1 - Instructors used rubrics to assess and score my writing assessments. The rubrics were explicit and increasingly broad as the courses became more difficult. I never questioned whether or not the rubrics were appropriate because I generally earned favorable grades in English courses. Typically speaking, instructors allowed the class to draft assignments before the final. This allowed for clarifications about the requirements for the essay.
2 - Scores without feedback are not useful. If a professor provides a rubric, especially one that is vague, and only gives a numerical grade, the learner has little chance to improve. My class and I failed our British Literature midterm - a rhetorical analysis essay. The idea of earning an overall unfavorable grade motivated me more than the improvement of my writing or analytical skills. My professor's rubric was broad, but contained exhaustive underlying expectations. As a non-English major, a senior level course required writing skills I hadn't developed. Therefore, the score on the midterm did not assist with my level of mastery. Instead, it motivated me to ask for assistance earlier rather than later when I was unfamiliar with how to develop an assignment.
3 - Grading writing can be extremely difficult. I find myself arguing over minute details (with myself). In these instances, I tend to give my students the benefit of the doubt. The toughest aspect of assessing written composition is defending my choices to the students. Sometimes characteristics of an essay simply don't feel right and there is no other way for me to explain that.
4 - Formal assessments should be employed as a benchmark of learning after several informal assessments. Grading essays is daunting. It is also time consuming. With that being said, I find it most advantageous to grade a large writing assignment after smaller opportunities for learning. For example, I could teach mini-lessons on complex sentences, comma rules, and topic sentences. The final essay would have to demonstrate an understanding of these topics. Students would already have experience with these before asked to include them in the essay. It provides a less subjective aspect to the grading process.
5 - I attended Richardson ISD schools and later taught there for two years. They have a portfolio system that is designed to exhibit growth. It was designed to follow you throughout your time in secondary education in Richardson. So, I had a folder packed with writing from 7th-11th grade.
Obviously, my portfolio contained assignments I no longer cared about and surely didn't enjoy reading. As a teacher, they were a pain to maintain. I couldn't convince my students they were beneficial because no one ever explained that to me. Although I have extensive exposure to the use of portfolios, I have never understand their value in the classroom.
I completely agree that scores without feedback are useless! There have been many times that the professor was able to offer some insight on where a paper could have been better. Honestly, it was often something that had not even crossed my mind. I was so focused on my idea, that I failed to address a certain issue that would have made my paper exponentially better.
ReplyDeleteI hate that grading writing is such a difficult task. It has become an irritant as you mentioned, because as instructors have to struggle with ourselves about what needs attention now. Often in hopes that students will fix all the other errors as time progresses; either by observations or self-improvement. Which has lead me to lecture my students on the fact that I can't input information into their brains; they have to be willing to do the work both in class and out to improve their writing skills.
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