Teaching Tuesday: Attendance, Make-up Work, and Papers to Grade

One of the marks of a good teacher, especially an English teacher, is the ability to organize and manage all the endless PAPERS that come with the job...  Luckily, in my previous life, organization was a strength of mine, and for the most part, it has remained intact over my last six years in the classroom.

I get requests for information about these things a lot, so I will attempt to be concise and helpful... As always, please feel free to email me if you have specific questions!

First up, attendance and make-up work:

I don't have any kind of genius plan for this... My paper attendance records are kept on a clipboard in the front of the room.  Every two weeks (or five class periods on the block) I print a new attendance sheet and fill in the dates that particular class will meet.  The sheet includes each student's name, a column for each day, and a large column to record "missed work."  The last column makes it easy for me to remember to tell Sally that she needs to make-up a quiz, or remind Alex about a paper we turned in Tuesday when he was out.  I also try to paper clip the Missing Work Logs for a particular class behind their attendance sheet so I know to harass remind those students to turn in work as well.

Click here for a printable/editable Word version of my weekly attendance sheets.

I keep these attendance sheets for a month at a time, and then use them to fill in a larger spread sheet in Excel that tracks my attendance for the nine weeks/semester/year. I know there are lots of other (and probably better) resources available for tracking attendance online, but this works well for me.

Access the printable/editable Excel version of my attendance totals spread sheet here.

Finally, I keep a binder for students to check for make-up work if/when they miss class.  Each grade (or block) has their own tab in the binder & folder for loose hand-outs.  If a student is absent, I just write their name on the test/quiz/whatever and stick it in the appropriate spot in the binder.  Students know to look there for anything they could not access via Blackboard upon their return to school.  For the most part, this works well.

And, a tiny bit about keeping up with papers to grade & to return:

I have always used some sort of system like this, but I just found this new accordian file at Target this weekend, and I love that it has a pouch where I can store my colored pens etc. (I'm forever getting home and realizing I don't have a good pen to grade with.)  Basically, I just make a two tabs for each of my classes - one for papers that need to be graded, and one for papers that need to be returned (i.e. have already been graded).  Then, as I collect papers, I simply alphabetize them and put them in the appropriate slot.  This little file folds up and easily goes back and forth to school with every day.

So... What are your systems for managing papers?  Please share!!