I would like to say that while grading my students’ essays there is never a dull moment, but that would be an absolute lie.
Mostly grading students’ essays is a boring, excruciating job. It makes me rethink my college career path, my desire to be a teacher, and life in general. Essays written by twelve-year-olds are life-sucking.
But then there are moments, just a line or two, that flip switches. Maybe not in the students’ heads–they still don’t seem to remember to indent a new paragraph or to not use abbreviations in formal writing–but a switch, a light bulb, will go off in my head and, like dominoes, one thing leads to another and then there we are.