I spent the great majority of today trying to catch up on grading (okay, I also did a few exercises from my Creating a Life book which were very cool; I'll talk about them later). As mentioned in my last post, all my grading has been put off for weeks. I'm frankly embarassed to walk into my classroom these days; even if the students don't mind (and some of them do, believe me), I feel ashamed of my poor dedication. I don't seem to recall any of my instructors being so lax about returning work.
How did they do it? I know I should cut down on the commentary I make in the papers, but I can't seem to help myself. When it comes to grammar, for instance, some instructors suggest cutting back on the kinds of errors marked and only concentrate on major issues. But if I don't mark something, that seems to indicate to the student that it's okay, and if it's not that seems cruel to both of us (the student because they will continue to make the same mistake; me because I'll have to keep dealing with it every time it comes up). I know that the great majority of my students don't bother with the comments at all, but for those who do it seems important to catch everything I can.
Even trying to go quickly, I discovered (though timing all my grading; sad, isn't it?) that it takes me about six and a half minutes on average to mark a paper for grammar and about the same to mark it for content and assign the grade. Now, on the surface thirteen minutes a paper doesn't sound so bad. But when you realize that the average class of 25 papers therefore takes just a shade over six hours to grade and you'll see my predicament. If you also figure out that I teach four classes, each with that average, you'll feel my pain. Twenty-four hours of grading per assignment. And those are the short essays of three to four pages; by the end of the class I've got 8-10 page research papers.
What's the solution? How did my instructors manage? I don't seem to recally getting endless notes on my papers at the university, but then again I do recall working hard to make sure my papers were mechanically correct, leaving only the occasional obscure grammar error for the professor to find just so she wouldn't get bored. Not to sound any more like an old crank than I already do, but the kids of today just don't care about form. They barely care about content; mechanics is beyond their reasonable responsibility. Not to say that I don't get some very good papers, but on average they're not great. I don't think I've seen one paper this semester that doesn't average at least eight to fifteen errors a page, sometimes double or triple that. If I graded on grammar alone, no one would ever pass, even my good writers. And these are in my 101 Freshman Comp classes; we're not even discussing my 015 (Preparation for College Writing) or 914 (Basic Writing Skills) classes.
I'm done venting for the moment. I'll try to make tomorrow more positive, but no promises. I'm stumbling off to bed.
3 comments:
I remember my english classes from RCC. In there I think the professors felt that they needed to either weed us out or improve us before we got to any higher english classes. I've always been a decent writer and usually get an A in english without too much trouble. However, one of these professors always graded me sooooo hard, and really picked things apart. While it was a little frustrating, I also think that these mistakes need to be caught and corrected. You're right; if a professor doesn't mark something on my paper as being wrong, I assume it's right. I also find the comments more helpful than simply a bunch of marks and a seemingly arbitrary grade. If the commenting really is taking too much time and you feel it necessary to stop, you could simply mark what you will on the paper and assign the grade, and explain to them that if they want a better explanation of why their grade is the way it is, they can come and ask you about it. Just a thought.
My disclaimer: My writing in blogs and comments is not a reflection of how I write papers. I promise.
I also think that a lot of writing skills have been lost over the years. Grammar seems to be "less important," and I'm saddened when I see vast amounts of teachers unable to spell or construct a professional sounding sentence. I also think that you're seeing the horrible writing skills of a generation raised in online chat rooms and text messaging. Seriously. It's sad how much that's affected how people write.
Just my two cents!
Christina,
I like your "minimal grading--ask for more info" style suggestion. It's especially nice in that I know that 90% of students will never, ever ask. Odd, that.
And obviously your blog writing is not a reflection of your paper writing. Otherwise, you would have said you see vast numbers of teachers unable to spell or construct professional sentences.
Of course, if my writing reflected my academic standards, I wouldn't have written "recally" instead of "recall" in the fourth paragraph...
Marilyn,
I do have students critique one another's papers--twice. I actually ask them not to mark grammar issues unless they're positive they know what the error is and how to correct it. I have found that when they correct each others' grammar they cause more mistakes than they fix.
No, we don't have the budget for aides. No graders for me, more's the pity.
And the Writing Center on campus won't just proofread papers, and I'm very glad they don't--I'd lodge a complaint if they did. They're there to critique content and give advice on things like structure and focus. Proofreading doesn't help the student learn the grammar; in fact, it usually keeps them from learning the grammar because they never have to. If a student wants to take the initiative to have someone proofread for them, fine, but I don't want it to be a free service offered by the college.
So I'm kind of digging my own grave, really. No one to blame but myself for my workload. Well, I could blame my anal-retentive personal nature, but that essentially is me. Darn it.
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