Which is not to say exam period is over. I mean, I’m overloaded, so… I’ve done up a series of posts starting today, about the issue of using essays in Korean content courses. That’s going to be what my blog displays on autopilot this week, one post a day, as I work my way through the pile of written work needing to be graded. I’ll try get to comments as soon as I can — there’s been a flurry of them, all worthy of responses — but it may take some time.
Also, I can’t find a decent embeddable version of the original, but here’s a pretty good remix. School Food Punishment and Towa Teei are getting me through this week of trying to block out noisy cafe-goers… because I find I am both more benevolent and (somewhat) more merciful when I grade essays in a coffeeshop:
Are you finished grading yet?
I’m still wading through a stack of essays that leave me shaking my head.
I hope we can all finish up quickly and move on to other things.
This school food punishment music is perfect soundtrack for the “essay” I’m grading right now. This kind of thing:
“Cell phone has affected 21C global society. And impacts of cell phone will exist longtime. Cell phone has many advantages. Also it has disadvantages.”
I’m half done now.
(EDIT: Wait, that’s an overstatement. I’ve given feedback to two of four classes, not including the work that’s late for the second of those two classes. (Two essays.) I have grading to do for the two remaining classes, which is about 20 essays and about 15 creative writing pieces. So actually, I’m far from halfway done. But the Pop Culture essays at least won’t require fine comments, it’s all about ideas, and the Creative Writing work… well, I think I can get about 5 a day done and keep my mind clear. Some will require much less work — students who didn’t request an SASE don’t want any written feedback, which is a time savings for me.)
That advantages/disadvantages thing… I must remember to add a note about how this is the dumbest, dumbest thing ever taught in high school composition. I’m working on a “how to make an argument/articulate an idea/constructure a presentation/write an essay” booklet for students. Might help stem the tide.
Though maybe I should just try find a publisher for it? Hmmmm.
By the way, “longtime” is what could push that sample into the realm of comic genius. I wish I had the time and patience to write a blog in that style, but luckily other people have gone to the trouble for us… in K-government-ese, no less!
http://www.koreaisbest.com/
Oh, by the way, “The Load is Over” is my quirky attempt at a broken English rendering of “I’m Overloaded.”