Charu's Reading Notes #5

I think this week’s reading have really helped me to understand the importance of writing assignments. To be honest, I myself struggle with writing assignments a lot so I really like the strategies and guidelines that Davis provides in the text. (p.305-308)

In Chapter 34 Davis offers plenty of ways to give in-class writing exercises to the students. I would love to include some of these writing exercises in my class especially the one where I ask students to write for a few minutes on a given question or topic. One of my undergraduate professors incorporated this exercise and I believe this sort of exercise really forced me to think about the particular concept. I especially enjoyed the free style of writing without worrying about the organization and grammar. I think my professor used to do what Davis suggests “giving credit to the students for the writing exercises without taking time to read or grade them” (p.309). My question to the class is that if I don’t collect or read student work then how do I know if all of the students are participating or if they are benefiting or not? I really want to listen to other people comments/experiences/suggestions on this topic.

Chapter 35 also provides very useful information particularly the tips on responding to students’ writing. I think the tips of using constructive language was the most beneficial information for me. (p.328) This information was helpful in the sense that sometimes I feel unsure if I am writing the productive feedback for my students or not. So after reading the mentioned tips I think I'll make the most use of it. 

Lang and Davis gave some wonderful tips on evaluating assignments. I would like to discuss about creating rubrics and how to use rubrics for evaluation. Sometimes when I grade speeches, I create my own rubric which helps to grade everyone fairly but then sometime I feel that it makes my job tougher because then I tend to grade harshly by noticing every single thing. Lang provides a sample rubric (pg. 139) with assigning points on each category whereas Davis provides a sample rubric with listing the components you are looking for and then circling or checking the comments that apply to each paper (p.326). I would like to hear other people comments/suggestions on using rubrics or what other people have done in past which have worked well. My question to the class is which rubrics that the authors mentioned in the texts have worked effectively.

In the text, Lang (p.140) also talks about whether to grade on a curve. I would also like to hear others opinions on curving classes. Whether it is appropriate or not?