I've seen some others post about grading, and I'm going to add to those. I haven't figured out the perfect way to grade yet, but I have came across some good tips and some bad ones. When I first started teaching, each five-page essay took about 30 minutes to grade. Ridiculous. Add rough draft grading on top of that, and I was busy for a week, and that was when I was only teaching, no grad school.
Fast forward three years: the same essay takes me about 15 minutes now. I've stopped reading it through before marking on it (I mark on it as I read); I don't leave too much mechanical feedback, unless the mistakes are repetitive and/or disrupt the writing; I grade with a rubric point allocation system; and I use 'awk' more, rather than explaining why a sentence/thought isn't right. However, I'm thinking about returning to an earlier grading system that another professor recommended. She told me to set a timer to 8 minutes, start the timer, read and mark until the timer went off, draw a line across the paper at your stopping point, turn to the last page, then take two minutes to write final thoughts. This method takes about 10 minutes. She also told me to emphasis how I would be grading to the class and reiterate that a good paper shouldn't take more than ten minutes to read. I tried this for a semester and it worked well for me, but I worried that students weren't getting as much from it. I had no evidence to back up the usefulness or not, as my students performed (grade-wise) about the same. So what do you think? Is the ten minute grading plan possible?
I think it would be really hard for me personally to read and grade a paper in 10 minutes; I get hung up trying to understand the students' arguments and take longer to figure them out. I think my minimum in the future is going to be 15-20 minutes. Right now it is taking me a lot longer, but that should naturally improve in time.
ReplyDeleteThat's really interesting! I am interested to see what Nicki and Jennifer's opinions are of this method, since they have the most teaching experience. The director of the writing program that I taught at previously told me that I should dedicate 20 minutes to each paper, since the students dedicate much more time to it. I have had success in 20 minute allotments. Some may run over, while others are finished more quickly. I only read once, making marginal notes as I go. The end comments are what take me the longest, though. I am guilty of trying to make end comments coach and encourage my students while justifying the grade they receive. Maybe I should put less emphasis on that....but I don't know. Also, I like the 20 minute grading time, because when I explain to students that I want to get everything I can from their papers (and have X students) I will have sacrificed 17ish hours of my life, so I have a return policy of a week and a class period. Because students see that I take grading seriously, I feel like they take my feedback seriously whenever I hand it back and comment on areas for revision. That being said, if there's a way to have students get the same reaction to my grading in half the time, I am ALL for that!
ReplyDeleteBy the time I get to the student's final "draft" of a project, I've seen at least one but often two or three pieces or drafts from that student. This takes a lot of work over the course of the project, but when I get to the final copy, I've already been engaged in the writer's content and can typically see what changes have been made as each draft or piece has been turned in, making grading the final copy go by quicker. I think it's probably the same amount of work, just spread out over the project instead of piled up at the end. I don't know if this is effective or even efficient, but I like it because I can be involved in the project from start to finish.
ReplyDeleteWow... I personally find it really unfair not to read the whole student paper. And telling this up front seems to be saying to students--I don't value your work enough to really read it. I can't imagine how that would make me feel like as a new writer. Some papers do take longer to read. I don't think that they can be read well in 10 minutes. Of course, I also think that responding to my student's work is the most valuable thing I do all semester. So, if it takes me 20 minutes to read a paper and comment on it in a meaningful way, then that's what it takes.
ReplyDeleteI do, however, agree with Kelsie that I may read a rough draft thoroughly taking longer and then not read the final as carefully, looking to see what they have changed and taking less time with it.
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