Since March, I’ve been working at one of my jobs, and stepping out of my comfort zone at the same time. It started four years ago, when I took a seasonal job scoring standardized tests taken by school students across the United States. Each state has its own set of tests for different grade levels and subjects, with their own rubrics. I’ve scored writing projects from 4th through 10th grade.
The scoring takes place in a secret location (not really, but it’s a very secure site with strict confidentiality rules). I sit among hundreds of scorers who’ve passed a series of tests qualifying them to score. Our faces are illuminated by the light of computer monitors, as we read thousands of papers, thousands of stories told by America’s students. It doesn’t really matter what the prompt is, if a student has something on his mind, he’ll work it into his essay. They spill their thoughts and emotions onto the page. Some write begrudgingly, others cathartically. They talk about everyday life in school: special friendships, favorite teachers, and bullies getting what they deserve. They write about family life: sibling rivalry, parents instilling values, and parents getting divorced. They tell tales about first love, dramatic breakups, and winning touchdowns, homeruns and soccer goals. Puppies, kittens, aliens, monsters, video game heroes, princesses, and pop musicians show up regularly.
Scorers squint to decipher handwriting, and silently sound out strange spellings of words. Trained eyes scan for punctuation, grammar, and other rubric requirements. The only sounds are the occasional creak of an office chair, and the quiet clicking of mouses as we scroll up and down, enlarge and reduce, and enter scores. Every once in awhile there’s the snort of a stifled laugh when a funny paper shows up on a screen. And I confess that at least once, I shed a few tears over a particularly heartbreaking story. That was when I found it comforting to be surrounded by other scorers.
This year, for the first time, I signed onto a distributed project, which means I scored from home. I loved the commute, or lack of it, and the flexibility of setting my own hours.
However, after reading a series of sad stories, I missed the camaraderie of fellow scorers. I also missed the supervisors and scoring directors encouraging the group, giving us progress reports, and spurring us on with some good old team competition. I’ve heard about others scoring in their pajamas at home, but I just couldn’t get into a serious frame of mind in my pjs. The other major drawbacks of scoring from my dining room were all the distractions—phones ringing, dogs barking, cats walking across my keyboard, dirty dishes, floors that needed vacuuming, Zumba tempting me to go and workout, etc.
I’m also not sure how well I would’ve done if it had been the first time I’d ever scored. I had the advantage of prior experience. There were many times that I relied on the internalized advice of past supervisors and co-workers who had helped me at the “secret” site. Despite all that, I’m glad I scored a distributed project and would definitely do it again.
The other way I stretched a little this scoring season was by accepting a supervisor’s position at the onsite scoring center after the distributed project ended. It’s been a long time since I professionally supervised anyone, so I hesitated. That cost me the first day of supervisor training. So, in what has become my typical way of doing things, I got to play catch-up.
I made a few mistakes. The worst one resulted in me having to dig through the shredding bins in search of some important paperwork that I unwittingly threw out. I had no qualms about asking other supervisors when I was confused, and they usually had answers to my questions. After a few days, I was able to reciprocate.
The quiet work environment on-site is deceptive. Actually, these projects are fairly intense. There are thousands of papers to be scored, accurately, and in a short window of time. As a supervisor, it was like a year of work compressed into three weeks. I started off supervising 12 scorers ranging from retired school teachers to college graduates with diplomas that the ink was barely dry on. Two days later, I had to let two people go because they didn’t qualify to score papers. One quit after landing a permanent job.
The wireless computers in my area went down, so my team scattered, filling in empty spaces throughout the vast room. Then I gathered them up again to move back. One very early morning, 6 a.m., I re-booted all of my team’s computers before they arrived.
I helped scorers navigate on their computers, gave them feedback about their performance, clarified things if they were confused, got them back on track if needed, and encouraged them when they were doubtful. I took attendance, explained and collected timesheets, and told my team when there was overtime. As the number of papers to be scored dwindled, I wrote up my remaining eight scorers’ evaluations.
Today, the computer monitors went dark as we logged off for the last time. We had scored well over 300,000 papers, twice. It felt like the last day of school before summer vacation, but without yearbooks to sign. Nobody knows who will be back on the next project. We exchanged phone numbers and email addresses. Some really will keep in touch, others will fade away. But whatever happens in our lives, next spring the monitors will glow again with stories of adventure and love, heroes and villains, written in complete sentences or fragments, and scorers will read them, and score them as best they can.
Laura Keolanui Stark hopes that she has not made any grammatical errors in this blog. She can (or is it “may?”) be reached at starklooseends.blogspot.com.
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