Selective Hearing

Sometimes kids hear what they want to. For example:

Student: "We get the whole hour to work on our short stories, right Mr. Christiansen?"
Me: "You'll get some time, but how much is up to Ms. Smith"
Student: " Yesterday, you told us we'd have the whole hour, didn't you?"
Me: "Nope, that's not what I said."

Ultimately, they got the full hour anyway.

I had a couple more cracks at grading today. The teacher will assign the points, but I was asked to give a letter grade. Grading is something it will take time to get used to. To me, the As, Cs, and Fs are pretty easy to peg, but it is sometimes hard to tell where a paper fits in between when there is no cut and dry correct answer, which is frequent in English. I guess it's good that I'm getting some practice now, before I take over the classes and am expected to assign grades on my own assignments without quite as much oversight. Practice makes perfect, they say.