Grading papers=scary

For the most part, I found this chapter of Williams to be quite insightful. All of the stuff about standardized testing sounded like a bunch of “mumble jumble,” but I enjoyed reading the parts about holistic scoring and portfolio grading. I think English teachers really do have a hard job when it comes to grading papers. There is no right or wrong response like math; it is much more in depth than that. Grading papers is a big fear of mine as a future English teacher. What if I’m too lenient or too strict? What sets apart an excellent paper from a good paper? How do I ensure that each paper is being graded on the same standards? Fortunately, some of these questions were touched upon in this chapter, but I think I will always have that fear until I get some practice with it. I did have one experience during my field placement last Fall grading papers. It was very overwhelming because it was my first time actually grading a set of papers. I didn’t have time to create a rubric or come up with some sort of plan for grading them, so I was going off of what I considered to be a well written paper. The previous questions were constantly lingering in my head. I was so glad when I had the papers graded, but I didn’t feel confident with it at all, so I found myself giving the students “grace” points because I felt bad. I didn’t beat myself up for it too much though because after all, it was my first time grading papers, and I guess it feels awkward to everyone at first (at least I hope so). But, I don't feel as though I have received adequate instruction in college on how to assess and evaluate as a teacher, so I'm still quite fearful.

While reading the part about teacher comments on papers, I found myself thinking back to my secondary schooling years. I recall every teacher having the same strategy: mark the paper up in ink when correcting grammar and mechanics, made a side note here and there, and then writing a summative comment at the end right next to the grade. The comment at the end would always start positive, then go negative, and end on a positive note once again. Exactly how Williams explained it. I found that strategy to be quite annoying, and I stopped paying much attention to the comments because I thought teachers had the same comments pre-programmed or something—whatever!! It got a little better in college, but on most papers, it’s still a similar format. Personally, I like when teachers and professors comment on specific things about my paper and write comments in the margin, so I know exactly what they are referring to. I like the summative comment at the end as long as it’s helpful. For example, tell me what my paper is lacking and how I might fix it, but also tell me what you like about my paper, so I don’t want to crinkle it up and throw it in the trash. I think the bullets at the end of the section on teacher comments are very helpful, and I will probably keep most of them in mind for the future. I really like the idea of reading each paper over at least two times. The first should just be a skim, and the second time is when you start making comments and such. I think that seems effective.

When I first started reading about holistic scoring, I really had my doubts. These are the questions I asked myself at the start of reading the holistic scoring section: How do you know the students are grading the papers effectively? Does holistic scoring mean the teacher doesn’t look at the assignments at all? What instruction do you give a class participating in holistic scoring? How exactly do you translate rubric scores into grades? At the start of this section, Williams made it seem as though the teacher would have a hands-off approach, so I think I panicked a little. Some of these questions were answered later in the section. After I read through much of the holistic scoring section, I began to warm up to the idea of it. I was relieved to find that the teacher still went through the assignments to make sure they were graded fairly and also settled any grading discrepancies. That is so important! I think it would be very effective to make a rubric with the whole class, so the students have a say on how they are being evaluated. Having the authority to grade their classmates’ papers is having a HUGE say, but it seems like it would be successful for the most part. At the same time, it puts a lot of pressure on the students to grade the papers (It’s even stressful for the teachers!). I don’t know if I would have cared for this type of holistic grading when I was a student in middle and high school because I didn’t really like having to grade my peers. I enjoyed peer editing, but when it came to having to score someone’s work, I got anxious. Holistic grading seems beneficial for the teacher and the students. The teacher wouldn’t spend so much time going through the papers him or herself because the students have done a large portion of the grading already. Granted, the teacher must still go through the papers to make sure the process was done correctly, but mostly, it does not require as much time from the teacher. As mentioned before, the students have a say in how they are evaluated. In addition, they are exposed to all different sorts of writing, so in the future, it will be easy for them to identify between good and bad papers (of their own). I do have one question about this type of grading, though. The one part of the chapter mentioned using student examples during this process, and it discussed how a teacher could use paper of a current student doing the assignment as an example for the class. I think this is a very bad idea. I know that only the student would know which paper is his and that all of the students’ papers are anonymous and given numbers for identification, but wouldn’t this student potentially lose confidence or perhaps be scarred for life if he saw his paper getting slammed by the whole class and being pegged as “needing more work?” But I guess, now that I think of it, even if the student’s work isn’t being used as a sample, he still knows what scores his group members are giving him in the regular process. I don’t know, maybe I just over-analyzed that section of the chapter, which I tend to do a lot of times with Williams.

Lastly, I liked the idea of portfolio grading even more. Giving the students the opportunity to pick which essays they want graded seems like an effective form of evaluation. I would love this as a student! I also liked the idea of periodically throughout the year, having a portfolio grading session, so the students write about five essays before each session; that way, the students don’t have a lot of papers to choose from all at once, and the teacher does not have so much to read at one time. It’s a shame that you have to have a group of teachers to participate in this type of grading. What if no one else wants to grade like this and you really like this form of grading? Is there a way to do it with just one teacher?

One question I always had when thinking about grading papers was: Why don’t teachers just cover up the students’ names, so they don’t know whose paper they’re grading? It seems like this would get rid of any biases or negative attitudes teachers have toward particular students while grading their papers. Would this be more helpful or is it not such a good idea? Something to ponder…