If there is anything I know as a teacher before evening becoming one, it's "do not use a red pen!"
There is an article, "Beyond the Red Pen: Clarifying Our Role inthe Response Process", that pointed out that students see the red in a degrading way. When I grade students work I do not ever plan on using a red pen; maybe blue, green, purple, or even black but anything but red. I have considered several of the following things that I plan to use in my classroom in order to provide a fair opportunity for all students when grading comes into discussion.
Within the article are several great ideas for creating dialogue that I had heard about prior to the reading, but never considered including them in my classroom. One of the biggest thing in establishing our role in the Response process, beyond simply grading the work and handing it back to students, is creating a line of communication with each of our students. As the authors discuss it is about, creat[ing] more opportuniies to dialogue with them about their writing. As a result, I hoped my comments woud empower my students to find their voice in writing and validate what they have to say." There is mention of several ideas, some of which I have seen in practice and work effectively and they include: post-commenting conference ad "talk back". A talk back is simply when teachers will write their comments on the students work, but students write responses to the questions/comments on their own paper regarding "what did the teacher like? What was not liked? and What questions do you have?" Using a talk back seems to be an essential tool in the classroom-especially because we are constantly mentioning how there is so little time in the classroom that we simply cannot meet with each student every time there is a paper.
After reading the article on "Beyond the Red Pen" and a discussion in class, something I thought to be extremely beneficial not only in my classroom but anyone's classroom is a discussion with students after handing back their first paper of the semester and discussing what each of the correcting symbols represents and how to remove them from the paper. I do not wish to be one of those teachers who "mistakenly thought [my students] understood such things as circing words and above them writing "w.c." for word choice..." And I believe that by beginning the year with a discussion about what each symbol means after their first papers are handed back is the perfect opportunity to teach about the symbol meanings. A second idea would be creating a short 1/2 page sheet with the symbols and their meanings that students can tape into their class notebook/journal or any binder they bring to class. At least then they will always have a copy on hand!
Within the article are several great ideas for creating dialogue that I had heard about prior to the reading, but never considered including them in my classroom. One of the biggest thing in establishing our role in the Response process, beyond simply grading the work and handing it back to students, is creating a line of communication with each of our students. As the authors discuss it is about, creat[ing] more opportuniies to dialogue with them about their writing. As a result, I hoped my comments woud empower my students to find their voice in writing and validate what they have to say." There is mention of several ideas, some of which I have seen in practice and work effectively and they include: post-commenting conference ad "talk back". A talk back is simply when teachers will write their comments on the students work, but students write responses to the questions/comments on their own paper regarding "what did the teacher like? What was not liked? and What questions do you have?" Using a talk back seems to be an essential tool in the classroom-especially because we are constantly mentioning how there is so little time in the classroom that we simply cannot meet with each student every time there is a paper.
After reading the article on "Beyond the Red Pen" and a discussion in class, something I thought to be extremely beneficial not only in my classroom but anyone's classroom is a discussion with students after handing back their first paper of the semester and discussing what each of the correcting symbols represents and how to remove them from the paper. I do not wish to be one of those teachers who "mistakenly thought [my students] understood such things as circing words and above them writing "w.c." for word choice..." And I believe that by beginning the year with a discussion about what each symbol means after their first papers are handed back is the perfect opportunity to teach about the symbol meanings. A second idea would be creating a short 1/2 page sheet with the symbols and their meanings that students can tape into their class notebook/journal or any binder they bring to class. At least then they will always have a copy on hand!
For large scale projects, I will always provide a rubric for students to use as a guideline and tool for them to decide what grade they would like to achieve and include the required work for each section. I understand from experience that rubrics will not always designate the grade a student will receive. In this case, I will encourage all students to come and talk to me and discuss why they believe they deserved a different grade. Everything is open for discussion, but they must be able to prove to me that they earned that grade and show me how. I feel that rubrics for larger projects will provide stability and guidelines for students versus a simple hand out with guidelines of what I want. There is no room for clarification and grade guidelines in such a hand out. Students benefit best from knowing EXACTLY what they need to do for whatever they desire as an outcome. I want to make this as possible for students as I can as their teacher.
In the article "On the Uses of Rubrics: Reframing the Great Rubric Debate" the law of distal diminshment mentions how "any educational tool becomes less instructionally useful-and more potentially damaging to educational integrity-the further from the classroom it originates." I have had several of my professors this semester explain the same thing, how when you take say a rubric and use create it for one thing but use it in another classroom for something completely different the rubric becomes less affective than simply creating a new one from scratch. Each subject line in the Rubric is no longer designed for such a specificed assignment, therefor how can it truly be a judging tool for something it was not intended for? It can be done, but not well and that is exactly what our auhors want us to see. Creating a rubric with the class for their overall assignments all year would allow students to think what makes a good paper, not "what does the teacher want on my paper today?" Once created, students will also know their grading criteria all year long for all assignments that require a rubric for points.
In the article "On the Uses of Rubrics: Reframing the Great Rubric Debate" the law of distal diminshment mentions how "any educational tool becomes less instructionally useful-and more potentially damaging to educational integrity-the further from the classroom it originates." I have had several of my professors this semester explain the same thing, how when you take say a rubric and use create it for one thing but use it in another classroom for something completely different the rubric becomes less affective than simply creating a new one from scratch. Each subject line in the Rubric is no longer designed for such a specificed assignment, therefor how can it truly be a judging tool for something it was not intended for? It can be done, but not well and that is exactly what our auhors want us to see. Creating a rubric with the class for their overall assignments all year would allow students to think what makes a good paper, not "what does the teacher want on my paper today?" Once created, students will also know their grading criteria all year long for all assignments that require a rubric for points.
I have decided to adopt the idea from "Write Beside Them", where instead of marking every single mistake that students make on their papers, marking ONLY six at a time. After I mark six, the other mistakes will be left for another editing. The key idea from this is that students can only learn from their mistakes that they focus on correcting and if we mark up their paper with fifty nine mistakes, we can guarantee they will not be learning the correct way to write and developing their writing in the process. Instead, they are only going to correct the mistakes thinking and hoping that will improve their grade by so many points. Having students focus on six mistakes at a time allows for them to learn the correct grammar rules and implement them in the current and future writings they complete for class. During the second draft, another six mistakes will be marked on their paper. If the same common errors from the first drafting mark up are still present, then a one-on-one teacher conference or small group (filled with other students also making the same mistakes) conference will be formed for 10 to 15 minutes during a class writing workshop or during the regular journals time to sit down and discuss with students why they are still making the same errors and hopefully reintroduce the correct grammatical rule.
Assessing students fairly and equally is essentially the second priority to teaching your child. While I want them to succeed in their grades, I want them to succeed in what they are learning, comprehending, and remembering the material to use outside of the classroom in their daily lives.
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