Kerrie's Reading Notes #5

Lang starts off the chapter for this week by saying that grading “may be the least appealing activity you will undertake as a teacher” (Pg. 127). While beginning the reading for this week with Lang’s chapter, I found myself wondering how grading can be such a difficult task. As I continued to read, I found the answer as I quickly came up with many questions about assignments and grading.

Davis discussed development of writing assignments and evaluation of written work. A question I would like to discuss further in class is how to decide which written assignments to deduct points for spelling or grammatical errors. My opinion is that in a college course, spelling and grammatical errors should not be acceptable. For small in-class writing assignments where the goal is to help students learn the information, should spelling and grammatical errors be taken into consideration? Deducting points for spelling or grammatical errors in these types of assignments may discourage the students and lead them to focus on spelling and grammar rather than the subject matter.

Another topic I would like to discuss further in class is over-marking on written assignments while evaluating them. Davis suggests instructors avoid over-marking areas the student could improve on (Pg. 329). Lang suggests avoiding writing too much on a student’s paper whether it is positive, negative, or constructive (Pg. 150). Determining how much is too much when it comes to comments on a student’s paper is difficult. In order to help students improve, comments must be easily understood and must also include each area that needs improvement. Davis also suggests “balancing positive and negative comments” (Pg. 328). So how do you make sure to include each area that needs improvement along with balancing both positive and negative comments without overwhelming students?

Davis recommends turning a larger assignment into smaller assignments. She recommends giving separate deadlines for each step of a large assignment (Pg. 315). I think this is a good strategy to use when assigning a large written assignment. It will help students to feel less overwhelmed if they break down the large assignment. A question that arises is how to grade each individual assignment and then also the final assignment. I would like to get ideas in class about how much of the final grade should be from the smaller assignments and how much should be from the final assignment once the smaller assignments are put together.