Within the traditional grading paradigm, 99.9% of the onus is placed squarely on the teacher's shoulders.
Above and beyond reading the copious amounts of ink we manage to squeeze into the margins of their essays, what are we really tasking our students to do?
My teacher friends ... traditional grading methods not only consume many an evening and a weekend, but they do very little to help our students grow and mature as writers.
Last week, each of my 126 students had an essay due on Friday before they left for the weekend.
The kicker - my wife coaxed me to take a road trip in the warm Halloween weekend air to visit the grandson on the eastern shores of Maryland (we live in Upstate New York).
And the double kicker - I am not stressed out in the least and will have all of these essays graded before I leave school on Monday.
Over the course of my career, I have created countless alternative grading methods that have helped me to reclaim my evenings and weekends.
In fact, I make it a point to only work my contractual hours.
For real ... why do ELA teachers have to accept compulsory unpaid overtime?
I kid you not ... If you embrace these alternative grading methods, you will save yourself not only a ton of time, but you're going to see your students absolutely flourish as writers and thinkers.
In today's video, take a look at what I call "Grading Myself the Color of Bob Ross." It literally enables me to grade a class stack of 25 essays in under 40 minutes.
But here's the zinger ... look at how much students are learning about their writing.
On November 12th at 11 a.m. EST I will be offering my Alternative Grading Methods 2-Hour Intensive through The National Writing Project live in Zoom.
Literally ... come with 1000 essays that have gathered dust in the corner of your desk.
We will have them done before the end of our session.
During our time together, I will go over my top 25 favorite alternative grading methods and you will have ample time to experiment and try your hand at things.
Traditional grading methods simply do not work all that well.
Come learn some new tricks that will not only restore your work/life balance, but learn some methods that help students become total package writers.
NWP is hosting this event, so those in need of PD hours will be awarded a 2-hour completion badge.
And for those of you wanting to take a deeper dive, NWP is bundling the AGM 2-Hour Intensive with my Teach It "Write" Self-Paced Course which is accompanied by a 10-Hour completion badge.
I'm beyond thrilled to be teaming up with NWP to offer some fantastic and empowering professional development!
Hope to see you there!
Happy teaching and happy writing!
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