Grading papers and unicorns

I was scared to start grading the first "real" essays from my class. What if I have to give someone an F?!

So far I'm having fun. I'm 1/3 through the stack. No one has flunked yet. I'm hugely amused by lots of the papers - amused, touched, honored, impressed.

One guy I was worried about but thought was brilliant DID write a brilliant essay about memory and childhood. I wish I could quote the whole thing!

Man I love the guy who in a description assignment on "smell" lovingly lingered on the ham, sausage, bacon, pancakes, and eggs in his mom's kitchen one morning, winding up with the wistful sentence, full of palpable longing, "It was as if I were in a Denny's." (Nice use of the subjunctive!) He's outdone himself with his formal essay on Imagination: "If imagination crossed over to reality then everyone would have unicorns, flying ponies, and aliens running around right before our eyes." This is SO TRUE. He's not going to expect an A in this class but I think, even if this will turn out to be a B paper, he's heading to A-land...

How to get an A in my class: give me a pony, unicorns, and aliens. Did he read my mind?

Okay, back to grading. I'm putting my grades on sticky notes and not writing big comments or final grades yet, so I can consider all the papers together at the end and how I want to approach the comments. (& what level of response I have time for.)

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Comments

[lyssa]

Grading papers sounds fun. I'm sure the thrill wears off a bit after the thousandth one, but still...more interesting than grading math homework (and there are unicorns! And Ponies!).