Slice of Life: Tackling Student Work

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(This is part of the Slice of Life Challenge with Two Writing Teachers. We write about small moments each and every day for March. You come, too. Write with us.)

I brought home two huge piles of student work to assess over the weekend. It’s more than usual for a weekend and more than I would have liked but our trimester closes soon and I hate having student work hanging on my desk for a long stretch of time — it’s not right for my writers and it’s not good for my own stress to see it there, a reminder of what I need to do.

You know what I mean?

In between moments of family time yesterday (including taking my son and a friend to see the Mr. Peabody and Sherman movie, and watching them trying to figure out time vortex paradoxes even as they were giggling at the story), I dove into our Parts of Speech projects, which we wrapped up last week. I’ve written about this particularly project in the past (during a Slice of Life, as it often falls in March) but essentially, students show mastery of Parts of Speech by color-coding their own writing.

I’m not a huge fan of Parts of Speech, as I don’t think it helps them particularly as emerging writers, so we try to make it lively (lots of activities in the classroom) and as authentic (their own writing) as possible. I like the visual look of the color-coded work, too. But after 80 Parts of Speech projects, my brain was swimming in nouns, verbs, etc, and particularly … adverbs. Those darn adverbs are the trickiest of the bunch.

Parts of Speech

So, that project is done. Now, it’s on to a pile of open response writing for our Three Cups of Tea book, where students wrote along the theme of “challenge” in a few ways. I’ll be doing that reading/assessing today, in the mall, as I bring my oldest son and his friends to watch the new 300 movie. Wish we well.

Peace (in the assessment),
Kevin

11 Comments
  1. I know exactly how it feels to see that pile in the corner and know it needs your attention. Congrats on finishing that project. I love that feeling. Hope you get to enjoy your family time on Sunday!!

  2. Ugh! I wish you well, but am also sorry that you have to do that. I suppose this is the life we’ve chosen. It’s now 7pm on Sunday night and I’m sitting here looking at the huge stack of papers sitting next to me that I haven’t started on yet. Seems like a good time to get a snack, huh?

  3. I try to spread them out too. How many do I still have left to be graded? Divide that in half, etc. Plan for something fun for later.

    Lee’s right. It’s the life that we’ve chosen, but grading almost kept me from being a teacher.

  4. Wow-you have 80 students in the classes. That is a lot of adverbs, at least you hope you ‘see’ adverbs! I know that my students didn’t always understand, but thought it important that they know about parts of speech, at least the lesser known, like prepositions. Those that already were in Spanish or French classes did better. Good luck in the work, at least you’re half-way through!

  5. I do know what you mean. I’ve got a pile of letters on my desk awaiting my eyes. Got to do it. Kevin,
    I love how you make things fun and beautiful, even parts of speech which I really dislike and adverbs… don’t get me started.
    Good luck at the mall. Multitasking is an art!
    Julieanne

  6. Thank you for walking the walk with writing. So many districts want students to become better writers, yet they don’t encourage their teachers to let their students to do just that – write. It is obvious that you take this task seriously and are showing your students that you, as an adult, actually write – for pleasure, no less!

  7. Weekend work…somehow it never seems to get done until starting around 9 on Sunday night…but that’s okay, your family needs you on the weekend, and things just balance out somehow.

  8. I feel for you. I mentor so I don’t tend to have the stacks of student work per se but there is paperwork that I have that remains undone. Your post reminds me of the papers I scored with the state writing rubric last week for a science teacher I mentor. The stack was never ending…
    Hope you’re able to complete it all so you have one less thing to stress about. Have a good week!

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