Mark 'em up

 

Hello everyone,

 

A long time ago, I was talking to a brilliant young musician who was still in high school.  Our conversation drifted to his school experience, and he spoke about an English teacher he valued.

 

According to him, the most useful thing the teacher did was give many detailed comments on his essays--so much so that he joked that the papers looked bled on.

 

He confessed that he sometimes felt a little chagrin about the amount of marks on the papers, but it was a matter of personal necessity for him.  He could not progress unless he knew what he was doing wrong, and he couldn't know what was wrong without the marks.  He hated teachers that gave him papers with no specific comments on them.

 

Other students I have spoken to have talked about the frustration they felt when they went to their teachers to find out what they had done wrong, only to be told by the teacher that they should find the error on their own.  (This might be a legitimate teaching method for times when the teacher is trying to get the kids to practice peer or self editing.  In this case, the teacher used it for all occasions.  There was an absolute refusal to help the student know what was wrong, so the kid gave up.)

 

Practically speaking, a teacher will not have time to thoroughly mark every single paper that crosses the teacher's desk, unless the teacher severely limits the amount of work the students do for the class.

 

I think that students need lots of practice--especially with writing--and that teachers ought to give frequent and explicit feedback.

 

Choose specific and regular assignments and tell your students that those will have complete comments.  They may be interactive journals, labs, essays, research projects, or exercises.  (I don't recommend detailed correcting of essay tests--they take too long to correct, and students are anxious to get tests back.  Invite students with questions to have more detailed analysis of their test scores if they'd like.  Keep feedback brief, or you'll be grading tests forever.)

 

Should you use red?  There have apparently been complaints from some parents and students that using red means gang association or recalls the trauma of seeing real blood.  I personally never had that complaint, and always found red an easy color to see.  Whatever you choose should have enough contrast from the students' own papers that your comments are easy to read.  If red is a problem, use something else.

 

If comments become repetitive, feel free to say something like, "Errors continue as noted above," or general comments such as "Please correct your spelling."

 

My handwriting was practically illegible for my students, so I gave a five minute course in how to read my shorthand editorial symbols.

 

As an English teacher, I noticed that my students often handed in their rough draft as a final draft.  When they got it back full of marks, I gave them the option to rewrite for a higher grade.  (They had to improve the paper for the higher grade.)  I did not mark rewrites or papers handed in late.

 

Let them know what they need to do to grow.  Don't be afraid of explaining their grades to them.  Positive or negative, let them know where they stand and what the path to improvement looks like.

 

Jeff Combe