Sunday, March 29, 2009

Grading: A Moment to Give Thanks

I am in the midst of grading essays for my Feminist Memoirs class. The prompt is: The Personal is Political. The stories are amazing, breathtaking, and while reading these painfully personal & political stories, I understand why I teach. This makes it worth it. Knowing that students trust me enough to share these stories, that these stories may never have been written down if not for an assignment for a class that requires an honest delving into the personal, that these stories may well have evaporated into the fog of busy life & repressed into the clamour of daily life, that I can read these stories makes teaching worthwhile. Teaching, whereas it's difficult, tedious, exhausting, etc., teaching is amazing. So to my Feminist Memoirs class: thank you.

1 comment:

  1. im grading some projects right now:
    i asked my students to creatively (re)interpret (or something) the stories or a story from the anchor book of new american short fiction or an author or whatever they wished. some of them are pretty fantastic. ive got fake newspaper clippings of articles the student had written to accompany william gay's the paperhanger, ive got a comic book treatment of everything ravaged, everything burned, a mixCD of songs that go with each story from the anthology...

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