First Grade - 190 Papers!

I graded my first batch of papers!  While students were working on a lab, I graded their assignments.

There were two parts of the assignment.  The first part was a paragraph on five of the major contributors to the thoughts of Charles Darwin.  In each paragraph, I was looking for the name of the scientist, the contribution to science in general, and the specific influence the scientist had on Charles Darwin.  The second part was 10 vocabulary word definitions; this part was credit/no credit.

I took a look at each paragraph and made sure the student had what I was looking for.  It took about 5-6 assignments before I began to get an eye for it and grading got a lot faster.  Eventually, each paper took about 15-20 seconds and I was able to get through each period's work before the bell rang.  The grading time investment seemed to fit the scope of the assignment; 15 seconds didn't seem like a fair amount of time until I thought about the importance and purpose of the assignment.

Assignment Purpose: Independent Practice
Assessment: Low Assessment Value
Literacy Level: Low - Looking for specific pieces of information; less stress on paragraph structure and syntax.  Made marks on several papers with egregious errors but these didn't impact grades.

The only issues I had was with students who simply didn't do the work.  I spoke to each of these students and it was more that the student didn't want to do the work than forgetting to do the work.  This was rather disappointing but not surprising.

I also got to use my new Stipula Calamo Red fountain pen ink I got for Christmas.  It looks sharp!  An "A" looks particularly nice on lined paper.

Also, my Master Teacher is back!  She's not 100%, but I'm glad she's on the mend.