Working on it one fix at a time

Thanks, Shaun, for your post on grading and getting tougher; also about blaming yourself for student mistakes. I’ve taken a new view on grading after reading the articles in the AB text and I’m making the same kinds of changes. As I’ve started talking to my students about the lit review, I’ve realized I have to change the way I’m grading. David mentioned the rubric he’s tentatively working from and I realized I needed to have a better idea of how I’m going to grade the lit review and how I’m going to prepare the students for it. In thinking about that, I’ve stopped leaving a lot of comments and started saying: “Look in Writing Matters for help organizing paragraphs, then revise and resubmit.” As I’ve started grading in a way that I hope will prepare students for the lit review, I’ve had some students challenge me on their grades. Working through these, I think the person in the room who most needs to be prepared for the lit review is me. I showed my classes the section in Writing Matters about outlining a paper. In both classes, students asked if I was going to have them submit an outline next week. I considered saying “yes” just because I know they won’t do it if they don’t have to but I also realize I have to fight the urge to coddle and babysit. In last year’s blog, Logan made a comment about when he realized that he couldn’t “save them all.” I’m beginning to understand how strong an urge that is and also question if I’ve done everything I can. The major questions my students are coming up with have to do with how to elaborate on a topic so that it lasts for 10 pages. They are having trouble imagining how a person could possibly write that much, especially when they think 2 pages is “killer.” On Tuesday I picked a topic and we drew lines and circles all over the board connecting authors and ideas to the keyword and each other. Tomorrow I’m going to take a few minutes to do a practice outline of a thesis and a few main ideas underneath it. I’m concerned about just how much practices and examples to work on in class. I want to see how tomorrow goes with a mini-outline. If we can do it in 10-15 minutes and it appears to be productive, then I think I’ll do another next week. Organizing so many interconnected ideas and authors is another concern they have. I’m cracking down on introductions, conclusions, and topic sentences in their connections papers, so hopefully that will provide practice for structure.

What answer do you want?

I had a particularly frustrating conversation with a student today.  She was very upset because I was "not being clear on what I wanted."  She had "no idea what the heck" I wanted.  So we went through and looked at her assignments.  She wrote that Zinczenco argued that we should all take responsibility for our own health, just like Zinczenco did when he joined the military and got in shape.  She wrote that Warner's main point was that we need to stand up to big government just like Sarah Palin and Glen Beck were doing.  She wrote that Obama's main point was that the NAACP has a rich history and needs to continue to work for a better future.  She was missing the main point, but she thought I was simply being unclear about what I wanted.  "If you wanted me to say that Zinczenco's argues that people are victims of the fast-food industry, why didn't you tell me that is what you wanted?"  "If you wanted me to say that Warner argues for a cultural change, why didn't you say that?"  I felt like a math teacher being asked, "if the answer to the problem is seven, why didn't you tell us that seven was the answer you wanted us to get?" Any help? We talked for about forty five minutes, going through each of her assignments, but in the end she was feeling better, but I was actually more frustrated than ever.

As to Dr. Roger's question, I think the students are transitioning well.  Their connections sections are getting more detailed.  I think we could start to explore grouping the articles in different ways.  Most of the students still write their connections by comparing the current article to each of the other articles in the order we read them.  Maybe we could do an outline or practice review.

So far I am having them brainstorm in their in-class writing about how they would order their articles.  We tried to draw a scale on board with personal responsibility on one end and government involvement on the other.  The scale didn't work well, and we soon abandoned it for more of a spider plot.  I was really happy that they saw that a single line wouldn't work.

Prompt 4: Making the Turn

We need to begin transitioning from "getting the point" and "how would so-and-so respond" to the more complex task of assembling the first literature review.

What kinds of weaknesses are you seeing that will need to be addressed between now and then?  How are you attempting to deal address them?

A Red Pen and a Bottle of Pepto

So far, nothing has caused me more reflection and anxiety than grading the summaries. At times I feel too harsh, and other times too lenient. I have a rough rubric in my head, and an idea of what I'm looking for from the summaries, but it's still highly subjective. Compounding that issue is the fact that the students have widely different writing styles and problems within those styles. Student X nailed the main point, but the summary is a list summary. How does that grade compare to Student Y, who identifies a sub-point as the main point, but crafts an excellent summary of the text? And what about Student Z, who is nearly excellent but completely misinterprets one of the supporting details?

I'd like to grade on completion and effort, but that will only hurt them when it is time to write the literature reviews. If I keep my standards high and force them to meet them, the lit reviews should be that much easier. Then I meet in the Teaching Writing class and start to doubt, wondering if my standards are too high.

I don't want to leave the student feeling frustrated, or get the idea that I'm impossible to please, but I don't want them to get complacent either. It's a fine line I'm trying to walk to get them to produce the best work possible. While they generally are improving and avoiding many of the errors we have discussed in class, I'm sensing that some of them are not improving as fast as they would like. One student in particular seems displeased with his grades, and I'm not sure how to get through to him that, at this point, his grades are fine and he should focus on improving his writing.

Grading

Well so far I still enjoy grading.  I'm sure I'll get bored and frustrated soon, but so far I'm having a good time.  Maybe it is just a power trip. After so much time in the writing center saying things like, "well it just depends on what your professor wants," it is nice to finally have the last word.

 I am too soft on my grading. I know it, and I'm working on it.  I saw the effort level drop after the first couple of essays.  The students knew I was an easy grader and they stopped trying so hard to impress me.  I think the root of the problem is my own history with grading.  I always tried to write the best essays I could, so a bad grade for me never reflected a lack of effort.  I guess I assumed students would try to improve their writing even if they got a good grade.   I assumed if I marked all their mistakes, they would try to fix them for their next paper, but most didn't fix anything if they weren't going to lose points for it.

I also have a tendency to blame myself for student mistakes.  If they make glaring errors, it must be because I didn't explain it well enough.  One student last week turned in a paper that was 90% direct quote for the article.  She didn't plagerize. The quotes were cited, not correctly, but they were in quotation marks. I know I have told them not to quote, but my first reaction was to blame myself. Maybe I didn't say it enough.  Well I bit the bullet and told her to redo it.  I'll get tougher.

I have told my class that I would start grading harder, especially if they are doing something wrong that we went over in class.

I think I got a little more effort out of the first Obama summary.  I hope I can raise the bar enough to get some really good lit review at midterm.

 

Prompt 3: On Grading

I'd like to see you all reflect a little on your experience grading.  Shaun has already talked about it a bit, but in the wake of the essays for this week (and our soon-to-occur classroom discussion), I'm wondering what you find frustrating/confusing/bewildering about the whole process of grading.

So THAT'S why professors don't read papers...

I think my biggest surprise has been along the same lines as Shaun talked about: how far there is between the students who get it and the students who don’t. Along with that, I’ve been really surprised by how often A-student announces the answer (“in this essay Zinczenko is arguing that fast food industries are to blame”) and I’ll still get in-class writing and re-submitted summaries that say Zinczenko is talking about latch-key kids and personal responsibility. I’ve also been surprised how much work it is to grade papers. Whoa. I know novice teachers spend too much time trying to say everything and fix everything, so I’ve started setting a timer. It keeps me moving. It also keeps me mindful – Student B doesn’t participate in class and only comes half the time, so I catch myself skimming over it and moving on to Student C who comments every day and comes to class prepared. I try to minimize my comments, then worry that I’m denying them a valuable learning experience, so I go back and add more, then realize just how much stuff I’ve written and how the student doesn’t care so I need to just move on. Yikes. Now I understand why so many professors hand back papers with a few check-marks in the margins and 1-2 notes at the end. The 6822 readings we’ve had about feedback have been helpful. Now it’s a matter of practice and getting a system.