Continuing the theme: one of my future colleagues at SLU had a postcard that said “Grading is Violence” up in her office, which gave me a bit of a chuckle.

And, since it’s been a while, here’s a NewsRadio quote from the first season episode “Big Day,” where Jimmy is awarding the annual bonuses to the staff:

Dave: So, big day, huh?
Jimmy: Exactly. Big day. You stoked?
Dave: Uh, yeah, yeah, I suppose so, sir. And you?
Jimmy: Me, I’m miserable, Dave. Yeah, figuring out the annual bonuses is pure hell.
Dave: Oh, why?
Jimmy: Well, you got to take a living, breathing human being and put a dollar value on its head. It’s, uh, the devil’s work, Dave. It’s bad hoodoo.
Dave: Yeah, it sounds like it.
Jimmy: Yeah, it used to be the hardest part of my job.
Dave: Oh, what changed it?
Jimmy: I made it the hardest part of your job.
Dave: When did that happen?
Jimmy: Just now.
Dave: Well, thank you sir.

I think grading is the hardest part of my job—and grading essays is the worst. The only things I have discovered thus far that work well are (a) making the scores out of as few points as possible (I’ve started using 15 as a baseline) and (b) coming up with an objective grading rubric with a few basic point values (i.e. 10, 12, 13, 15) described and standardized adjustments for things like grammar. I don’t think it works perfectly but it’s better than the random walk that my grades seemed to be based on before.