Some of the papers that I'm grading.

When I first saw the falling snow feature for WordPress, I thought the look wouldn’t work for my blog. After all, I’m teaching in Florida and just ran wearing shorts and a T-shirt.

But then I thought of my desk and dining room table. I’m snowed under with papers to grade.

This is that time of year at universities across the country when students and teachers all are snowed under. Students feel under pressure to prepare to take exams, to write papers and to complete projects. Teachers feel pressued to get exams written and to get stacks of papers graded.

The challenge for students and teachers is to make this assessment is a valuable part of the learning process. So that’s a good reminder to me as I return to grading my papers — and remembering to write helpful comments on the students’ papers.

No shovel. Only a pen.