Teaching is incredibly time consuming, especially when the teacher makes the mistake of scheduling various components of a research essay for five classes with overlapping deadlines. As a result, not only am I planning and teaching the usual course load, but now I have lots of documents to review. To help them craft the best possible essays, I have broken it down so they first focus on an introduction and thesis, then build an outline so I could check their argument construction, followed by a rough draft before the final draft.
One of my four freshmen classes, chatting and working.
For my juniors, I decided to replicate what they did as sophomores, seeing how it would work. Last year, for a different teacher, they read a novel and wrote three mini-essays which were then combined into a master essay. I thought that sounded interesting but then my students objected to the schedule I built. I asked the class to designate one to represent them and propose an alternate schedule. A few days later it was presented and accepted and I can now hold them to this.
That sixth class? They’re reading Huck Finn so I need to give them periodic pop chapter tests to keep them honest because otherwise, they’d fall behind. And since this particular class isn’t interested in stimulating dialogue, I have to bury them in worksheets where they can show me they can tease out details from the novel. So, yes, more paper to grade.
And let’s not even talk about the biweekly vocab quizzes which needed to crafted and graded for all six classes.
Thankfully, I am keeping up, although it is incredibly time-consuming, leaving me little time for long-term planning or some of my personal projects, including this blog.
Our Shakespeare Monologue Competition winner — for the third time in a row.
I even managed two days for auditions for our annual coffeehouse and was impressed with the breadth of talent on display. I was even happier to see how many of my freshmen came to try out and make the cut. That should make for a wonderful evening in March. And on Friday, I helped judge our annual Shakespeare Monologue Competition where we selected two students to represent us in the regionals next month.
Really, it’s all good, just time consuming and tiring. Once the quarter ends March 19, I can breathe a bit. Then start writing the finals.