So I've just now had the opportunity to sit down and read the essays and recommended rules for assessing and evaluating any students essays. I must agree that feedback is key. All feedback. Never be vague. I lament that i have been unintentionally sabotaged by various teachers who give me well meaning compliments on my writing without specifics so that I don't completely understand my strengths or what i'm doing right.
In any event, I must say that these two essays we are to evaluate touch upon a difficulty that i have when i grade some students papers -which has little to do with out actual assignment - and that's focused on my own personal opinions. I understand that as a teacher its my role to teach, not pontificate, but I have an inherent issue with the second essays rather narrow arguments. And when I come across student's papers in which they make historically inaccurate comments or place opinions as facts, then i come to question their intention, base knowledge and have trouble addressing the issue. On one hand, we're supposed to concentrate on how to write. I am an English teacher, not a history teacher, or political science teacher or philosophy teacher. Technically, its not really my right to explore those subjects in that its not my field of expertise. In a sense I feel like I should go along with what the student's are writing and simply assist them in their composition to make a better argument from the information they're presenting. However, i feel conflicted in communicating to them that perhaps they should do additional research - not to argue that their wrong (i happily concede that they could be 100% correct) - but that their arguments are just not as strong as they could be. And i suppose that would be the best way to approach the subject...but i do also wonder that perhaps its my own opinions getting in the way....anyone else have this issue?
I felt that way too, definitely. There was a moment in reading the second essay when I had to quiet my opinion on the matter and the narrowness of the strategies employed, and find a genuine desire to justly improve the structure of the student's argument. I think the approach you've suggested is a good one. The paper was weak in structure and I think that's part of why we had personal reactions to it. I don't believe there's harm in acknowledging that and working with the student to build a better argument.
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