Good morning to all,
I enjoyed our class discussion last night. It was productive and very insightful. One of the questions that I noticed that came up a number of times is "How do I grade this paper?" That is one of the biggest problems I had when teaching high school English. My 9th & 10th. grade students were reading at the 2nd and 3rd grade levels. Needless to say, their writing skills were also very poor. In order to be fair and consistent, I had to rely on a rubric in order to be fair and reasonable in the grading process. One thing I would not do is give a student an "F" if there was any obvious attempt at writing the paper. I would allow rewrites after I gave students feedback on their final papers. I found that it is crucial to remain 'consistent' in your grading process. Students take your comments seriously and they compare their papers with the papers of their peers. Virtually any discrepancy in your grading consistency and/or final comments will not go unnoticed. I found a couple of rubrics on the Internet that might be helpful. Like Dr. Cauthen said, don't go to the trouble of making a rubric of your own, steal someone elses' and adjust it to fit your needs. There are thousands of them out there but the two that I'm attaching show a diverse contrast in approaches to grading student writing.
See ya'll Wed.
Peggy
P.S. Apparently you can't send attachments on this blog. SORRY. I just did a Google search, College Freshman Comp Writing Rubric and I found an endless number of rubrics. I'll print a couple of them out and bring them to class on Wed.
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ReplyDeleteDear Fellow Students,
ReplyDeleteI will attempt to post a rubric I created for my seventh grade students. They are currently working on their character analysis essay for TREASURE ISLAND. To help my reluctant writers, I make sure that we brainstorm quite a bit, discuss the novel, and consider the prompt. Then, I check EVERY student's thesis statement, guiding them toward something provable and a little exciting. My main concern is that students get comfortable with the process - and still see that there is creativity in academic writing. I ask students to see themselves as lawyers, persuading others that their interpretation of the text is strongest. The competitive students in the class often like that.
See you all tomorrow,
Jennifer
TREASURE ISLAND ESSAY RUBRIC
Introduction
o attention-grabbing opener
o title, author, and genre
o brief summary of the plot
o introduction to the character
o a clear thesis statement introducing the character’s traits and how they drive the plot
This introduction is weak/acceptable/respectable/strong.
Three Body Paragraphs
o topic sentences that introduce the character’s traits
o discussion of traits and how they drive the plot
o scenes that reveal the character’s traits in action
o concrete details (quotations that reveal the trait) - introduced and with page numbers
o commentary (two sentences that discuss the concrete details)
o conclusion
These body paragraphs are weak/acceptable/respectable/strong.
Conclusion
o a sentence that restates the thesis of the essay, but in a new way
o a sentence or two that reviews the three main points from the body paragraphs
o a closing sentence or two that expresses the writer’s final thoughts on the character and his importance to the plot
o theme
This conclusion is weak/acceptable/respectable/strong.
OTHER ESSAY COMPONENTS
Weak Acceptable Respectable Strong
Word Choice
Transitions
Sentence Variety
Mechanics
Sentences begin with capital letters and end with punctuation.
Spelling is correct.
Proper nouns are capitalized.
There are necessary commas and semicolons.
Possessive words have apostrophes.
Verbs are in present tense.
Essay is written in the third person.
I am not sure if I have replied to Peggy's post or written a post of my own. I promise to get the hang of this soon.
ReplyDeleteJennifer