During the second half of my teaching career I always had student assistants. They were invaluable to me. I would usually wait until about a month into the school year and choose a few students who were diligent, sharp, and friendly towards me, and I would invite them to work with me after school a couple of days per week.

Some of my nicest memories have to do with whoever my assistants were during certain years. In the beginning, I had three or four at a time. Let’s say I had given a vocabulary test. My voc. tests were quite particular and possibly different from other teachers’ vocabulary tests: first, there were ten spelling words, then they had to give two synonyms of the spelling words, and then they had to use those in convincing sentences. I would have given them twenty words that week, but I would only choose ten for the test (different ones in each class to prevent the chatter..)

Then, I’d write a key, and my student assistants would check or ex the first two sections so that I only had to check the sentences. In fact, after a certain amount of time and practice, my assistants could check the sentences too. ( I have given you a link to my Teachers Pay Teachers store so that you can see the vocabulary program I developed and maybe use it yourself.)

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/store/literary-ladder-lessons

OR let’s say I gave a multiple choice test on a book. They would simply have to check it with an answer key. It would be like assembly-line style: one of them would check it, another would write the grade using a scale, and the last one would enter it into my gradebook. Yes, I taught them how to enter grades into my gradebook. I don’t know if that would be allowed now….but it was wonderful. My admin were all aware of the tasks that my assistants were doing, and somehow I got away with letting them grade papers. The rules may be more stringent at other schools or districts.

If I had an assistant who was particularly keen on grammar, then I would have her/him use my famous PURPLE PEN (not red-psychologically an alarming color) to mark grammar errors in essays. (My favorite grading pen, gel-type and very smooth- on the right). I showed them how to use “teacher-like” commentaries in the margins. BTW, I always checked everything they did after they finished. But these students saved me from HOURS upon HOURS of grading papers at home or at least, on my own personal time after school. All English teachers know what I’m talking about.

And we had laughs as well! Often, I would play music while they were with me. Sometimes they would help me decorate and put up student work to display. Other times they would help me organize my classroom, getting the class library in order, filing papers, making sure all the textbooks were facing the same way. Here’s the thing: I always fed them. Students used to do most anything for candy or chips or cake or protein bars. Many of my students never ate any food while they were at school, so by the end of the day they were famished.

These assistants usually become my closest student comrades, and I am still in touch with many of them. I relished writing their letters of commendation after all of their hard work and their dependability.

I highly recommend that you try to get a student assistant or two or three. You can give them community service hours for it. And make sure to feed them.