Grading Sucks

Multiple choice or fill-in-the-blank questions are probably easy – Very black and white. Subjective grading of projects and papers just completely sucks.

I have students who I know busted their hump and did a lot of research and probably learned quite a bit, but given what I have to look at – to grade – I can’t defensibly give them the grade I want to give them. If anyone “above” me ever asked for a justification that compared to others who gave me more and got less, I would just babble my lips and offer a meager “I know they know this and put a lot of time into it, even if it isn’t showing through”.

At the same time, I have students who are offering up content which is above their knowledge level, likely purloined wholesale, but either I spend hours of my time proving that to give them a justifiably horrendous grade – or I throw up my hands and grade it at face value.

Those are both aberrations, of course. The lions-share have produced ok-to-good-to-great content that reflects what was expected and shows that they’re learning… Nothing says “I’ve learned WTF a network is” like a well-placed purple cloud amidst a sea of happy laptops… I just wish I was lazier and willing to hand out 5 bajillion multiple-choice questions and let some computer do the grading so I didn’t have to feel like shit for two weeks (and counting). To those who say I shouldn’t care: tough shit, I do. I’m not trying to be friends with my students, I don’t really care what they think of me, but I do care about them. Putting a horrible grade in my spreadsheet next to someone who is trying hard just kills me. Kills me.

Grading sucks.

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9 Responses to Grading Sucks

  1. Bill says:

    I’m with you M – grading sucks. I googled grading sucks because I’m in the middle of grading essays and term papers that are just horrible and I’m dying for some distraction. I want the students to write and I don’t want to discourage them, but I just hate the drudgery of this.

  2. Rich says:

    You’re the top Google result for “grading sucks”. I’m in the middle of grading 57 logic and discrete math problem sets (from a class of over 200) and there are quite a lot of proofs where someone makes a sensible argument, but they phrase it improperly and I’m forced to take off points. Frustrating.

  3. xida says:

    also a bored grader googling for distraction. currently, i am finding, after giving lots of harsh criticism to the students for lousy papers, they have handed me VERY thorough and lengthy midterm papers- showing tremendous improvement, but tripling my work. lol.

  4. M says:

    I wrote this post a year ago. Same shit, different semester.

  5. Mo says:

    I googled grading sucks becoz I am grading a 2000 level geography lab. And it does suck. I am fighting to not give them bad grades. But sometimes cannot help it. And grading is boring. And writing this comment is just a distraction for me for few minutes. And believe me, the students have the whole internet to find answers for there lab and still some of them write shitty answers. “Permafrost is the frost on the surface and found in lower latitudes” Yukkkkkkkssss…..

  6. B says:

    I also googled “grading sucks.” Great [looking for distraction] minds think alike.

  7. V. says:

    Same here. There must be a better way….but how? TIP: Create a ridiculously huge rubric–for an essay, mine is 8 sections at 10 points each (5 sub-criteria in each section). Add 3 columns after: Self Eval, Teacher Eval and Comments. I read the essay and only add comments on the rubric. Even better, read it without a pen at all (you’ll save 10 minutes per paper). For the actual numbers, I either put a check beside their own score if I agree, or change it if I don’t. I barely ever write on the essays themselves. I’ve managed to cut grading time in half doing this. 🙂

  8. AN says:

    Grading sucks! I googled grading sucks to get my mind off it. I find that most undegraduate students just want to be told how amazing they are and seem shocked with a true appraisal of their work . The university just wants them to keep going so they can get tuition dollars….why am I a professor again?

  9. Collie says:

    Same story here. TA in the middle of grading ~150 programming assignments, and I’m stressed out of my mind because my family is coming to town tomorrow for my commencement the following day. I know I should have started grading these sooner, but it’s so much easier to put them off.

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