Why does it feel weird that I'm going to a Professional Development session where we're going to learn how to mark essays? I keep thinking, "But I've been doing this for years, and I've had positive feedback from students about my comments!" This will be good for me, and I will learn and improve. They even e-mailed me two essays to read and evaluate, before tonight's session, and we have questions to answer about what kind of marking scheme we use, what we look at first when evaluating an essay, etc.
Lessons that I bet I'll learn tonight:
1.) Don't punish students by giving them a grade that ends with "9". (The Queen of East Procrastination taught me that one; I only use it when I'm particularly peeved.)
2.) Don't yell at students' essays, while you're sitting all by yourself in your office/bedroom. (Ask Meg; I yell it out first, put it away for a while and then write a diplomatic comment.)
3.) Don't get so blastedly emotionally involved in marking. (I'm an emotional marker. I don't mean that my emotions guide my marking so much as I get really, really excited when a student improves, and I get very upset when I have to fail a student. Wow, do I ever put a lot of work into grading a paper when I have to fail it.)
But it doesn't mean that I'll change all that much. It would help to make a clearer rubric.
5 comments:
Hey man. I've taken your advice TO give students marks ending in a nine. Hahahaha! I'd never thought of how satisfying it could be.
My students got their first essay back today. I've had 3 angry emails already. One asked how I could tell her paper was a 64% and not a 65%. So, instead of being honest and saying that marks are practically arbitrarily assigned, I gave some roundabout answer that likely only frustrated her more.
That comment made me sound much more fascist and authoritative than I really am. I swear I love my students and don't take pleasure in torturing them.
The only thing that I worry about is that now students get access to me, after they receive their marks (with Dr. B, they only had access to him). If they get a mark ending in "9", they'll be more likely to come and complain. And as such, I'm switching to marks ending in "8".
I yell at my students all the time while I'm grading their papers (by myself, not in the classroom). It's usually something along the lines of, "How did you not catch that after we discussed it 59 times in class?!" I find it satisfying to be able to vent somehow. It's also nice to be able to voice all the scathing remarks I wish I could say, but can't for fear of destroying the self-esteem of a 7th grader.
Exactly! In the safety of my own home, before I actually write the comment, is how I vent my frustrations with the students' papers. But perhaps the lesson I learned last night will help: I need to allow myself more time for marking, meaning that I need to take more breaks. More breaks = less crazy.
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