How do you grade student papers?

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How do you grade student papers?

qwerty (guest) 06 May 2015 15:00

This question is directed more to SLAC profs. I assume that R1 level profs don't go into crazy detail in grading/evaluating student papers.

When I get a student paper, I usually go line-by-line, offering editing suggestions, pointing out writing-based problems, questioning statements, etc. It takes a long time, but I don't know how else to do it, really. How are they expected to learn except through this sort of thorough evaluation? After I edit/evaluate the paper in this manner, I use a little rubric in which I break down the paper into 5 components (writing/grammar, content details, force of argument, etc.), and then add up the numbers and give the grade.

Anyway, I am coming to understand that very few of my fellow faculty actually do the line-by-line editing. They just read through the paper and use a rubric. In other words, the student's paper is largely 'edit free', unmarked. The prof just writes on the rubric, and usually just some number scores, and maybe a couple comments ('tighten up the writing').

How do you all grade student papers?

SLACer (guest) 06 May 2015 15:06

I mark on the paper (modestly; not marking everything) and assign points on the rubric. So, my approach sounds like splitting the difference between marking everything and just marking the rubric. Students typically equate marks on papers with lost points; so if you take away points, they see it on the paper. But don't mark anything that doesn't lose points.

Finally, don't go too overboard on grading. Sadly, I've seen most students (and I'm at a good SLAC) flip to the last page to see the grade, then shove it in their bag to never revisit again…or worse, drop it directly in the recycling bin. Ouch. That was after spending at least 20-30 minutes per paper. The papers that they resubmit as a rough draft are graded more thoroughly than those that they never resubmit. Unfortunately, students don't always take the corrections or suggestions to heart.

One radical strategy could be just to set aside a specific amount of time overall or per paper to grade and don't deviate from it. Otherwise, it can (and will) suck up as much time as you give it. Just my two cents.

anonbanon (guest) 06 May 2015 15:14

I started out like you. I agree that if you're expecting a student to learn about writing, detailed feedback might be required. But, this takes forever. I shifted to relying solely on a rubric just to get them all done in anything close to a timely fashion.

It's possible to be in between. For example, use a very detailed rubric. This allows you to give somewhat specific feedback across a range of areas without writing much. For example, when I teach research methods, I have a large section on the rubric where I grade their methods section. I don't just give one overall rating for the quality of the section, but instead this is broken down into a number of smaller subsections. I have both graded these all/none and continuously in the past, and I found it didn't matter much. The point is the student can look at this and get a good idea of what's missing - they got full credit for describing the participants and almost no credit for describing the design. Hopefully that's clear to them how to resolve this, and I didn't write a thing.

Another option, which you can use in connection with the rubric, is to use some "stock comments" that you copy and paste. I am sure you find yourself writing the same things over and over on the papers. Do all of your feedback digitally. You can type up the major comments you always end up using in a separate document, and copy and paste them is as needed for a specific student, and even edit them further if need be. But, also a big time saver. Especially because undergrads tend to make the same general mistakes - you're rarely giving unique feedback unless a student really screwed up the assignment.

One way I do this is to email students a soft copy of their graded rubric rather than a hard copy. I use a word document for the rubric, and then use Word's comment function to annotate any of the rubric lines that I feel need additional detail. Again, often this is as easy as copying and pasting in some of my stock comments. Using a soft copy is also handy for comparing their rough drafts to final drafts if you care about change scores. It also gives me a good piece of evidence for that rare student who tells me I graded them unfairly or that I "told them" to do something on the rough draft then took off points for that same thing on the final draft.

anonbanon (guest) 06 May 2015 15:15

I agree with above: I also set a time limit on grading each paper. It sounds cruel but when you have two days to grade 80 papers, it's necessary.

asstprof (guest) 06 May 2015 16:27

For me it really depends on the assignment, the rest of the course, and my schedule of course.

Generally, for final papers I simply assign a grade. There are no comments. I use a rubric to keep myself fair and honest across all students, but I don't even bother to give them the information from this rubric. As a previous poster said, students don't look for feedback. On occasion a student asks for feedback and/or wants to use the paper as a writing sample for graduate school. In that case, which is about 5% of the time, I will re-grade the paper and go line-by-line in a detailed fashion (esp if they want it as a sample, which is usually the case; typically people don't ask for feedback without a purpose like this.)

For major papers, I usually have a draft, and/or I have pieces of it due (e.g. methods, results, etc) at earlier stages. For these I use a rubric that I give to them (with information in each spot) and I usually go through in a more detailed fashion as well. My goal is in this case to give them good feedback to improve for a final draft.

For little papers, I might provide a couple of overarching comments, typically for the ones that are due earlier in the semester so that they have feedback on how to do better for a later paper of the same kind. But I honestly don't assign many of these because they do take time to grade! More often, I'll assign ungraded writing activities or have students do small writing activities in class (also not graded). In learning writing, practice is in fact more important than getting a lot of feedback.

I work at a liberal arts college with a 3/3 load and I am an active researcher. I usually teach 60ish students per semester, and typically have ~40 major papers (10-30 pages) to grade at the end, that have components throughout. Though some of those smaller components are done in groups in some of my classes. And as I said, I don't typically assign that many shorter (1-5 pg) papers that are graded.

anonbanon (guest) 07 May 2015 22:00

I should have said my comments above were more for what I do when teaching a designated writing-intensive course, which at my university requires us to give detailed feedback on drafts that students must revise as part of the course.

In a non-WI course, I still assign at least one paper, but my grading is done entirely off the rubric. If a student is way off, I might just ask them to meet with me rather than spending time writing comments.

In both cases, though, I find myself setting strict time limits on grading each one.

asstprof (guest) 08 May 2015 04:25

I also use detailed rubrics like anonbanon, with several subsections for a methods section. For example, if the methods section is worth 15 points, it will be broken down into 2-4 point increments for various parts. And I copy & paste common comments. Nice to see someone else does it the same way! This definitely saves time over writing everything out, while also providing useful feedback to the students, and maintaining consistency/fairness in grading.

asstprof (guest) 08 May 2015 04:26

I also give them the rubric before anything is due. That helps them realize what needs to be done the first time around.

Re: How do you grade student papers?

DocJ 08 May 2015 14:21

I agree with using a rubric, but suggest going further than this alone. At one point I used detailed rubrics with checklists for key elements relevant to the topic/assignment as well as format. These helped, but I still found myself committing 15 to 20 minutes per paper. In more recent years, I've done away with this. My rubrics now have - at most - five sections that each pertain to one major component of the paper. For example, in a methods paper that details an in-class experiment, my sections may include:

1. Literature Review
2. Problem & Hypothesis
3. Methods
4. Results
5. Discussion

For each section, I have a description of what I would expect to see in several categories of paper, such as "outstanding," "strong," "acceptable," or "poor". I then assign so many points to each of these based on the overall points total in an assignment.

This system streamlines my grading. For shorter papers (6 pages or less), I can usually grade one paper in well under 10 minutes. I add some specific comments throughout the paper, but the biggest feedback is based right off the rubric. I don't bother to point out every problem or error. Students can meet with me for further help. For many issues, I'll add a comment "see the writing center". This sort of rubric system takes a little planning and time to setup, but once in place it expedites grading. Hope this may be useful!

asstprof (guest) 08 May 2015 14:29

DocJ I'm assuming you have a more detailed description of the types of things that should go into each section? Otherwise, I could see lots of your students thinking, "what about my methods section was merely 'acceptable' instead of 'outstanding'?"

What you describe is what I do for final papers, but when I'm in a situation in which a student needs feedback to move forward, I provide more detail. It still doesn't take that long.

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