Regarding a Grading Practice of Mine

When I mark student work, I tend to make end-comments more frequently than I do in-line or sidebar comments.  What usually happens is that I develop a digital form which I keep open in a window alongside that in which I open the document I am evaluating, and as I read the latter, I make comments in the former.  From those comments, I determine the assessment I will accord to the student document, and the score and my comments are appended to the end of the student document before I send it back to the student and enter the grade into my records.  This allows me to evaluate papers fairly quickly while still allowing for reasonably thorough assessment.

It also allows me to set up yet more practice for my students.  I have found that when I do leave in-line or sidebar comments, my students make no other adjustments to their papers than the things specifically commented-upon.  When there are systemic issues, they are not corrected throughout the students' papers, and the students tend to repeat the same errors in future work.  (Too, if I do miss one or two errors--as happens, since I am but human--they are not corrected when the students go back over their work if all the students do is "fix" what is marked.)  Offering end-comments, however, denies the students the easy fix-what-is-marked-and-everything-else-is-fine option for correction.  It requires students, if they will actually work to improve upon their papers (and several have told me that they do not), to read through their work carefully, paying attention not only to the surface-level concerns that they and many members of the general public equate with "good" writing, but to the deeper issues of content and style that actually make for good writing.  Admittedly, it involves more work for students, prompting complaints (oddly frequently from the same students who will beg for extra credit opportunities), but it also involves the kind of self-evaluation and assessment that typifies good writing, meaning that it is a valuable exercise for students to do.

Beginning Comments Regarding the Spring 2014 Term at Oklahoma State University

I have received my teaching schedule for the Spring 2014 term at Oklahoma State University.  As of this writing, I am teaching the following:

• ENGL 1113: Composition I (two sections)
• ENGL 2543: Survey of British Literature I (one section)

Now that I am back from my own break, I am at work putting together materials for the class new to me and revising materials from classes I have taught before so that I can improve my performance in the coming term.  Some (hopefully) useful information is already online.

Calendars for the upcoming term are not among the materials currently posted.  I do not anticipate being away from classes for conference work this term, but I do expect to be called away for one or two class meetings in late March for family business.  The date is yet to be determined, although the event is expected.  More information in that regard will be posted as it becomes available.

Until then, please check this webspace and the course pages for updates and additional information.  I look forward to returning to the work of teaching.

Yet More Concluding Comments for the Fall 2013 Term at Oklahoma State University

More preliminary results from my Fall 2013 classes are available. For my ENGL 3323: Technical Writing classes, of which I had two, the following is true:

• Total end-of-term enrollment: 35 (17 in earlier section, 18 in later)
• Average course grade: B (819/1000 in earlier section, 787/1000 in later)
• Number of students earning A (900+/1000 points): 0
• Number of students earning F (<600/1000 points): 1, for procedural reasons

What I am to make of the data is still not clear to me.

More Concluding Comments for the Fall 2013 Term at Oklahoma State University

Some preliminary results from my Fall 2013 classes are available.  For my ENGL 1113: Composition I classes, of which I had two, the following is true:

• Total end-of-term enrollment: 33 (15 in earlier section, 18 in later)
• Average course grade: C (715/1000 in earlier section, 752/1000 in later)
• Number of students earning A (900+/1000 points): 0
• Number of students earning F (<600/1000 points): 2, both for procedural reasons

What I am to make of the data is not yet clear to me.

Some Concluding Comments for the Fall 2013 Term at Oklahoma State University

I realize that I have been far from diligent in maintaining this webspace this term.  I will not make excuses for the deficiency, although I will note that it seems to have not affected student performance substantially; the average grades in the four classes I taught this term seem to be much as they were at comparable institutions, as does the distribution of individual assignment grades.  I take some small comfort in knowing that my deficiency has not translated into student deficiency.

Even so, I am annoyed by my lack of performance even more than I have in the past been with demonstrated lacks from my students.  They are in a position to learn, and so errors from them are to be expected.  I am still learning--I am not so arrogant as to believe that I know all that I need to know--but I am supposed to have demonstrated a work ethic superior to that I expect of my students, here and elsewhere.  That I have not done so galls me, despite the lack of actual and enforceable consequences upon me for the lack.

There is perhaps a teachable thing in this.  Even if I am not strictly accountable to others for what I do or do not do here, I am accountable to myself for my in/actions.  The intrinsic motivation demonstrated (if abortively) is something I hope that my students will develop in their own lives as readers and writers; to truly engage with the written word requires that the reason for doing so come from within rather than without.  Indeed, the purpose of the external motivation of the GPA and accolade is to get students--any of us who read and write, really--accustomed to engaging with text so that the internal drive to attend to text and respond to it in kind can be given mental space and material to develop.

Even if it is the case that the internal motivation sometimes falters, as I have shown this term, it is the only real means to find an authentic readerly method and writerly voice, and it is towards the development of those in my students that my teaching is in no small part directed.