I have yet to start teaching according to the syllabus. Instead, I have spent this whole week trying to know my students and their competency level better by playing games and giving them essays to write. It sounds simple and easy but the workload is heavy, I have more than two hundred essays to read through and marking these essays is a challenge to my brain.
Each time I look at the pile of essays on my desk, I shake my head and wonder why on earth did I make them write those essays.? As if I have all the time in the world to mark all of it. Though it can be a mental torture, I do somehow enjoy reading those essays., an expression of themselves through writing. Many of those essays are very personal and are not meant to be read out loud. I admire my students for their openness to express what is within them, to share their personal feelings through their work.
I am glad to have given them essays to write. Those essays has served as an avenue for me to know my students better. Reading those essays changed some of the earlier perceptions I had towards my students and I believe it will help me to be more effective in my classes. Ambitious I may sound, but I’m actually tempted to see my students individually when I give them back their essays.
As for now, Jenn has stopped cooking for the time being, she marks papers during her free time.