But is marking students' creative writing pieces just as easy as that? The quote comes from Dr. Maggie Butt's daughter, who she cites in her "Marking: A Healthy Warning" (Appendix A of Siobhan Holland Creative Writing: A Good Practice Guide published by the LTSN English Subject Centre, Feb 2003).

After all, the tedious task of marking papers should be an enjoyable task when reading creative pieces. Right? Right? Apparently not.

I agree with Dr. Butt, marking creative pieces can be a tricky task because:

• You have to be sensitive to the student-writer's feelings about his/her work
• You need to write more than what you're used to because student-writers "demand" that you respond to almost every phrase they write
• You sometimes have to get past the ungrammatical and cliched to find out what the student-writer really intends to say in a passage
• You need to suggest ways how to improve the piece, even when you think it may be a "hopeless" piece of writing

But the good thing though is when the student-writer responds to your "constructive criticism" and surprises you with a revision that blows your mind. Now that's what you call a psychic reward.