carolyn kellogg

And so it begins. 19 undergrad papers to grade, and I finally see that grading papers isn’t simple. Commenting on an MFA manuscript is one thing — there’s a shared language, a common knowledge of edit marks (hopefully), and we’re colleagues – I’m giving advice that my workshop compatriots may take or may throw out. (One does. Throw it out. Literally shoves notes in the garbage. But I write ’em anyway, fool that I am).

Anyway, comp papers. The idea is to find one or two things in each one and emphasize just them in both the in-text, handwritten notes and the end-of-paper notes, which I type. So there’s the time it takes to read the paper, and to try and figure which one or two things might be the most fix-able, the easiest for the student to wrap their head around and address in their next paper. And then the little scribbles. Can I stop myself from also making grammar notes? I can’t.

At first a short, lazy paper made me sad and a little upset. But 12 hours of grading, when I’d navigated lots of proper-length, intermittently insightful and convoluted work, a short, lazy paper was a relief. I knew how to handle it. Then that made me sad — how could I be relieved to come across bad work? Oh, not enough time, and the well is getting darker, that’s how.

Then there are the workshop readings (begun), the lit class readings (yikes! and double yikes!), the prep for the meeting with my teaching mentor tomorrow, the prep for my class, and, oh yes, my manuscript. Whine, whine, we’re all busy. But sometimes the brain buckles.

This summer I stood in the bottom of an old volcano looking up. Now I am falling down, down, down, and looking up and back at the sun.