It happened this morning that I was on the same bus as a young colleague who took my course in March. When I told her that I still had a lot of work before I could get my responses back to everyone, she said none of the other teachers in this course sequence did that! In the developmental editing course (the last in the sequence) she took recently, someone asked the instructor about it, & she flat-out said, “No, I don’t have time to write comments to everyone & send their projects back.”
Well, yeah, I don’t either! For some reason this hadn’t come up when I met with the other instructors to go over curriculum & practices. I had just assumed it was part of the job. My student assured me, “We aren’t expecting it – don’t worry about it.”
What a huge relief. I think I will return the markups that I have done on the work of the first students (maybe 8?) to send me their work, & let them know this is a perk for being extra-prompt. Then I can move on to a pending task for my next round of the class, which comes in late July: making the syllabus more detailed & informative.
In that upcoming class, I will make short assignments on the first two days, give students some class time to complete them, & hunker down in the evenings to mark up their work. Then they’ll have some direct personal feedback that’s immediate – the best kind.
I cannot say what a big relief this is. I feel like I have my life back.
