister write the paper. Why? Because he thinks I'm out to get him. His previous paper did not follow the assignment at all, so I allowed him to redo it. The revision was better, but it still did not follow the assignment. Plus, it was obviously not his work. Now I know that his sister must have written that too, though he told me she was going to "help" him, she in fact had to have written it completely.
Okay, enough complaining. I will say that my grading will be significantly less next week because I had so many outstanding first drafts. I gave As and Bs to many students for their first attempts. And I'm thrilled that most of my top students in ENG 1113 have enrolled in my TR ENG 1213 class next semester. Oh, that should be a fantastic class.
Well, I'm off to see a play. A friend of my, Kevin Worden, is part of an acting group, and they are opening a show tonight in Ada. Several of us from the college are meeting for dinner and then attending the show. Tomorrow I'm going Christmas shopping with Mom, so that should be fun.
Have a great weekend.
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About Me
- Kelli McBride
- Oklahoma
- ABD, Associate Professor of Language Arts & Humanities at an Oklahoma 2-year college; web site designer; devoted aunt to Lauren.
5 comments:
Wow! The things you have to deal with!
I have to laugh that these "kids" think that they can pull the wool over your eyes. You are a TEACHER!
The only thing they're fooling is themselves. And, the repeaters are really full of fool. LOL
Have a great time with your Mom and happy shopping!!!
Thanks! What's worse about these cheaters is that I actually beat myself up wondering if I didn't explain it clearly enough so that it's really MY fault! But I know it isn't because the majority of the other students don't cheat.
Mom and I didn't get to go shopping. A friend of the family died, so they went to his funeral Saturday. So we're going to reschedule.
Oh, gee, Kelli, I'm sorry for your loss. What a sucky time of year for that to happen!
Condolences!!! :-(
Re: cheaters
Dang right it's NOT you!
Unfortunately, they show promise for middle management and brown nosers later in life. ACK!!
Hope to see you this Saturday, Kels!
I will be there! Even though we got word recently that the admin wants grades and assessment results in on Friday rather than the usual Tuesday of next week. Lord, that's going to be a mammoth load of papers to grade in 3 days. Not to mention plugging in results in the grade book, averaging, then writing reports based on the results of assessment.
I will definitely need the cheer that can only come from time spent with good friends.