Composition teachers can learn from nonteachers who evaluate writing. A comparison of nonteacher and teacher responses to the same student writing revealed that the teachers were much more negative in their evaluations. Studies have also indicated that teachers did not grade according to their own declared criteria. These inconsistencies and failures are largely a result of the circumstances under which teachers evaluate student writing: Their students are all inexperienced, they have seen the same work so often that it loses all freshness, and they evaluate in an artificial situation in which the two most important elements of writing--purpose and audience--are displaced by the act of evaluation itself. Teachers also claim that they do not grade on content, while nonteachers naturally do. Perhaps leaving neutrality behind and telling students their boring papers are boring would be a help. Though there may not be any easy answers to the problems of teacher weariness and boredom, teachers should ask themselves about the assignments they give, the amount of grading they do, the criteria they are using, their attitude toward content, and their own writing practices and their relation to teaching. (JL)