As I’ve moved into a new session of teaching, I had meant to begin developing sample assignment responses again. They seem to have helped my students in the past couple of sessions, and I do want to help my students succeed, despite what many of them seem to have thought over the past however many years I’ve taught. But when I went to look at the current session’s assignments for the first week, thinking I would get a head start on developing those new examples, I found that they are online quizzes.

I cannot offer examples of such things. For one, I do not know how limited the quiz bank is from which the students are asked to work; were I to address questions from them, I would be giving students answers, and while I approve of giving models, doing the assignments for them passes lines I am not willing to cross. For another, I am relatively certain I would get into some kind of trouble for posting the questions directly. And were I to try to write an independent example of such a quiz, it would require more work than I am willing to do without additional compensation. (I enjoy writing essays; I find the work of doing so meditative, and I often learn things from it. Quiz-writing is much more meticulous, and while it can be remunerative, I am not likely to draw extra pay for providing supplemental materials to my already-enrolled students. I do the job because I need money, after all.)

For now, therefore, I will have to defer what should have been an example of an assignment response, waiting until next week, when actual written responses begin to be asked of the few students enrolled in the current session. Because there are few, I will be able to attend to them more closely than larger classes permit, which should be to the good for the students and for me. For when I have to assess work at speed, I find myself looking for different things than I would prefer to seek but which I can only work to uncover when I have time to spend–and that is not the case with over-enrolled writing classes that have institutional deadlines I must meet. That seems not to be an issue this go-round, and I am grateful for it. I hope I have cause to continue to be.

Can you help me keep it going once it actually starts back up again?