I’m poised to grade 50+ fifth grade essays about whether space exploration should continue to be funded or not. My students have read a couple of articles on the subject, and they have given it some good thought. I respect their opinions, as long as they back them up with facts and good reasoning, which is what they have been taught and assigned to do.

Luckily, I have a day off today to get it done. I’ll be at it throughout the day, dividing the work into chunks. This entire task will take me about 2 1/2 hours or so. It’s faster than it has been, since I have all of the essays online now. I’ve already graded over 20 of them, so I only have the 50+ left to go. Wish me luck.