Here I go geeking out again
I've been further contemplating my error list for grading papers. I feel I must say that its conception was aided by my horrible experience at *SU. Our lovely prof D.Till helped me learn how to write for comps--turns out, I'd made it through my whole undergraduate career and master's degree without knowing how to write. A master's in ENGLISH. COULDN'T WRITE.
I'm grateful to her; without her help I might never have learned to write. But here's what I observed of her, which, in combination with what I observed of the grading of my first round of comps, astonished me to my core:
They don't read our papers.
That's why I'd write papers for my profs and they'd (esp Dr. W) tell me that if I'd only write down what I said to them in paper conferences, I'd get A's and not B's. Well, I was always puzzled and frustrated because all that stuff WAS in my papers. I guessed I just wasn't being clear.
So, here's what I clearly saw D.Till do to my sample comp answers; I watched her eyes and her hands and here's what I found. She read my intro, my forecast, my topic sentences, the last sentence or so of each paragraph, and my conclusion. This reading pattern supports my making B's in college and not A's; I wasn't properly adhering to an academic structure, and since all they do is evaluate the intro, conclusion, and structure...well, I was nearly toast!
So my error list reflects that. My main categories are punctuation, sentence errors, forecast and topic sentences, topic adherence, citation, analysis quality, and tone. I can determine their performance in most of these categories by doing the cheap-ass spot read that my entire graduate committee apparently gave me. The rest, well, I have to actually READ the paper to evaluate analysis, for example. Imagine that! I read the papers! Start to finish!
Nevertheless, having the structure of the cheap-ass spot read built into the sheet allows me to do two things in addition to grading the papers in my usual way: assess the papers according to that cheap-ass schema, and acknowledge that that cheap-ass schema exists and is sometimes the only thing one's graded on.
I've been further contemplating my error list for grading papers. I feel I must say that its conception was aided by my horrible experience at *SU. Our lovely prof D.Till helped me learn how to write for comps--turns out, I'd made it through my whole undergraduate career and master's degree without knowing how to write. A master's in ENGLISH. COULDN'T WRITE.
I'm grateful to her; without her help I might never have learned to write. But here's what I observed of her, which, in combination with what I observed of the grading of my first round of comps, astonished me to my core:
They don't read our papers.
That's why I'd write papers for my profs and they'd (esp Dr. W) tell me that if I'd only write down what I said to them in paper conferences, I'd get A's and not B's. Well, I was always puzzled and frustrated because all that stuff WAS in my papers. I guessed I just wasn't being clear.
So, here's what I clearly saw D.Till do to my sample comp answers; I watched her eyes and her hands and here's what I found. She read my intro, my forecast, my topic sentences, the last sentence or so of each paragraph, and my conclusion. This reading pattern supports my making B's in college and not A's; I wasn't properly adhering to an academic structure, and since all they do is evaluate the intro, conclusion, and structure...well, I was nearly toast!
So my error list reflects that. My main categories are punctuation, sentence errors, forecast and topic sentences, topic adherence, citation, analysis quality, and tone. I can determine their performance in most of these categories by doing the cheap-ass spot read that my entire graduate committee apparently gave me. The rest, well, I have to actually READ the paper to evaluate analysis, for example. Imagine that! I read the papers! Start to finish!
Nevertheless, having the structure of the cheap-ass spot read built into the sheet allows me to do two things in addition to grading the papers in my usual way: assess the papers according to that cheap-ass schema, and acknowledge that that cheap-ass schema exists and is sometimes the only thing one's graded on.
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