(Jeff's post went to the wrong list)
This week’s readings touch on how instructors evaluate their students’ work (both written work and participation). Reading through the suggestions for evaluation offered by Chiseru-Strater felt more like a list of sins I had committed during my evaluation of PAAs.
Critical reading, constructive response, and reflective thought: these are the sort of practices we are encouraging our students to adopt in this class, yet as I read through the articles, what struck me most was just how much I had failed as an instructor to make these things apparent in my evaluations of PAAs. For example, Chiseru-Strater, discussing the subjective nature of the evaluative process, suggests we should bring students into it by having them draw up and discuss their own list of criteria for what makes writing good. (185) Did I do that? No. She mentions the use of a self-evaluation form at the end of each paper. Did I have my students fill one out? Nope. When she goes on to discuss her old methods of evaluating a student’s draft by marking up “each paper, making comments about grammar, syntax, and spelling along with comments about focus, voice, and detail.” Even though we were warned to be cautious with our red pens, I still couldn’t resist the impulse to mark up grammatical problems, spelling errors, and strange punctuation. I think Chiseru-Strater puts it best, saying, “Under that standard grading procedure, I did not really distinguish among my many responses, and for that reason it was difficult for my students to decide which comments were more important than others.” (190)
Sommers echoes this sentiment, stating, “teachers’ comments can take students' attention away from their own purposes in writing a particular text and focus that attention on the teachers’ purpose in commenting.” The result of this appropriation of text by the teacher is a very confused student who will often times simply correct what they can based on the comments they’ve received and will not look much further in how to change their paper.
Dirk discusses the importance of stressing to the students what exactly we expect from students in terms of evaluating their participation in the course. I thought it was interesting how he mentions the widely-varied views of what students imagine a teacher bases participation grades upon. Again, I began to think of my own class. It's true I have stressed the importance of participation, but I have failed to really explicate what I expect of my students, how their own definitions of participation might differ from my own.
So, am I guilty of not bringing the students into the evaluative process? Yes. Of not stressing enough the importance of self-evaluation? Yes. Of commenting on papers in a way that may give students the wrong impression about what is most important when revising a paper? Yes. Of not being clear to the students about what I expect of them in terms of participation? Yes.
Yes, I am guilty of all of the above. I think we all are. But the silver lining is there is time to absolve ourselves by making strides to redefine our own evaluative processes. So for this week, I'm curious to know, what are you guys guilty of in terms of your own evaluative processes? What would you have done differently if you could go back and start the class all over again?
Yes, we have sinned. But hopefully we can learn from the errors of our ways. Until then, I guess we'll just have to settle for saying a few Hail Marys and hoping one day we'll be better.
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ReplyDeleteI procrastinated grading for days. I admit that I felt the same way Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater did when she first started teaching freshman English, “grading made me feel so vulnerable and confused that my attitude was one of avoidance” (179). While I don’t feel like I committed any mortal sins while grading, I will own that I made mistakes. I prefer to think of it that way, errors in judgment or execution that I can remedy, rather than a black smear that tarnishes my soul. I think that grading is a learning process, a collaborative effort, and an art. These positive, glass-half-full thoughts are all well and good, but all’s clear in hindsight.
ReplyDeleteI neither wanted to grade the PAA’s nor give them back. I graded in pencil writing and re-writing comments to achieve greater clarity or remove offense. I googled evaluation strategies and sought peer advice. I received some helpful information, mostly from fellow TA’s. But I guess my greatest hurdle, in answer to your question, was to grade the student and his or her process as severely (or more so) than the paper they turned in.
Chiseri-Strater says that the cure to this mindset “should be to turn the teacher-student relationship into a "reader writer" relationship by explaining to students how we read” (182). If we expect the students to revise themselves as writers through open discussion, peer evaluation, and self-evaluation, shouldn’t we do so as readers?
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ReplyDeleteChiseri-Strater highlighted what was, for me, a very difficult thing to identify: whether I was grading the student, the paper, or the writing process. At any given moment, for any given comment, I might have been grading based on any of those things. Being familiar with the students' processes got in the way of grading, sometimes -- specifically in instances where I knew exactly what the student had wanted to do, and found myself reading the paper based on what I already knew of their ideas rather than reading the paper as a distinct whole. I think my students may have had trouble with this same thing -- from conferences and freewrites and classroom discussion, they knew that I knew what they were going for, and what they wanted to achieve -- and several papers seemed as if they were missing some key component, one that the students may have left behind because it had been discussed "outside" the paper.
ReplyDeleteFor them (and for me, to some extent, as a teacher and as a writer) it's very difficult to separate "written" from "read." A friend of mine put it this way: something written is only half-alive -- it's not truly alive until it's been read. Students spend a lot of time with their papers (hopefully) as written things -- not as written things that must then be read.
Both Chiseri-Strater and Sommers mentioned the problem of teacher's comments squirreling attention away from the student's purposes and directing attention instead to the teacher's purpose in reading -- which, yes, is a big problem, and I hadn't thought of it like that -- but also, I believe that the students SHOULD know our purpose in commenting. There are ways of commenting that do not detract from student purpose; ways of commenting that won't engender the response, "Tell me what you want me to do," or "tell me how you want me to change that." I believe (and hope, since that's how I've been grading) that pulling the "outside" classroom world into the more intimate written context of a paper is helpful in commenting -- referencing conversations ("Remember when you told me...") and referring back to classroom discussion or previous drafts the teacher may have seen. Because the paper does not exist in a void -- it was produced out of a specific classroom experience, as well as being written by one's self alone in a room.
I faced similar issues when commenting. I was not really able to look at the writing objectively after working so hard with my students. One thing that Chiseri-Strater pointed out that I found to be extremely true was the reflective essay is just as helpful for the teacher as it is for the student. I will admit, I was pretty skeptical about the reflective essay assignment and I really struggled to guide my students through three hours of preparation for an assignment that I felt was so basic. After the Personal Academic Essay, it seemed like a regression. But reading the reflective essays helped me think about my failings as a teacher. Many of my brighter students complained about the course being too easy and unhelpful. By aiming for the students who struggled the most, I had left them completely unstimulated. I remember that feeling in college and now I will do my best to work with all levels of student.
ReplyDeleteI think Savannah makes a good point: learning to teach is a process. My "learning moments" (I try to move away from the theological in all parts of my life, sorry Jeff) in terms of evaluating papers have also been abundant.
ReplyDeleteI started having students hand in drafts early in the PAA unit, with the idea of helping them head off big problems. The issue became my own ability to recognize what the problems might be. I focused on pointing them to a thesis and making suggestions about improving grammar. Oops! Luckily, I realized from discussions in 540 and the subsequent drafts that I'd made a mistake not recognizing that each workshop needed a corresponding focus (finding a focusing question and a way into sustainability and a personal voice, working on incorporating helpful research into a draft, weeding out problems in the argument, organizing and polishing grammar and transitions).
What Sommers has brought to my process (I've been commenting on sketches since Monday) is making sure my comments focus on offering "students revision tasks of a different order of complexity and sophistication from the ones that they themselves identify, by forcing students back into the chaos, back to the point where they are shaping and restructuring their meaning" (154).
I've been looking to invention for this. My comments have switched from something like "what questions could you ask to explore further on how environmental sustainability relates to banning smoking on campus" to "make a list of broader ideas connecting to your topic and a list of the aspects of environmental sustainability discussed on wikipedia. Draw lines between the two lists to find points of connection and choose one or two to free write on to flush out this side of your OP-ED in redrafting." The trick, I think, will be accountability. I'm going to ask them then to include the list and free write when they turn things in at the end of the unit. I'd be happy to get feed back from anyone on this strategy.
If I could start all over, I'd outline for myself just what is most important at any given stage of drafting and be sure to comment appropriately. I'd also make sure to build accountability into my comments, so that I could track both how and if students are using them.
My last semester as an undergrad, I had a really cocky TA for an English class, and everyone was aghast by his evaluative process. I had been an A student in upper-level and honors English classes. I had been accepted to Grad school for writing, and yet my first paper earned me a D.
ReplyDeleteHe asked to see me after class and offered to talk about my paper. I answered, “What is there to talk about, just do better next time?” He answered, “I graded your paper at 2:00 am, and I think I may have been a little harsh, if you can justify why deserve a better grade I’d be happy to hear it.” We went into his office and I read my paper over again. I told him I didn’t have anything to say about it, and we read it together. In the end he gave me a B, and I left that meeting promising I would never grade like he did.
I know from reading short stories in workshop that any story can be amazing or horrible depending on what attitude you approach it with. If you are looking for something to fail, it surely will. I try to approach my student’s papers with the attitude of looking for them to succeed. Then you can find the areas that impede that success.
I like what Chiseri-Strater had to say about incorporating students into the evaluative process, but I think this can be a move me make in every lesson plan, not just on workshop or grading days. I like the idea of students making a list of how they define effective writing, and using their own set of criteria to talk about writing throughout the semester. This allows them to generate their own vocabulary which could be more helpful in navigating processes and ideas that just don’t resonate with them.
"A chapel was built in the midst / Where I used to play on the green"
ReplyDeleteContext helps us to see past moral absolutism. Before the black gowns start dishing penance, I like to examine my own practices as a “grader” as localized, situated writing.
The comments Sommers singles out for derision sound fairly dunderheaded. The command to “choose more precise language” leaves the author of the evaluated piece thinking, “You first, teacher.” What did the instructor mean, and how can the student do it? But I can well imagine (and fondly recall) instances where it is appropriate to underline a word in a student’s writing, and jot a cryptic “w.c.” beneath it. Isn’t this vague? Does it provide enough direction? Couldn’t one cast a rubber stamp from it to apply this comment across multiple papers? Well, just as evaluations should depend upon the context (the individual writer’s goals, strengths, and habits; course and assignment goals; the stage of the writing process), so too should any evaluation of your evaluation.
Take a student whose ideas curdle nearly every time she reaches into the thesaurus to juice her writing with a touch of something exotic. On the second page, between lines, you might write, “Do you mean […] or perhaps […]?” On the third page (between lines), “I don’t think I know this word.” Then again on the fourth, “I had to grab my dictionary for this new term.” In the margins, you can then show the writer how to work from these comments about the reading experience: “A helpful strategy might be to listen ask if a peer understands this phrase when you read aloud”; “Providing a brief definition in parentheses works well to help a reader unfamiliar with a technical subject”; “I would keep this sentence, but after it, try rephrasing this idea in your speaking voice. It might provide a great transition to your next paragraph.” At the end of the paper, you encourage her to work toward choosing words she and her readers are comfortable using.
Forgive the long example, father.
Now, what if you labeled each of these places with “Diction: word choice”—right next to your comments? If on page six the student sees “diction: w.c” beneath a circled word, she must now decide which strategy to apply. If she later sees “w.c.? -- I think you mean, “flatus,” here. Right?” Now she can assess whether or not her meaning came across.
Consider teaching students how to read the genre of a paper evaluation. Support and revisit terms and activities you use in class when you comment. As Chiseri-Strater advises, involve them in drafting such language and evaluation criteria. And, for heaven sakes, don’t shy away from judiciously using shorthand and editing marks—so long as your audience understands them, can read them in the context of your big-picture feedback on their writing. Help them to turn your scribbles into useful strategies by teaching to your students the genre of paper evaluation. Neglecting this makes the baby Jesus cry.
I think that evaluation/assesment/grading is one of the most difficult thing us TAs have to navigate in the whole WRIT 101 process. We want to help our students improve, and we want to give them appropriate, constructive feedback, but at the same time, we are aghast by things like spelling, grammar, sentence structure, etc., and sometimes have a hard time moving past this. The first time I taught 101, I was red pen-happy, fixing and editing all over the place, but not offering much in the way of substantive comments. I was guilty of all of Chiseri-Strater's sins. I realized at some point during my second semester of teaching that in the end, my methods of evaluation and feedback did more to hurt my students (and undermine the process-oriented trajectory of the class) than it did to help them.
ReplyDeleteI'm going about things differently this time around, and I'm astounded to see such a marked difference in the progress - and engagement- of my students. I think that ultimately, it's all about accountability: they will invest more time and effort in their revisions and their writing if we as teachers don't simply ding them for what they've done "wrong," but instead ask them questions, both on the page and in person, which really make them reinvestigate, and evaluate their own stance. As Sommers said, and as Mackenzie quoted, we need to be willing to force our students back into the chaos. I think that we often shy away from this, because it does two things: 1) it's more work for us (we have to really engage with each piece of writing, not just as a reader, but also an analyst. We need to understand the writing's topic well enough to offer constructive feedback and provocative questions, which is a lot of work), and 2) it's sometimes hard to really lean on our students and make them do the amount of work they need to do to improve. The impulse is to offer a few comments and then conclude with "You did some really good writing here, nice work!" Comments like these involve less work from everybody, but as we all know, they don't accomplish anything. We need to hold ourselves accountable too.
Of course, throwing in some comments about grammar and spelling are fine; I tend to check writing for recurring errors, and then say something like "watch out for subject-verb agreement throughout" and mark the first couple examples. This draws their attention to their own habits, rather than just offering a slurry of red marks that they go through and fix without the need to reflect.
I think like Chiseri-Strater suggests, one of the best tools we have in the evaluative process is getting our students involved. Talk to them, challenge them. And just as important, make sure they are held accountable to one another as well. I grade them on their feedback on one another's paper, which was a novel concept to them, but really made them engage with the evaluative process. Several of my students mentioned workshopping in their reflective essays as a useful tool, both for getting feedback on their own work, and for helping them better understand how to self-evaluate in the future.