While I’m blogging about being annoyed, I thought I’d put that aside and make a “to do” list for tomorrow. Basically, I need to get to campus around 9 so I can get in a good 3 hours of assessing (each class has stuff due tonight; the bulk of the assessment will be with the online 120 classes) before lunch. After lunch, I will have about an hour to assess before we have an interview-screening-session from 2-4pm. Yeah. I hope I can get in some online coupon checking, too.

Word.

Eng110, 9am: P6, P7 (the Shortfolio), and the Final My Words Test.
Eng110, 3pm: P6, P7 (the Shortfolio) due at 3pm today, and the Final My Words Test.

Eng120, on-campus: Utopia Presentations today at 1pm, Final My Words Test & last CB = Wednesday before midnight.

Eng120, online, two sections: Last week’s assignment – a bonus CB to assess today?
Eng120, online, two sections: Shortfolios due Wednesday, Final My Words Test due Wednesday, and last CB due Wed.

Officially, I’ll have P6, P7 (the Shortfolio), and the Final My Words Test to assess next week in both of my English 110 classes. That’s not too bad. Oh, and I will have to look over the project evaluation charts they fill out next Monday, but that is about it. Yeah. Whew. It’s almost the end.

Meanwhile, I’m typically tired on a daily basis. I think everyone is. Just a little. However, today, I’m exhausted. After my workout, I felt like I needed a nap. And I slept all the way from about 11pm to 5:30am. Yeah. Okay, that’s not my typical 7-8 hours, but still. I’ve been feeling that way a lot, even more so after starting to workout more regularly. I could nap right now if it wasn’t for the fact that a) I’m at work, b) I have to teach in 15 min, and c) I just sucked down a 1/4 of a Pepsi Max.

Isn’t a person supposed to feel more energized by exercise? Sometimes, I guess I am, but it’s like sugar. Once it wears off, I want my couch and PJs and fan. It could be that I’m training with long runs. I think shorter, vigorous exercise keep the energy higher longer. But 5+ mile runs? They suck the happiness out of me BECAUSE they are stress relievers; so much so, that I zonk out – when I do take naps after – immediately without “the lists” going through my head. They clear my head and make my body feel pretty good. But once I’m done, I crash. This happened when I was first in cross-country in high school; we trained the month of August with 7am runs and 7pm runs. I slept in between and lost a lot of weight. But I’m not 17 anymore, so why do I still need the sleep? Weird.

Everyone’s body is different. I suppose I have to remember that.

Anyhow, everyone’s assessment schedules are different too. I wanted to remind myself of at least one class’s line-up for next week. Plus, it was a nice way to tie everything I wanted to blog about in one package. With a bow on top.

TOMORROW. FRIDAY. YEAH.
I’m going to do the following:
— Assess the last batch of P5s (other online class).
— Put “Dear Dead Person” letters in Gradebook.
— Meet with 9am & 3pm classes = Remind them that P6 is due at midnight & hand out the Final Test and Shortfolio.
— Talk to Brad, from the bank, via phone at 10:30am.
— Send out Wellness Team agenda and minutes for next week’s meeting.
— Make a “look through before summer school” pile of stuff.
— Make a “look through before next fall” pile of stuff.
— Coupons online to look through.
— Google Reader = Read through the Technology for Teachers blog (or do that Saturday after run).
— Help out at the Math Olympics on campus = Registration starts at 3:45pm. Awards should wrap up around 8? 8:30pm?

TODAY. THURSDAY. SURE.
I did the following:
— Assessed the second to last batch of P5s.
— Had lunch with my ma.
— Looked at the cars/trucks in the Auto Show part of Agawasie Day.
— Created a video for my little sister. It’s her first Mother’s Day on Sunday.
— Ran 6 miles.
— Got empty CDs from Cheryl so I can make some fun music mixes for tomorrow’s Math Olympics.

THIS WEEKEND. YEP. OKAY.
I hope to accomplish the following:
— Sort clothing that will be taken up to Savers Tuesday.
— Figure out what I can toss before moving.
— Google Reader = Blogs to sort through.
— Make a “Packing” Plan. Which spaces to pack up first, etc.
— Couponing.
— Long run Saturday morning & stretching or rest on Sunday.
— Bake some muffins or cupcakes, etc. to easily take to campus next week?

I can’t decide if my online students a) didn’t read Chuck and have no way of figuring out how to mimic him (EVEN with my list of ten items in the Chuck Packet!), b) don’t care to write one last paper arguing something, c) just didn’t want to “get him” and “how he writes in an outside-the-box manner, or d) really do think they are imitating him by just ranting… which isn’t exactly what I had in the Chuck Packet. Yeah. Talk about frustration. And, as expected to some teachers, my on-campus students did well – I assessed their P5s yesterday. Yet, I gotta say that, I didn’t give them much more than the same freaking Chuck Packet that the onliners have and read it ALOUD. Jeezus Pete.

Do I have to read it to my online students too?
Should I even be giving them a list to follow – shouldn’t they ALL have read, by now, the things he does? Name-dropping and odd metaphors and large words?

Ugh.
I have to stop spoon-feeding. Somehow.
However, that means more complaints.
Yikes.

Back to the show.

I wrote recently, in an email to a friend, that I couldn’t wait to be done grading after next week. Because then, like, I’ll have 2-3 weeks of non-grading bliss before… yeah… before summer school. But I cherish those weeks of non-grading-ness. I’ll have to pack and run instead, but still. A brain break, people. A break for the brain – no evaluations, no charts, no points to add up or delete. And, yes, once again, I think I’ll revise my grading strategies with some assignments (if not all) so that it’s a win-win situation. Easy for students to understand, easy for me to complete. Yay.

I’m always super hopeful pre-summer time. I’m going to do this and this and this and this. Ah, I’m such an optimist.

Right now, I’m in the middle of assessing P5s in English 120. I have my on-campus class finished; I have the two online to get to. We have Agawasie Day tomorrow, and then I have my 9am/3pm schedule on Friday; therefore, I should wrap up one online class per day. Totally do-able. Then the final stuff comes in next week. Yep.

No, this is not how I assess papers. It’s funny, but not ideal.
Instead, my assessment this week looks like this:
— English 120 online: I have a few small things to assess from last week – Peer Review, a batch of My Words, and a Mini-Argument. I can assess these today & then email them to say “Hi.”
— English 120 on-campus: Same as online. I can assess these today or tomorrow.
— English 110 students will be handing in the last of the Sedaris summaries today. I should be able to put those into the Gradebook today or tomorrow.
— English 110 Project 5 and Project 5.5 will be assessed on Friday and wrapped up, hopefully, by next Tuesday.
— English 120 P5 is due this weekend for both on-campus and online classes.

Today is/was a combination of meetings and assessment. I already wrapped up one meeting, and I have one more with an advisee this afternoon. In between and after, I plan to wrap up the GBPs in my other online section. It’s the last one. After that, meaning tomorrow, I’ll concentrate on catching up with my daily assignments – both online and on-campus. In addition to these things, I sent off a small handout of things I’ll present at a Web2.0 gathering this Thursday afternoon on our campus. I’m covering (& showing off) some Xtranormal movies I’ve made as well as a Prezi or two. So, it’s already been a productive short week.

Essentially, we will have finished up the second-to-last projects in most of my classes by this Friday. Next week is the last full week before Finals Week, and that will be filled with Work Days (again, in most classes) and Agawasie Day (a big deal and tradition on the NDSCS campus) which happens to land on Cinco de Mayo (I just like saying that phrase, really). Well, enough of my typing. Time to read, and read well, and assess the dickens out of some things while I chomp away at my pb&j (that was a cute rhyme, eh?).

I’ve caught up as far as small assignments go (and late ones that were handed in by excused students), so now it’s all about the “big” assignments. I have 23 Paper 2s in the English 120 on-campus Dropbox, 20 in the English 120 online* 2nd section (1 is late), and 23 in the other online section. So, that’s 66 papers total, at 1000+ words per paper. And then there’s my English 110 crew. They handed in P3 before Spring Break. I have 12 in my 9am class to assess (1 was late & emailed to me) and 19 in my 3pm class; that’s 32 papers, at 500+ words per paper.
—I think my plan of attack will be to assess 5-10 P3s everyday and about 5-10 P2s per day, wrapping everything up before my conference next week up north. *crosses fingers*
—*I think I have a few online students who emailed me their papers due to technical issues with eCollege. So, let’s say 70 total there.
Beyond all that, I have the following assignments coming in this week… The English 110 students have a worksheet due Wednesday and then an activity with The New, Well-Tempered Sentence due Friday. In the Online English 120, there is a Class Blog (worth some bonus) and P3 due Saturday. As for the on-campus English 120, they have a quiz due Wednesday in addition to the CB and P3. There may be another activity on Thursday in class, too.

And sometimes, the horse is going to give up on you. It’s okay. We just have to “roll with the punches.”
After my 9am class, I chatted it up with my department chair for a wee bit. The two questions that popped up were: “How flexible do we need to be this week?” and “How accessible do we need to be, in general.” The two days I detest every semester are Hunting Friday and this upcoming Friday, the one before Spring Break. Hey, if students want to leave early, so be it. If their parents “bought their plane tickets for Wednesday,” oh well. If they want to start their week-long hibernation Thursday night, that’s their choice. All I ask is that they just take the loss in points for whatever they miss instead of asking me to teach them Friday’s stuff on Monday or Wednesday. Friday’s stuff is for Friday. If I give everyone the Friday stuff early, no one will show up Friday. We have stuff on designated days; that’s how this works… last time I checked.

Anyhow, I need a list. Don’t we all?
Today, I’d like to send off the minutes and agenda for the upcoming Wellness meeting (Wednesday) and then create my World Literature posters (and shoot them over to the Copy Center), so Amanda can put ‘em up tomorrow.
I probably should make a list of things to assess this week too:
___ P2 paper, English 110, two classes (about 40? total to assess)
___ Online English 120 assignments from last week, two classes
___ Online English 120 email about sending me their P2 drafts for extra feedback…
_x_ On-campus English 120 email about what to do this week during conferences.