Think how much would be here if I had written an entry each week. I am tempted to start over but will strive to continue instead with a brief entry on grading. I just want to brief explain what I do when grading a paper. Knowing that should help you when you are writing a paper for me.
First thing I do is read quickly through the paper and highlight. In yellow I highlight what appears to be the thesis of the paper. In a well written paper this is is easy and set me in a good mood was I continue to grade. Sometimes what appears to be a thesis is not and I have to change the highlights. Sometimes student hide the thesis until the end of the essay. I call these mysteries because they are hard to grade. Sometimes there is no thesis. Instead the essay reads "This is a paper about how to smoke a pipe first I will tell you . . . " That is not a thesis that is a statement of the subject. Second thing I highlight in green all the errors in the text. I usually don't say anything about them. I just highlight them. I am not an English teacher but I do want students to see the mistakes and think about how to fix them.
What I do next depends upon the grading standards or the rubric. All my assignments have a standard which lists the elements I will look for when grading. I tend to mark and comment on these elements as I read through the paper again. I make two kinds of comments. One relates to the grading standard like "Point one well made and defended." The other relates to the content. I may say for example "I disagree with you assessment that Wilson was a great president, but you have done a good job of defending you point." or "I don't quite understand what you mean here." Since writing is part of the learning process as well as part of the evaluation process I try to make more of these kinds of comment. They are as much to encourage thinking as they are to point out mistakes.
Then I complete the grading standard. Behind each of the elements I record the score. Sometimes that is on a five point scale, sometimes only two, but I score each of the elements and total the score for the grade on this paper. I adjust the standards on an ongoing basis so I am not sure how much time I will spend going over them, but future entries will have more say about them.
