Grading Papers with Period Four

Generally speaking, grading papers isn't fun, but if there's one thing capable of making such a task enjoyable, it's stickers.

I much prefer grading things on paper to online documents. Not just because paper allows me to use stickers, but because paper also allows me to use colorful pens and write comments that my students will actually read. Plus, sometimes the kids include funny little doodles and I love that, you know? It shows me a side of them that isn't necessarily volunteered in class discussions.

Lately, my sophomores have been doing quite a few pencil-and-paper worksheets and it's been great fun for me because I recently stocked up on stickers at Rite-Aid.

As if these stickers weren't already fun enough, they proved to be majorly enjoyable while I graded a stack of A Raisin in the Sun worksheets both yesterday and today during fourth period.

The students in fourth period are working on creating a piece of scientific writing about capaill uisce. (If you don't know what these are, I can only assume that you've never read The Scorpio Races.) As they were designing their pamphlets/posters, I was reading about direct characterization of Mama, Beneatha, Walter, Ruth, and Travis. Each time a sophomore turned in a perfect paper, I added a sticker to the sheet, but before adding a sticker to the sheet, I'd pose a question to my freshmen. Here are some examples:

• If someone came to the door right now and offered you a chocolate chip cookie or an ice cream sundae, which one would you choose?

• If someone came to the door right now and offered you a tomato or a pickle, which one would you choose?

• If someone came to the door right now and offered you a pineapple or a cinnamon roll, which would you choose?

• If someone came to the door right now and offered you pickles or eggs, which would you choose?

• If someone came to the door right now and offered you Swiss cheese or bacon, which would you choose?

• If someone came to the door right now and offered you tacos or a cupcake, which would you choose?

Yesterday, I learned these things:

• Chocolate chip cookies are quite popular! The Smile prefers them to ice cream. Mr. Read Aloud, however, opted for ice cream, but only if it had peanuts. Turns out, he's allergic to other nuts (walnuts, pecans, and almonds).

• Pickles are well liked by my period-four students, and both Poseidon Jr. and Mr. Read Aloud are self-proclaimed "tomato haters." Mr. Read Aloud does like most vegetables, though... but he's never had chickpeas. Mr. Great-With-Accents loves chickpeas and Family Friend really enjoys hummus. Weirdly, Mr. Read Aloud has never had hummus so I'm thinking we may need to have a hummus party in class sometime soon. We'll see if any of the students read this and force me to follow through on that idea...

• Overall, period four is quite healthy in that nearly everyone playing the "If someone came to the door right now" game chose pineapple over a cinnamon roll. Poseidon Jr. did require that the pineapple be cut ahead of time, but I figured that was a reasonable request.

Today, I learned these things:

• As much as period four likes pickles, they like eggs more! Wheezy Guffaw makes her own deviled eggs and they sound really delicious: she garnishes them with olives.

• Swiss cheese is almost as popular as bacon! Both Family Friend, Miss Basket, and I all voted for Swiss, along with a few other kids in the room.

• Tacos are overwhelmingly more popular than cupcakes, and True-Crime Lover then proceeded to show me all the food she ate while recently visiting Cozumel. She ate tacos (obviously, as that's what started the conversation) and quesadillas and mango soup and peach soup and a big tortilla with some sort of interesting something spread on top of it and a melting cake served with ice cream and very fat French toast that I'd never heard of or seen before!

Anyway. That's my story about grading. If ever my students are wondering about great Christmas or birthday gifts for me, stickers are a terrific option... as are chickpeas. And coffee, obviously. A girl needs a lot of coffee to make it through the day sometimes!