I am just about to sit down, sip on a cup of tea and grade your essays. Sometimes it is daunting to look at the list of submissions–then look at all the other things in life I need to do–and find the energy to begin…but it is what I have to do. I trusted you to do your part, now I must do mine. Since I have so many papers to grade, I have a bit of a system I use. It works for me, and I hope it will work with you. I do not really believe in the term “rough draft.” Every essay should be as good as you can possibly make it be. Then again, no essay is really as good as it can be. Most of your essays use a rubric of some sort to guide the flow, structure and content. If you pay attention to that and if you follow the “details” of the assignment, you will do well. Usually I put checks where you do well; I put slash marks where a new paragraph should be; I circle areas where there is a punctuation, grammar or proofreading mistakes, and I leave a comment with overall assessment of your work. And then I give it a grade.
If you want to revise, rewrite or rework your paper, I will certainly allow that, and I will increase your grade “if” you sincerely work to fix the mistakes. If you don’t, I am not going to chase you down. I will simply hope you work more diligently on the next paper or project. I do my best to return your papers in a timely way. If your paper is not turned in on time, it may take me a while to grade it. I just do not have the time to grade papers at your leisure. Usually, I will ask you to write a brief “metacognition” attached to each paper that lets me know about your experience in writing the paper. It helps me to understand the good and the bad of any assignment, and it should help you understand more fully what you need to work on as you grow and mature as a writer.
Metacognitions do count as journal entries! Sometime tonight your iPad should ding to let you know your paper is in. Please look at your essay, read my comments and try to figure out why I marked what I marked. I screw things up all the time when I write. I get it.
Writing well is not easy. Smile and resolve to make what could be better, better! It is what all writers worth anything always do.
Thank you for understanding that the full process of submitting and receiving papers is a two-way street between teacher and student. By the way, do you drink tea because you sing or because you like it, or both?
It is relaxing…
Thanks for sharing the trials and the process of grading our “mastepieces”. Now we know what to prepare for, and maybe what to expect the next time we write and submit.
Thanks you for helping me understand the full grading process for this year. I am most excited that we can now get our graded papers as soon as possible via internet.
Thanks Fitz, now I understand the full grading process of this year! I always like to know how my teachers grade our work, because it helps me understand what I am supposed to do more. Also, I am happy that we are using our IPad to write and submit our papers. For some reason it works for me a lot better than paper!
Thanks for the help it will help me a lot this year. I now can understand your whole grading process.
Thanks for explaning how you will grade these assignments. I am exited for this class and learning more about writing.
I like tea a lot. Especially lemon ginger hibiscus. What is your favorite tea?
Thanks for the information. I will definitely fix my windsor essay and send it to you again.
It’s helpful to know what you want from us as students
Thanks for the information! I’ll use it write my essays this year!
It is great to know how things will go this year. I will keep this in mind as I write my essays.
Thanks, now I will know what expect when to be receving essays and how.
Thank you, I will remember that for future assaginments.
I find iTunes U very useful and very easy for me to see your comments on my writing and I like how your grading is simple with the checks, slashes and circles.
This is a good way to think about my papers when I write. Now I know what to check for more specifically. Not that I didn’t, but this is nice to have as a resource.
This was a very useful post to read because I always lien to know how I am being graded. A lot of time I get confused on what different marks mean on my paper, but now I know that if I am confused I can just come and look at this post.
It was really fun to read this post. Thanks for sharing!
I’ll definitely keep this in mind in the future. I guess that grading is just another step in an assignment’s journey from a mere idea to a completed essay; It’s good to know the parts of the process where the students steps out and the teacher comes in.
Thanks for sharing I feel better knowing how you grade so it can help me in the future
Thank you for telling us how you grade I can now know what to fix and I will use this knowledge later
As Nick said I’ll use this info for later, thanks for explaining your grading process!