This week I receive my first papers from three George Mason University writing classes. The first are always the hardest, and many teachers wish they had the courage (or foolishness) to throw them down the stairs and grade according to where they land, as myth dictates.

Once papers reach our hands, they begin to gather weight. They become heavier each day, until they are processed and entered in the grade book, at which time they lose their considerable mass. The weight in their ungraded state is combined with the weight of the anxiety of the student writers, who often don’t know how or why teachers assign the grades they do.