This started on a Saturday, the Saturday before the Monday when I had to hand back rough drafts to my students. I wanted no part of them. I wanted nothing to do with them. Glancing at my comfy blanket and cup of coffee, I was a human replica of the emoji "ugh." Not wanting to embrace my stack of papers, I started texting a fellow English teacher about her method of using rubric codes. She uses numbers to correspond with different points on a rubric that come up over and over. We have had this discussion before, yet, I was resistant because I had always wanted to follow "traditional" feedback routes. Things I love: ink over typeface, writing in the margins, and seeing a child's face go, "You spent alllll that time on my paper?" Yes, yes I did. I have had many conversations about the writing process lately because it seems as ELA teachers, we all tackle this beast differently. I am not willing to budge on giving feedback on rough drafts, even though some instructional models no longer call for this step in the process. Rubric codes never seemed to fit...until it did. 

The post is titled "The Reason I Would Leave Teaching" because the reason I am going to discuss is the only and main reason I would ever consider getting a different profession. I could easily go to nonprofit work or even sit behind a desk. I wonder sometimes what it would be like to pee whenever I wanted to or to be able to go on a lunch hour to a spot "around the corner." These are luxuries that teachers don't have. And many reasons that teachers leave do not involve my main reason for contemplating leaving. In fact, I am in love with classroom management. I love tough kids. I see many teachers leave the profession because they are not getting the support when it comes to classroom management or organization. I also see teachers leave due to pay, working conditions, lack of supplies, lack of support from administration, class sizes, etc. Eddie B Comedy offers some amazing jokes about teacher issues and the Michigan Education Association wrote a pretty great article titled "The Disappearing Educator." I often give this article to interns to make sure they know what they are getting into in terms of this profession.

I started to write this post and something distracted me. I looked at my calendar and then back to my blog post. Calendar-blog-calendar-blog. Where did the month of May go? I am amazed at the utter loss of time and also trying to balance that feeling that almost all teachers I know get in the month of May. You know the feeling. We look at each other with empathy. We make jokes. We give words of wisdom on social media and to each other in person. We try to see the light at the end of the tunnel that is summer. However, especially with state testing in May for many of us, it can get difficult to find joy. 

My pre-intern is ending his time working in my classroom, and I have asked him this question: "Are you sure you still want to be an English teacher?" I asked him this question with a hint of sarcasm, but also one of seriousness. The Michigan Education Association published an article about "The Disappearing Educator" that I think all teachers and those involved in education should read. Where are we going? The answer is leaving teaching and not choosing to become a teacher in the first place. We have all heard the statistic in education about teachers leaving before they reach five years. I would argue that teachers are in jeopardy well beyond five years. Put us on the endangered species list. 

The assignment? A compare and contrast essay. The goal? Survive. While this seems dramatic sometimes, most of my students are really excited about their creative writing assignments that involve creating their own dystopian worlds. However, many are not as excited as the complementary assignment of a compare and contrast essay with comparing our modern American Society with the Uglies Dystopian Society. I have a secret...I may be more excited about the academic formal paper (and you know I love creative writing). This will be the introduction to a five-part series about how to craft a Compare and Contrast essay with a focalized topic.