![]() The host provides snacks, a detailed scoring guide, and a few anchor papers. Every teacher will end up having at least one set of essays graded by his or her peers. Essay Club: A group of teachers agree to meet once every two weeks and grade one teacher’s group of essays.These grade quickly, and the students can’t hide behind verbosity. They must give me only their seven best lines on that particular aspect. I assign each box a topic (“author’s purpose”, “imagery”, “structure” for instance). Instead of an essay, however, they are given three boxes with seven lines in each. Show Me in 7: I sometimes give my students a full prompt, exactly like one they’d receive for a timed essay.I then use those anchors to give whole class feedback by talking about each or by asking the students to read, rank, and evaluate. Again, I usually copy examples of various paragraphs. Here students write one quick response, and I grade the paragraphs with a scoring guide but with no comments. In-class (or Homework) Timed Paragraphs: Students don’t always have to write a complete essay.Note: I also use this technique when I’ve written comprehensive feedback on the essay. Usually students free their grades in one or two attempts. We discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the models so they have a better sense of how their work measures up. I also provide a few anchor essays for the class. If a student needs to write a more specific or accurate reflection, I conference with the individual. At least 80% of the students accurately assess their work the first time around. The students score their own essay and reflect, in detail, on the strengths and weaknesses. The grade is then held “hostage” in my grade book until the student completes an adequate written self-evaluation. Using the scoring guide, I read the essays, put a grade in the grade book, and write NO COMMENTS. Free My Grade: The students write a complete essay, and I grade it with a detailed holistic scoring guide (1-7, A-F, etc.).I choose what is appropriate, what will keep me sane, and what will keep my students engaged: I never use any of these techniques exclusively. In this post, I share some of the things my colleagues and I have done to become more efficient with our feedback. I now accept that it takes me 20-30 minutes to write comprehensive feedback on an individual essay, and in a future post I promise to break down my system. Any instructor of writing who lasts for any length of time has to embrace two concepts very quickly: acceptance and efficiency. As I finish my fifteenth year in an English classroom, I’m seriously thinking about tattooing the following phrase across my belly in Old English lettering ala Tupac: “Students will write more teachers will grade less.” I once started to calculate how many hours I have spent writing feedback on student writing, but I quickly abandoned that sadistic calculation.
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