Prior to this semester I had no experience with grading or FYC and thus no standard to base my grading on. As the first assignments (summaries) came in for grading I was struck by the number of students who had trouble understanding what they had read or more precisely, comprehending the author’s intention. As the next assignments (paraphrasing and evaluating) arrived to be graded the problems of reading comprehension were compounded by their inability to understand the task at hand with what often appeared to be a lack of commitment on the student’s part. What resulted was that my grading became mainly an assessment of their reading comprehension combined with the very subjective evaluation of their effort. Grading became (and I’m not proud of this) greatly affected by my mood. If students were indicating to me that they put some time into the assignment, even if it contained many mistakes, it positively affected the grade they received. If I had consecutive papers that were frustrating because of the reasons I mentioned above, I found myself grading harsher than usual. When my grading group met to discuss ‘norming’, it seemed, surprisingly, as if possibly I was being lenient in my grading when I was worried about being harsh.
My grading- if it does reflect a philosophy on composition- is based more on content than form. I seem to be less concerned with grammar than with the attempt to communicate an idea. I feel that correctness of the writing will come, but first many of these students need to learn critical reading and build up some confidence around the articulation of their ideas.
WHY DO I GRADE THE WAY I DO
Advertisement
October 17, 2009 at 8:29 pm |
I agree that content is more of a focus when grading, but if there are too many errors, I can’t focus on the content anymore. It sucks sometimes because I can see that they may have a good point, but can’t articulate it well enough for someone to read and understand. And my mood definitely affects my grading as well. I worry about being too harsh, but I realize the more I grade that the focus should always be “How can I critique this in a way that will better the student’s understanding?”, regardless of my mood, angry, annoyed, happy, bored, I want this to be reflected in my comments. Believe me, It’s a daily process!
October 20, 2009 at 3:29 am |
I’m also tempted to grade harder if I get the impression that the student hasn’t put much effort into their writing, and if I get 5 or 6 submissions that fall into this category, watch out! I’m a grumpy grader! I have to make myself stop and go and do something that cheers me up; otherwise, I’m the meanest me possible (not pretty).
I also tend to focus primarily on content and whether or not I feel that the student has understood/met the assignment. It’s hard to grade when I don’t think they did, because I can’t give them a good grade since they didn’t answer properly, but equally, I want them to understand why and how to improve without immediately shutting down once they see the number grade. Tough situations :-/
October 29, 2009 at 1:13 am |
As annoying as bad grammar can be, I definitely agree that content is the most important. I find that I tend to address more global issues (content) on bad papers, progressing towards a focus on local issues (grammar) on good papers. In fact, I’m generally a lot pickier about grammar on good papers than bad, if for no other reason than grammar errors become more obvious when you can actually figure out what the student is trying to say!
October 29, 2009 at 3:43 pm |
Grading and commenting is something that comes with experience, so there will always be that first year or so when the reader struggles to find how to meter content and form. Sometimes the apparent lack of effort of a student is more a matter of their own confusion than just laziness or lack of concern. Many of them have done little of this kind of analytical writing, and much of the feedback they have received has not been all that professional. As they feel their way through this kind of writing, they often put more of a “who cares” defensive attitude into their writing than they should.