#grading essays

They’re SO bad and I’m not going to sink hours of my time into grading something that obviously needs to be retaught.

Frustrated. Disappointed.

But this is what teaching is sometimes right? Gotta be flexible and meet the needs of the class. I expected them to do something that they’re not ready to do quite yet.

Failing at your own business–College Essay Reviewer

Internet connection being what it is in Mexico, I thought I’d try and expand my employment tentacles and applied for a job reviewing college essays. I had mixed feelings when I heard back from the company.  While it would be great that I wouldn’t have to keep on eye on my signal bar or panic when the electricity flickered off like when I was teaching live classes, I didn’t really want to work…

180 Days: Day 56–TGIWF

Thank goodness it’s WRITING FRIDAY. Nothing is better than a day when my students are engrossed in timed writings all day while I’m still engrossed in getting caught up from 6 days of substitute teachers. Today gave me a chance to catch a breath. But today also gave me an awesomely large stack of essays to grade–probably one of my least favorite parts of teaching English. Why do I hate grading…

One of the most difficult skills to develop teaching writing intensive courses that also demand a lot of critical reading is how to create useful comments to students on their work. It's simple to replicate common complaints that sound instructive and directive but actually say nothing at all. I've found the most important way to clearly and usefully comment to writers is to include an example of my point in my comment. First, this keeps me developing the bad habit of using a comment key with words that I direct towards words, phrases, and clauses in student writing. I never write "unclear" or "awkward" or "word choice", et al., or something similar with a line pointing to the problem I found in the composition. Those are basically meaningless comments. Instead, I compose my own sentences explaining my point and I incorporate the student’s writing I find problematic into the comment. This is good practice and useful, insists I be more clear, and it models for the student writer the rubrics and methods we're using in our class. We build good habits together. Second, I resist commenting on every problem I find. I read the entire composition, word for word. Afterwards, I find the most problematic issues and address them in a couple of comments. I use a very clear rubric with five, well described categories. I usually end up commenting on content and coherence problems, or if the content and coherence is strong, focus and relevance problems. If the students lose points in rubric areas I don't comment on, they can see me outside of class for a fifteen minute session where we conference on their work as they need it. This encourages two practices, one for me and one for students. For me, not commenting on every issue keeps me focused on objectives that are of primary significance and encourages me to resist insisting students be correct. And let's be honest, teachers who sweat correctness are often ego-driven and forgetful that they wouldn't be writing entirely correct entries should they be under assessment. Writers make mistakes; students need to learn to make mistakes. For students, learning to articulate a need, learning to assess their own needs, is important for them to learn how to become more skilled editors and proofreaders.