Why I Might Stop Assigning Essays

Jason Fertig:

In the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, author Stephen Covey characterizes job tasks as either important or urgent. We desire to focus our time on important activities; the urgent ones are the persistent fires we must extinguish in order to focus on those important projects. The dissonance between putting off important work because of the need to tackle urgent tasks often causes people to become dissatisfied in their job performance. Hence, I've been thinking about Covey's book a lot lately as I question whether essay grading is an important or urgent part of my job.

In addition to Covey, my latest copy of Rutgers magazine features an article on giving great lectures. The article presented several members of the university faculty describing how they engage a classroom while lecturing. Reading through the lengthy article leaves me to ponder - am I doing too much in my classes? Why don't I just lecture?

My creative writing time has been sparse these past few months because my current courses involve grading 50-75 essays per week, along with fulfilling my university service requirements (another story for another day). I have spent around 20 hours per week grading essays, and my cost-benefit radar is telling me to question whether such assessments are worth it. Some readers may wonder why I am not more efficient, but I do aim for efficiency- I even stagger submission dates.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at November 6, 2011 2:18 AM
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