Wednesday, 28 January 2009

The Joys of Marking

I’ve finished marking. I am surrounded by piles of paper and I no longer recognise what they are. Odd papers have been missing then turned up again. Occasionally you mark one and then put it down and you can’t find what you’ve done with it seconds later. They all look the same. Should we go to electronic submission? Would that be as confusing, or more so in fact? Then oddly, or perhaps predictably, all the missing bits turn up.
The marking / moderating process is an involved one. It always takes longer than you think, even when you rush it – maybe especially if you rush it.
I don’t mind too much. After all, I am reading what other people have written. It’s not that different from looking at martial from a critique session, except in that you’ve got to make a summative judgement about it. Judgements in week by week session and for your critique groups are more formative. When it comes to acting as reader / editor, you have to make a final one off decision. That, I guess is a bit different. I’m attempting to do that electronically. I’ll keep you posted

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