Marking Marathon

Rainy Monday.  The thunder has been crashing around since about 3 a.m. and the rain is still pouring down.  Please don't let it be indoor recesses today, because the gym is not available either for gym later.  The little darlings will be wound tighter than drums (exactly what does that phrase mean?).

Well it was a marathon of marking last night.  I've been putting off marking several assignments, basically because I had no idea how to tackle the first one.  We just completed a mystery writing unit.  I read a lot of minute mysteries at the beginning of literacy classes, just to get them thinking mysteriously.  Towards the end, there were several who became quite sleuth-like.  Their final assignment, was to write a minute mystery.  They were to develop several characters, create a believable setting, give sufficient clues, throw in a red herring or two, and voila, a mystery would appear.

So several of my group, did actually get the concept, but there is another large (unfortunately) group who really missed the point.  I did give one 4 (equivalent to an 'A' in old schoolese).  But there were a lot of 2's and 3's, generously given by yours truly.

Then I had my media project.  This was also a project that took a couple of weeks to complete.  They had to come up with a product - unique, new and wonderful, create a logo, place their logo on a jacket or a race car, and then do a short write up on their process and product.

I gave them an outline of either a jacket or a racecar.  They spent a couple periods just experimenting with shapes and colours for their logo.  Then they had to draw out their best design in good, and tranfer it onto the car or jacket.  Finally they had to to the write up.

Whereas I was disappointed with the mysteries, most of the logo projects far exceeded my expectations.  They really seemed to latch onto this one.  The write ups tended to be a little sketchy, but the drawings and design work were excellent.  I obviously have several students with advertising potential. Also the great thing here is that I was able to salvage a literacy mark, a media mark and an art mark all in one setting. Media is the new buzz word in literacy, and is now one of the four thrusts of Literacy, here in Canada.

More loose ends tied up.  Oh yes, and a young lad came and picked up the three wheeler cart, 90% of my asking price.  My garden shed is now almost empty, except for the junk that was sitting in the cart.  Now to organize that and get the snowblower packed away for another season.

And I got two more flats of cuttings done, and the caster beans and cleome planted.  Yes I know that was a lot of work for a Sunday - I'll rest today.

And that is about all I have to say for today.

Musings and meanderings from the Musical Gardener.