Long Hours

I just finished 31 hours of essay scoring. Four of the teachers at the high school saved their The Grapes of Wrath essays for my return from Italy. Some of the essays were good, some were rotten, some were wild flights of fancy that had nothing to do with the topic. Sophomore students here have the grammar skills of third graders so there were tense shifts and pronoun problems throughout the essays. One teacher, who is brand new (which brings up the entire issue of why anyone who is smart and young would pick teaching in this state that has the lowest per pupil expenditure in the entire country), emailed me when I was in Italy to ask if I would include his papers in my schedule. He wrote, "I heard you were kind enough to score these essays." I wrote back that my kindness was exaggerated even though I was certainly willing to score his essays. I think he thought I was kidding.