When I was a high school English teacher, I would drive to the local bookstore on Friday nights, refusing to leave until the stack of junior research papers were marked up with red, purple, green, orange, or blue pens. The colorful pens were about the only thing that got me through. The relief I felt when I finished the tome was dampened on Monday after I passed out papers and students threw their papers in the trash can on the way to lunch. Needless to say, I have found grading students’ writing assignments to be one of the most challenging and time-consuming aspects of teaching.
Initially, I was angry because my students did not seem to care about my feedback. After having time to reflect on these practices, I realized what the real problem was—My assessment practices were not helping students become better writers. And that was my fault, not theirs.
After some time (years) to reflect on my practice in addition to some advanced coursework on composition theory, I have made a lot of progress in terms of how I think about writing feedback and assessment.
So when one of my student teachers asked how she was going to grade 120 essays in one night, I thought I would offer some feedback and assessment strategies to her and to you with the intention of helping you become more efficient and your students become better writers, which is, of course, our ultimate goal.
These tips may not replace assessing and providing grades for all of your students’ essays at certain points in the year but they might help you think of ways to vary your feedback and assessment practices.
Look for trends in representative sample drafts. Read a few pieces from a selection of students across the class or periods. Create a list of strengths and areas of improvement, supporting your findings with evidence from these student examples. Present your list (student anonymity is best here) to each class. Discuss strengths and areas of improvement and ask students to consider their own work. Have them make writing goals for their own final drafts based upon the student samples. Not only does this tip keep you from assessing each student’s draft but it also helps students engage in metacognition as they reflect on their work and make writing goals for their final drafts.
Ask students to identify two elements on which they want feedback. I have found that limited, focused feedback works best. Pointing out too many areas of improvement to students runs the risk of overwhelming students and decreasing their confidence as writers. By targeting two areas only, we can offer focused feedback for students. After you have offered specific revision advice on these particular areas and students have had time to revise their work, ask students to highlight the changes they made based on your feedback and to write howtheir second draft is better than the first. This student-centered tip facilitates a way for you to cater feedback to areas that are important to the writer—without feeling the pressure of making suggestions based on every error you see. I have already anticipated your question, “What if a student has a particular area of writing in which he or she needs to improve but the student never mentions this area?” In this case, you could have the student select one area of feedback and you create the other one.
Share your experience as a reader during conferences instead of on students’ papers. This helps students consider how their piece is received by a reader and they can understand what you’re thinking and any praises or recommendations you may have as you read along. You can also help your students do this with each other during writer’s workshop. It’s a great way to help student writers gain experience in something that is difficult for many writers to do: anticipating an audience. This also prevents you from taking hundreds of papers home for a weekend! Students are not learning how to write while you are grading papers at home, in the local coffee shop, or in the car while your kid is at soccer practice!
Help your students learn to grade peers’ papers holistically. I have not tried this method personally, but some of my colleagues have found this to be quite successful. Based upon what I have heard, here’s how I see this process working in the secondary literacy classroom: You select three anchor texts that exemplify what an “A” paper looks like, what a “B” paper looks like, and what a “C” paper looks like. (What particular papers at certain grades look like should be established on the basis of a predetermined holistic rubric.) After helping students understand why these anchor texts earned the grades they did, allow students to assess each other’s papers. Each paper should be read by two students (who do not know who the author is) and given scores should not be discussed by students during or after the grading process. Calculate the average of these grades to determine the student’s final grade. Of course, you need to spend time helping students learn how to assess peers’ pieces, but this process in and of itself helps students engage in metacognition about the writing and assessment processes, which can, in turn, have a positive impact on their own writing. If you feel uncomfortable about how this might work, try it with drafts versus final drafts first.
Plan mini-units during your grading time if you need to grade each writing assignment. By allotting one or two weeks to grading, you don’t feel pressured to return papers the next class period and your students get some time away from their writing (which is what real writers do). If you take this route, give students class time to consider feedback they receive.
Have students consider their feedback and write reflections to hand in with final drafts. In these reflections, students should address the feedback provided by both you and their peers on earlier drafts. If they adjusted according to feedback, have them write about how and why. If they chose not to incorporate feedback, have them write about why. You are not only helping students consider carefully the feedback they receive but you are also providing an opportunity for student writers to build autonomy as writers.
To my student teacher who asked about grading 120 essays in one night, I answered: Don’t!
Obviously these tips are not aimed to fix every writing feedback and assessment woe, but hopefully they have provided some food for thought and will encourage dialogue about offering feedback and assessing in today’s writing classrooms.
Kathryn Caprino is a doctoral candidate in English education at the University of North Carolina’s School of Education. She is also earning a minor in English, focusing specifically on rhetoric and composition. She teaches the middle grades methods course and supervises English student teachers. Before returning to graduate school, she taught middle and high school English.