The Red Pen

As a child I liked nothing better than going through my grandfather's stack of company statements and playing 'teacher'. I had managed to lay my hands on a multi-colored pen and used the color red in abandon. There were very few statements that were spared the wrath of my red pen.

It is ironic that when I finally got to grade my first bunch of students papers I could not use a red pen.

I like grading online, it allows me the flexibility of changing my mind without leaving traces of mu thought process. But that doesn't mean that grading for the first time was easy. I felt an acute sense of anxiety. As insignificant as it was, this assignment and my grade for the whole course would in some very small way affect each student's academic career. This burden remained with me throughout the grading process, so much so that I ended up reading each paper thrice before finally fixing a grade on it. As all my fellow TAs told me, this was not the most optimal way of going about things. I ended up managing to get only 13-15 hours of sleep that week --- an experience I choose to never visit again.

In the end I feel I probably graded harshly, I did give out D minuses. And I am glad that we had that meeting with Matt, because it was helpful to get an idea about the grading system in preparation of next time when grading will hopefully be less of a burden, both physically and morally.