A lot
of my time lately has been taken up by grading student papers. As as
part of a lesson I taught, I assigned (at my cooperating teacher's
request) a narrative paper. Somehow, I found myself agreeing to grade
the other classes' papers as well, in the interest of consistency in
grading and to gain the experience. This experience has taught me
several things about myself and about assigning and grading writing.
 |
| Piles o' papers! The top piece is my assignment sheet with revisions for the future. |
1.
Set boundaries.
I
have a habit of just saying, “Sure I can do that!” when asked to
take on extra work. I like to gain new experiences. I like to be able
to help out. And I seem to think I have an unlimited amount of free
time in which to do these extra tasks. I do not. Saying no, or at
least managing/scaling back the task, is perfectly reasonable
sometimes.
2.
Work on writing with students constantly.
Making
a writing assignment in a vacuum without proper scaffolding is a
waste. All we're measuring in grading an assignment like that is the
skills the students came to the classroom with already and their
ability to follow a rubric. If those are things we want to measure
(say, in formative assessment) there are better ways to do it.
3.
Make your assignments specific.
If
you throw too much stuff or too many options in there (again, without
having proper scaffolding) it just muddies the waters. The students
get confused about what to to and the teacher gets confused about
what to focus upon when grading. Keep it simple, targeted, specific.
4.
Give the students some freedom.
This
may seem like a contradiction to what I just wrote, but it's not.
Giving the students freedom with aspects of what they write is
certain to generate more engaged writers and more engaging writing.
It's amazing some of the stuff these students write! I get chills
when reading some of their stories.
5. Go
with your gut.
It's
OK, maybe even advisable, to consult with others on what to include
or how to format assignments. But, don't take all of their
suggestions as law. I included a few things on this assignment that I
would not in the future. I knew I didn't want to include them in the
first place, but I did it anyway because someone more experienced
than I am suggested it and I thought it was worth a try.
6.
Sometimes things are worth a try.
Not
all of those suggestions I took paid off, but some did. You won't
learn anything if you never try anything new.
In
the future, I plan to workshop this kind of assignment with my
students extensively. I think the work we did in class with my one
lesson about it was a good starting point, but we need at least three
more sessions of workshopping to really scaffold this particular
assignment. Another benefit of more extensive workshopping is that I
can grade more along the way and less on the final product. Their
grades will reflect their work and the development of that work, not
just the words on one piece of paper turned in at the end.
