Sunday, March 11, 2012
Bloom's Why I (Used to) Hate to Give Grades
I enjoyed Bloom's article, but didn't really feel it gave any new insight into the grading procedures. Many of the articles I have read in grad school all seem to complain about the grading system or the way writing is taught in schools, but I rarely hear any realistic solutions. Bloom criticizes the grading system throughout most of the essay, but eventually, does offer the advice of having a student revise an essay seven times. Perhaps most of my students are victims of ADD or she's specifically focusing on college stundets, but the 9th and 11th graders are in utter dismay if they are asked to edit their essays EVEN ONE TIME. Sure, after I explain how important editing is, and that they should never expect their first copy to be their final copy, they see SOME importance of editing once...maybe even twice, but not without a lot of eye-rolling, and heavy sighs. I think most 9th grade students would give up after the 3rd or 4th copy request.....the honors kids may hang in there for the 5th copy. Editing is definitely important, but for high school kids, I don't see seven edited copies as feasible. Grading need to include a wide range of factors: essays, tests, participation, improvement, work habits....rarely is grading solely based on essays. So, although the Bloom article was interesting (as if teachers aren't criticized enough), I'm not really able to use the suggestion given in my classroom.
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Bloom points a flaw in the revision system. The student assumes that as long as he/she revises than he/she is guaranteed a higher grade than the one on the first final draft. "...if the teacher has provided numerous corrections at each stage, at some point she'll be grading her own writing rather than the student's, anyway." If the paper goes through several revisions or rather, corrections, then the finished product really isn't the student's anymore.
ReplyDeleteI think the purpose of revision is to get them to think about critique their own writing. I usually suggest, to the college freshmen I help, that when they revise their papers on the compute, to write in double voice and become their own critic according to what their prompt is asking for. For example, they can ask themselves how this paragraph contributes or helps my point and then write, in red text, their response right after that paragraph. But then, it also depends on their motivation.
Also, I think students hate revising because, most of the time, they're revising a paper about a topic they weren't even interested in or engaged with the topic in the first place, or maybe many students just hate writing.
I haven't had any real teaching experience yet, but I have to agree with Ron here. I can see the benefit of multiple editing attempts and revisions. But to expect high school students to do this when they already consider the act of writing to be "WORK" may be an unrealistic expectation.
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