4½ Hours

Yep, I went to bed at two in the morning.

And I started working shortly after I had gotten up... so 10:30 am to 2:00 am. Sure, I had breaks... I had dinner with Ryan. And we drove to Office Max. So I could make photocopies of the reading quiz I made. I did a lot though... Ryan was witness to most of that fifteen hours of work--he can say I'm not lying! :)

For English 10B, I graded all of their journals, graded all of the assignments that had been lingering, created a reading quiz (which meant very slow reading of about 120 pages), added to their unit test, put together the vocabulary for the week...

For Journalism, I didn't do as well, which made me toss and turn a little last night. I dreamt I was trying to finish up the last odds and ends during class. I was able to create a review sheet for them, but it wasn't terribly complicated. I also made the unit test, and I think this is part of what swallowed so much of my time yesterday--I made one version of it, and while I was taking a break (reading their journals), I read an entry (in response to "Write about what you have learned so far in this class and write about what you'd like to learn") and one student wrote, "No offense, but I haven't learned anything. Everything we've talked about is common sense." Well, I've been doing the Ethics of Journalism, and we've done a lot of activities--looking at tabloids, looking at ethical rules, creating our own ethical rules, watching Shattered Glass, etc. (And this doesn't include the groundwork we've set with press conferences and editorial stuff.) So yes, a lot of it is obvious, but at the same time, why are we having so many problems with journalists in the media? I may sound defensive, but when a student tells you she hasn't learned anything, it is a bit disappointed. Anyway, inspired by this and other journal entries, I decided that they needed the quiz to be a bit less easy... less multiple choice kind of a quiz and more of an interpretive kind of quiz. I said it was open note, so if they take decent notes, they'll be fine. If they don't, they might fail it. Today in class, we're going to play Jeopardy (I'll have to actually make up the questions in my spare hours--1st and 4th while Amy is teaching, most likely) and I'll give them the rest of the hour to study and make notes. I'll also have to use 1st and 4th to grade their remaining journals, and there is a good stack of them. I'm so tired. I can't believe I worked for that long and didn't even completely get through everything!

OK, I have a student coming in to make up a quiz before school, so I can't be that late.

I also have Project Proposal class after teaching today.

I think I'll be going to bed at like nine tonight. If not earlier. I am so tired. I hope I get through today in one piece.