grading not going so well

I'm moving through the papers just fine, but I am not pleased with what I am seeing. Students are missing the point of the assignment. And maybe being tired from caring for the baby has made me less patient or tolerant of errors that I see as results of carelessness, lack of effort, or unwillingness to ask questions. Despite childbirth, I have been constantly available to my students online and I have posted messages to remind them of that.

The biggest problem is that many of them have totally missed the point of the assignment and have submitted papers that are entirely descriptive and not analytical at all. No thesis to be found. This is their THIRD paper, so analysis and argument are not new concepts in the class. And we went over and over and over this assignment in our on-campus meetings and online. I was worried initially that I had not made the assignment clear, but some students have done exactly what was asked of them. Not just the brightest ones, either. When a lot of students get it wrong, I feel insecure about the way I have taught them--that is it my fault, not theirs. But I feel at this point like it is simply a result of not following directions. So as I've been marking their papers, I have cut and pasted excerpts from the paper prompt to show them, "Here's what you were supposed to do, and you didn't do it." That's the best I can do with it.

So what to do next semester to make it better? I am teaching the same class in the summer and again in the fall, and instead of revamping the class, I am going to try to improve on this model (I'm sort of attached to it, and I want it to be great, and I also have a lot of things to do besides searching for new textbooks and developing new a syllabus). In the fall, I am doing the hybrid on-campus/online class, but in the summer I am totally online. And that was not so fun when I taught Tech Writing, largely because of the whole following directions thing.

So here's an idea that I'm toying with: quizzes over paper prompts.
This idea feels a little juvenile to me and even potentially insulting to the students. When I was an undergraduate, I would have been pissed if the instructor had quizzed me on my ability to read instructions. But it would make (most of) them read the prompts that I have spent so much time developing. And maybe they would write the papers that I have assigned.

Another option that I will most likely use is required online discussions of the papers in progress. We had those this semester and they really paid off for some students. That method puts a lot more responsibility on the students to identify their problems and bring up the right questions and topics for discussion. It's not as efficient as a quiz. It only works for the ones who are willing to put the effort into participating--REALLY participating and not just going through the motions to get credit. Part of me says that those are the students I should prioritize, anyway. But another part of me really wants to figure out how to motivate the ones who don't care so much and don't want to put in so much effort. It's easy to nurture the great students. I also want to reach the students who don't want to be reached. The perpetual frustration of a teacher.

back to work

The real work starts up again today. I've done some quick checking in with school work and my students over the past two weeks, but today the real work starts--I have a shiny new batch of papers to grade. Fortunately, my class is very small this semester--only fourteen students (not counting the disappearing student who is still on the roll but has not materialized in months--there's one in every class). I meet my students one last time on Monday. They are supposed to do evaluations. I wonder how many will actually show.

I'm recovering well (though I still use the progressive verb--there is recovering yet to do). Today I'm wearing some non-maternity jeans, which makes me feel better. Of course, I only have one pair of non-maternity jeans that fit right now, but I don't mind wearing them every day. It is no fun wearing maternity clothes when you're not pregnant. And breastfeeding is now going well--no more blisters, no more scabs. Which is good because as of this weekend, there is no more Vicadin!

Many things are on the horizon. Life changing things (as if my life were not changing enough already). There will likely be lots of blogging-things-out.

Birth story

Fair warning: this post is just what the title claims.

As I informed the blog many times, I was miserable pretty much throughout the whole pregnancy and especially in the last few weeks. Like I did with my first pregnancy, I had frequent Braxton Hicks contractions early on and other less pleasant labor symptoms for weeks before Annabelle was born. On the Friday before she was born, I felt like I might be going into labor and I went to the doctor. I was dilated to three and fifty percent effaced, but no baby coming. The pressure was pretty bad--I felt like she might just fall out any time. So I went home and continued to feel worse, and by Saturday morning I was having contractions 5-6 minutes apart. All day long. Saturday night I was up all night because in addition to the contractions I had a really bad ligament pain in my side that I could not talk through. But for me the worst thing is to go to the doctor and be sent back home, so I was not anxious to go anywhere until I knew I was having a baby. Sunday morning after egg hunting and candy and no way was I getting dressed to go to church feeling the way I did, my mother, who had been here all weekend, made me go to the hospital. That's right. Twenty-eight years old having my second child and my mother made me go to the hospital. And I went begrudgingly because I just knew I would be sent back home. I told my husband to go on to work and my parents took me to the hospital and we brought RB right along with us.

A nurse examined me and I was STILL dilated to three and fifty percent effaced and having all kinds of painful and regular contractions. But when the doctor arrived and she could feel the baby's hair through the amniotic sac, she granted me a reprieve and broke my water. I had hoped to have her on my own without induction, but when it came down to it, that was the best news I'd heard in weeks. Even better, they ordered the epidural right away, so by the time the hard contractions started, I already had pain relief. Hooray! After about an hour they gave me a Pitocin drip, and Annabelle was on her way FAST. The time between when the doctor broke my water and when Annabelle was born was about four hours--much better than my first delivery which took twelve. The epidural was perfect--no pain but I could feel every contraction--and I suddenly had to send my mom to get the nurse because I needed to push. When I started pushing her head was there right away, and I had to stop to wait for the doctor--not a fun ten minutes. Finally the doctor got there and Annabelle's head was out in no time. Shoulders were another story. Just like RB, Annabelle got stuck. Last time I was able to push her on out, but this time the doctor grabbed the baby by the head and the nurse stood up over me and pushed down on my belly with both hands to get her out. Thanks to the epidural, that didn't hurt, although it was a bit surreal, but I certainly felt it (feel it) later. Ouch.

Annabelle cried right away, and I got to hold her as soon as she was out. Shannon (husband) got to cut the cord, and then I nursed her for a few minutes. We missed all of those things with RB because she didn't cry when she was born and they took her away for hours to observe her breathing before bringing her back to me. The whole thing went very well and I even got on the phone myself to tell friends and family that she was born. I was elated that the labor was so fast and relatively painless. The first few days of recovery were rough, but I am doing much better now, except for very painful breastfeeding. Blisters, scabs, bleeding--bad stuff. I'm trying to work it out myself. I went to a lactation consultant for the same problems with RB and she said that I was doing everything right and there didn't appear to be a problem. Except, of course, for the scabs and bleeding, right? So we'll just press on and hopefully things will get better in the next few days. Thank heaven for Vicadin.

love my tie-dyed baby shirt

Thanks for the compliments on the tie-dyed baby shirt :) I dyed several onesies and shirts before RB was born because I was frustrated with the limited offerings--why does everything have to be pink or blue? I love my tie-dyed baby clothes.

Here she is...

Our Easter baby is here!

Annabelle was born on Easter Sunday at 4:51 p.m. She weighed 8 lbs. 4 oz. and is 21 inches long. Details coming soon :)

second child anxiety

No baby yet. Still holding.

Yesterday I took RB with me to my doctor's appointment and she thought it was really exciting. She talked to the doctor the whole time we were there, telling her all about her baby sister and what she was like when she was a baby and asking her what she was doing to Mommy. She has been telling us all about what she "remembers" about being a baby. After that we went to the hospital for a special sibling tour, which included about fifteen three-year-olds and their pregnant mothers. Quite an experience! But it was surprisingly hard for me. I fought tears the whole time, and I feel like crying again thinking about it. It's hard for me to think of RB as a big sister. I'm not worried about my ability to care for the baby. I am concerned about RB and how she will feel. I don't want her to feel displaced or less important. But also it's hard to see how mature and independent she is, a feeling that is intensified by the fact that her days as the baby of the house are almost over. As she has grown up, I have not missed the stage that passed. I've never looked back at her days as an infant wistfully because the toddler stages have been so exciting and, for me, much more fun. But now that there will be a new baby and RB is taking on the role of big sister, I do feel some sadness and anxiety over her growing up.

One thing I have thought about since she was a baby was how I would care for a second baby--I realized right away that it would have to be different. There have been so many times when RB and I have been the only people in the whole world, snuggled up together, sometimes all day long when she was small enough to stay in one place for more than ten minutes. Back then my worry was how I would care for the baby; I knew that I couldn't just rely on how my experience with RB but that I would have to learn a whole new way of parenting for that child. Even though that is still true, I'm not worried about it. I'm confident that I will do just fine with the baby. I worry about how I will have to change the way I care for RB. I know I will take care of her and give her attention and show her plenty of love, but it will have to be different in some ways.

And I'm extremely pregnant and hormonal, so I'll spend the day crying over it now.