Gladly Would I Teach

 I promised myself yesterday morning before collecting research papers that I would grade 10 papers before going to bed.

I failed.

I graded five papers in almost three hours and gave up.

Why are research papers so difficult for students? Many of my best students who write beautifully on timed writings fall apart and often write incoherent phrases, sentences, and paragraphs in research papers. I understand that documentation is harder for students, but the major errors I am finding so far have little to do with documentation. 

As I grade, I'm also completing the English teacher shuffle. If you have ever graded essays or research papers, you know what I mean,

First, I put the papers in stacks of 5 so I can keep a tally of how many papers I have.

Then I start debating whether or not I want to grade what I think will be my best papers first so I can move quickly and smile or if I want to grade the weak papers first since they take much more time.

While I'm debating, I re-stack my papers into groups of 10 so it will look as though I have fewer papers to grade.

Then I count how many papers I have graded in the hopes that maybe I miscounted the first time.

I didn't.

So far, I have graded papers randomly and have assigned one F, 2 Cs, and 2 Bs, not a good start. At this rate, I'll need 17 days to grade papers, and I have a new set of timed writings popping up on Monday.

Grading research papers is brutal.

We should receive combat pay.

Maybe today will be better. I'll start by counting the papers I have graded, and then I'll put the ungraded papers in new stacks.

The first email arrived a little after 8:00 on Friday night with the subject heading “Major Crisis.” Two students needed help because they were having a “panic attack” since they couldn’t access one of the school’s online tools they needed for their group project.

The second email arrived a couple of hours later from a group of students who were upset because they could not access the same website and thought they had lost all of their work.

We resolved the problem by Saturday morning, but in the meantime, too many students were stressed out on a Friday night about an assignment that wasn’t due for days. Why weren’t these students at the football game, or at a movie, or out on a date? Why were they doing homework on a Friday night? Why were they back at work on a class assignment on Saturday afternoon when the leaves were changing and the weather was gorgeous?

On Saturday I accessed Facebook to check my students’ online responses to this week’s topic of the week. I had asked students to read the essay “Growing Up Scripted” and then respond to Doyle’s Assertion that today’s teenagers have little freedom. I posted the article a couple of weeks ago. Here it is again if you missed it:

Growing Up Scripted

When I first posted the article, I stated, “Whereas Doyle makes many interesting points, I’m not sure that my students see themselves as having little individual freedom.”

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Although most students admitted that parents and teachers had good intentions, student after student described a life of too much work, too many activities, too much homework, and too little time to relax. Here are three examples:

“Sometimes I just wish that I could go back to the days when we would go outside after school and play with friends until it was dark and it was time for dinner. I wish sometimes that our generation could go back to the times like Doyle described and get “on our bicycles on summer mornings and came
back home at dinnertime.” [from an excellent young woman who is kind, intelligent, cheerful, a teacher's dream]

“I am going to enjoy only my second full day of fun this entire semester tomorrow. Between my working every Friday, Saturday, and Tuesday, church on Sunday, youth group on Monday, school throughout the week,
and a very consistent 3 a.m. bedtime, ‘fun’ is just no longer an option. The
pressure to get near perfect grades, score higher than should be done on
standardized tests, and dedicate ourselves to countless clubs and organizations to show our commitment to excellence has morphed our age group from one that is typically filled with learning from new experiences and an overall ‘fun’ high school into one that is more or less like slavery. We do not make our own choices; society pressures us into making them. We either agree and follow the stream, or we try to fight it, to retain our inherent freedom and drown. “ [from a National Merit Semi-finalist who is hard working, charming, funny, and a joy to be around]

“The many activities we try to cram into 24 hours is outrageous. Where did relaxation ever go? For the past semester the only “me time’ I can find is in the middle of the night with my family asleep and half my homework finished. I have to force myself to go downstairs, chill on the couch, watch some television, eat ice cream, and learn some guitar. Otherwise, I would be working from the time I wake up until I go to sleep. There needs to be a cutback in the amount of involvements we subject ourselves to.” [from a student ranked third in a class of over 700 students, a warm, intelligent,  highly motivated, and kind young man who also admitted in his post that he had previously given up a sport he loved because he no longer had time to play it and keep his grades up]

When the media and politicians focus on the apathetic students with low motivation, low test scores, and few skills, it’s easy to overlook the hard working, highly motivated, and extremely intelligent students who are close to drowning under college prep classes, AP classes, extra-curricular activities, community service projects, excessive testing, and living up to their parents’ expectations as well as the expectations they have for themselves.

As a teacher, I often struggle with how much work I should assign and how hard I should grade when I know that many of my students are taking 3 other AP courses (on a block schedule – four 90-minute classes daily). Instead of having a full year to learn the subject matter thoroughly, students now have to speed through the entire course in only one semester. In the old days, students had six 50-minute courses daily for the entire year (math, science, social studies, English, maybe a foreign language, and always at least one elective). Our most gifted and most dedicated and diligent students today, however, have no idea what an “elective” really is.

Sometimes I just want to tell these students to relax and play a little more and be happy if they have a “B.” Unfortunately, among these highly motivated students, a “B” is often equivalent to failure. They would like to slow down, but they don’t think they can and probably wouldn’t even know how to slow down if they had the option.

On Sunday night I noticed the Facebook status of one of my students:

I have wonderful students. I just wish I knew how to ease their stress. Suggestions?

On a recent online discussion forum for my AP English classes, students described teacher traits that frustrated them. Listed in order of most frustrating to frustrating, here are the top characteristics or teacher traits that trouble my high school seniors.

• Negative views of teaching or their jobs
  Students repeatedly expressed the idea that teachers who hate their jobs should find other jobs. (Please see Sunday’s post for more about this student frustration: Teachers Who Hate Teaching

• Busy Work and Lack of Variety in Class Activities
  Students are disturbed by assignments that do not build their skills or knowledge. I wonder if the work they abhor is truly “busy work” or if teachers just need to do a better job of explaining the purpose of assignments to students.

• Arrogance
  Students are exasperated by teachers who belittle, disparage or demean them. Instead of supporting them, students feel that some teachers treat them with condescension.

• Lack of knowledge
  Teachers who teach straight from textbooks frustrate students because they often are unable to answer student questions in greater detail than what is provided in the textbook, nor do they apply lessons to the real world or to examples outside the textbook.

• No Interest in students
  According to students, some teachers make little effort to get to know their students, know little about what students do outside of class, and, unbelievably, some teachers make little effort to even learn the names of their students.

• Reluctance to answer student questions
  In some classes students are rebuked for asking questions. According to students, some teachers belittle students and state they should already know the answer to a question or the teacher cannot answer questions with clarity. This appears to be a by-product of two other frustrations: teacher arrogance and/or teachers’ lack of knowledge.
• Apathy
  Students reported that some teachers do not care about their students, their classes, or the activities within a class. Students very quickly determined that if the teacher didn’t care about the class, they shouldn’t care either.

Also mentioned: frustration over lack of good work ethic in some teachers (slow in grading or teachers make few marks on papers so students don’t know what to do to improve) and frustration with teachers who show favoritism

Even though students had no trouble explaining teacher traits that frustrated them, almost all students prefaced their statements by expressing their respect for teachers and underscoring that most of their teachers have been well-prepared, caring, knowledgeable, and often inspirational.

Please see yesterday’s post for Teacher Traits Students Appreciate

Unioto High School piloting no zero policy | chillicothegazette.com | Chillicothe Gazette

"A primary concern we have with the proposed change to a minimum 50 percent for every assignment is that this policy may be going into effect without any faculty or community input," McCorkle [teacher] read.

While teachers, administrators, parents, and community members may differ on how we should grade students, the idea that a system could make such a radical change in grading without consulting teachers is appalling.

I dream of the day when I will be able to assign reading homework, and all of my students will read it thoroughly and come prepared to
discuss the selection in class the following day without any extra incentive, prodding, or threats of quizzes.

I’m still dreaming.

While most of our students will indeed read assigned homework passages, a few students will only read if they absolutely have to, and too many students will skim a passage instead of reading carefully. For this reason, when I am teaching a book or long work, I usually give a quick daily quiz over the homework. If students know they will have to take a quiz, most of them will read the passage carefully.

Many teachers, however, balk at the idea of daily quizzes because they don’t want to have to make up quizzes over assigned reading; they don’t want to grade daily quizzes, and they don’t want to lose so much valuable class time. I use a simple process for making and grading quizzes that takes very little time away from class.

1. I duplicate one quiz sheet for each student. This sheet can be used for 6 daily quizzes. Download Reading Quizzes

2. For each homework selection I make up 5 words, terms, concepts, or names that anyone who read the passage would know. For example, if we read a selection where a family adopted a dog, I would add the word “dog” to my quiz. I make sure that my 5 words cover the entire reading passage and are not taken exclusively from the beginning of the passage or the end of the passage.
3. In class I distribute the blank quiz sheet and tell students that they will take a quiz each day. I then call out the five words for today’s quiz and instruct the students to write them on their sheet. You may prefer to write the five words on the board or overheard.

4. I then tell students that they are to define the word or identify it so I can tell they read the homework assignment. I instruct them to reply to each word in approximately 5 words and emphasize that they should not write in sentences. For example, for “dog,” students only need to reply “family adopts.”

5. The quiz should take no more than 10 minutes.

6. I then collect the quizzes and place them in a notebook to grade. I can flip through the quizzes quickly and grade 30 quizzes in roughly 10 minutes. As I grade quizzes, I always concentrate on whether or not I think the student read the assignment. If I think he did, I give him the benefit of the doubt on each word.

7. On the following day, I pass out the graded quizzes and tell students to move to the next block to take Quiz 2.

8. I vary the difficulty level of the quiz according to the grade level of students and the level of the reading material.

9. To give an incentive to students who are present each day and to allay student whining about the obscurity of some items on the quiz, I award 50 points to the final quiz of students who take all of the quizzes and who refrain from whining about the quizzes. It works! (Students always want to add the points to their lowest quiz grade, but it makes no difference mathematically which quiz receives the extra-credit points.)

10. I make sure that I give different words on the quiz for each class that I teach because we know that students from earlier in the day tell other students what is on the quiz.
    

Here’s an example of a quiz I give on The Glass Castle (pages 3-28)

1. dumpster (author sees mother in dumpster)
2. fire (burned while cooking hotdogs)
3. Blue Goose (family’s car)
4. chlorinated water (only for sissies)
5. seizures (Brian has seizures as child

For each of the selections above, I would accept alternate answers that show the student read the homework assignment.

In time, students realize they must read carefully each night. While daily quizzes often hurt a student’s average, with this quiz format, students read better and their grades actually improve because of so many excellent quiz grades.

Study critiques schools over subjective grading — latimes.com

Before reading this article on grading, determine what final grade you would give a student who made the following grades on assignments of equal importance.

C, C, MA (Missing Assignment), D, C, B, MA, MA, B, A

In a study of over 10,000 educators, Douglass Reeves discovered that teachers would have given this student a final grade anywhere between A-F. Clearly, the study exhibits how different teachers are in grading students. Do we give students extra time to complete missing assignments or do we assign a zero and move on? Do we include the student's attendance record and work habits in the final grade or do we rely solely on the grades? Do we raise a student's final average if his work shows marked improvement during the semester?

Teachers grapple over such questions. Whereas Reeves sees the discrepancies in these grades as a failure of teachers to grade consistently, I would suggest that teachers grade differently based on the age of students, the course, the level of the course (honors, college-prep, etc,.), and, yes, even the students themselves. With a class of reluctant readers, most teachers will give students every possible opportunity to turn in late work because we are trying to help them develop lifelong reading skills. For students who are avowed procrastinators, sometimes we have to "lay down the law" and hold them to stated due dates because developing punctuality skills may be just as important as learning academic skills. Regardless of stated rules regarding submission of assignments and chances to re-do assignments, most teachers will always provide extra chances and extra days to complete the assignment to students who are sick or who are experiencing family problems.

Inconsistency in grading is not always wrong.

Reeves states that grading regimes that work "offer accurate, precise and timely
feedback that is aimed at helping students improve — not penalizing
them — and is only one type of response." I agree wholeheartedly. We must explain to students before they complete work how they will be graded and what we will do if they are late with an assignment or fail to complete the assignment. Teachers who teach the same course within a school must be consistent in their grading or they will experience legitimate and vociferous complaints from students and parents.

However, teachers are human. As long as individual teachers assign grades, absolute consistency in grading is impossible.

A couple of days ago I explained why I think timed writings
are so important for students, and I promised to explain later how I grade
timed writings quickly. I certainly do not believe that my way of grading is
the fastest or the best method, but it’s the way I have found most productive
for me. I attended a conference a couple of years ago where the speaker
insisted that he had not written anything on a student paper for years; he only
assigns a grade. That approach apparently works for him, but it wouldn’t work
for my students or for me. I know an outstanding teacher who spends hours over
the course of several days grading a stack of papers because she marks every
error the students make. It works for her, but that approach would not work for
me. We all have our own methods for grading, and over time we take a few ideas
from others and blend them with our own ideas to create our own effective
grading procedure.

My main objectives when I grade timed writings are to grade
the papers quickly so I can return them the following day, to provide enough
information so students can improve in their writing, and, sometimes above all
else, to maintain my sanity. The approach I’m outlining is only my grading
procedure for timed writings. I teach on a block schedule (90 minutes daily,
one semester only) and have 3 classes of AP English Language students (total of
84 students). As I mentioned in a previous post, I require students to complete
a timed writing every Monday. The information below is specific to timed
writings required for AP English. Next week I’ll post ideas for grading timed
writings for courses other than AP.

Here's how I grade.

1. I teach students how I will grade
   timed writings.
   I spend a full hour after the first timed writing early in the semester explaining
   how readers grade essays on the AP test in May and how the AP 1-9 rubric
   works. I then explain how I will use the rubric and benchmark papers in
   class and how I will mark their papers (information below). This step is
   crucial. If I teach this part successfully, I will have few grading
   problems or grading disputes all semester. I also emphasize that I can
   only spend approximately 2 minutes per paper; therefore, students won't
   get many comments.

2. After students finish timed writings,
   I require them to grade themselves and reflect on their papers immediately.
   At the end of timed writings, I have students turn their papers over and
   give themselves a score of 1-9 on the back of the essay. This is hard for
   them the first half of the semester, but they get much better with practice.
   I also have them write me a note to tell me how they think they did on the
   assignment and specifically what they want me to comment on or what
   questions they want me to answer when I grade their papers.

3. I grade the papers.

   1) I put a check mark in the
   margins next to cogent points that students advance, good use of examples,
   superior vocabulary, excellent use of rhetorical devices and strategies,
   etc. Good papers have lots of check marks.

   2) I circle or underline distracting grammatical or mechanical errors. I
   don't correct anything, nor do I mark all errors since the papers are rough
   drafts. I always mark comma splices, run-ons, and fragments because I
   consider these errors so egregious that I fear overlooking them may lead
   to revocation of my teaching certificate.

   3) I write very short comments in margins:  “off topic,” “love this,”
   “you lost me,” or I put a question mark in the margin.

   4) I put a score of 1-9 (according to the rubric) at the top of the page
   and write very brief suggestions which I actually abbreviate as the
   semester goes on:  “Need More Analysis,” “Need Examples,” “Work on
   Vocabulary,” “Read prompt carefully,” etc. I would love to write “BS” for
   “Be Specific,” but I rarely have the nerve.

   5) After assigning a grade, I flip
   the paper over and make a brief comment or answer the questions that students
   pose on the back of the paper. As the semester continues, students become
   remarkably adept at assigning their own grades. Halfway through the semester,
   most students will score themselves within one point of the score I assign. If
   there is a large variance in our scores, I know I need to offer a couple of
   sentences to explain why the score isn’t higher or lower. Often students will
   simply write questions such as: “I worked harder on my introduction. Did it
   work?” “I used only two examples. Is that enough or should I have gone into more
   detail, or do I need to include more examples.” “I was lost on this assignment.
   I just started writing something because time was running out.” If students
   feel comfortable in the class and comfortable with me as a grader, they will be
   painfully honest in their self-assessment. In fact, when I respond to student
   comments on the back of the timed writings, I often feel my role changes. When
   I grade the paper, I’m the English teacher assessing their performance. On the
   back of the paper, however, I’m the cheerleader encouraging them to keep
   writing and improving.

   6) As I grade papers, I compile a
   list of problems that many students have in common and/or points I want to emphasize. I also compile a
   list of what students did well. I will use these lists when I discuss the timed
   writings the following day.

   7) I put a star in the top left-hand
   corner of exemplary papers that I would like students to read aloud.

4. I review papers in class the following
   day.
   We look at the prompt together before we discuss the papers. I then review
   the College Board scoring reports with students so they will understand
   what the readers were looking for. We read aloud one or two papers. At the
   beginning of the semester, I usually read one or two exemplary sample
   papers provided by College Board, but by the middle of the semester, I
   allow students in the class who received stars on their papers to read
   their own papers to the class. Afterward, students discuss what they could
   do next time to make their papers better. I also use this time to review
   two to three common problems that I saw in the papers.

Organization

Since I have three 90-minute AP classes, I review the
College Board grading criteria and sample papers during first period while my
students are writing. I then grade first period papers during second period and
grade second period papers during 3rd period. I usually have 26-30 students in
each class and can grade a class set of papers in about one hour. By grading during
class, I usually only have to work an additional 1-2 hours after school or
before school the following day, but that is just on Mondays when I assign
timed writings.

One of the greatest benefits of grading timed writings
quickly and returning them the following day is that I have the grading down to
a routine and can grade the papers quickly without fraying my nerves, carrying
around a stack of un-graded papers for days, or getting bored with the
assignment or the papers. My grading method may not be the fastest or the best
method, but it’s the best approach I have been able to devise after decades of
teaching and thousands upon thousands of essays to grade.