I thought it was really interesting that both Curzan & Damour and Bean suggest that for the first few batches of grading, you should read through all the essays quickly to make note of organization, topic sentences, thesis statement, and other isssues you should be able to find easily. This seems like an excellent way to get an overall impression of which essays are very strong and which need lots of work, and I plan to use this method at least at the beginning of a course. Also, it can give a good overview of a student's individual style of writing, which will become more familiar as the course progresses. In that way, you don't have to do the quick read-through with every submission because you will already know a student's style.
When I was a T.A. for a professor as an undergrad, I found that it was really difficult to grade the first few groups of essay submissions. I would read an essay I thought was pretty good early in the grading process, and then I would find some deeper in the pile that were definitely better examples of A or B work. I think once or twice I went back and changed the grades I assigned because of this.
I guess my question is: is that an ethical thing to do? Although I think it would be helpful to "arrange [an essay] in the stack of graded papers from best to worst" without writing a grade on the paper the first time around, I also think this borderlines on judging one paper against another (Curzan & Damour 153). I don't think that is an effective way to grade papers. When I was grading, I tried to convince myself that I saw quality writing in the early essays. I would only change a grade if I realized the essay did *not* meet the criteria very well, but I would only realize this because of how well another essay was written. It wasn't that I was comparing one essay to another, I just found a better example of A/B work. Still, it's a very fine line.
And again...is it ethical to change a grade if you've already written it down?
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3 comments:
Katie,
in my opinion, whether it is ethical or not is not the only question. The first thing I think about, is the reaction of a student who sees the grade changed to a lower one. It's just discouraging. I remember I received such "changed" grades a couple of times in high school. Actually it did not harm me very much. I can't say for other people though. Having read your post I'm thinking that in future when grading a pile of student's essays at first I will just use a pencil to avoid mistakes in grading.
My first semester in college, I was in an honors philosophy/humanities course in which no one got an A on the first paper. My grade had been a B, and I could tell that a + had been marked out. That was a bit frustrating.
But if you were to write the grades somewhere other than on the paper the first time through, I see no problem with changing the grade. Grading is always going to be subjective. I was surprised to see how subjective it was even when I was teaching math (how much partial credit to give, etc). If I were to assign a grade and later decide that the student didn't really earn that grade, I don't think I'd have any problem changing it.
If an instructor has specific grading criteria, then he or she will have an easier time grading—seldom having to change a grade, seldom having to judge a paper based on another.
I do not like the idea of giving an A on an I'll-know-an-A-when-I-see-it basis. That's where developing specific grading criteria and making students aware of those criteria becomes so important.
Ranking papers can be useful. It’s a good way of gauging the range of work. And it can help with grading. Of course, neither the best paper should necessarily get an A nor should the worst paper necessarily get an F.
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