Find a way to grade student essays more quickly

So, I’m nearly half-way to the end of the term, and I’m managing, somehow, to grade all the essays I’ve assigned. I realize now that perhaps the reading of drafts is what’s causing some of the difficulties; I really need to reassess why I assign drafts, and whether or not I think it’s worthwhile to read them all…. Still, I’m proud of myself for having made it this far. Only ten weeks left.

Minimal marking—the practice of simply putting an x or check in the margin of an essay where there’s something that could use revision, has been very helpful this past year when I’ve been teaching so much. (This semester, I’ll teach six composition courses, which means reading something like 3000 essays in 14 weeks.) My students would prefer, I know, that I edit their essays, rather than pointing them toward ways they could edit on their own. But most of all, with so many essays getting ready to come in, I need to make sure I’m serving my students well (by offering useful critiques) while not going completely nuts spending too much time on each one.