This week’s readings didn’t elicit much of a response from me. Possibly because rather than revolving around a heated issue, they simply gave very helpful tips for evaluating the work of students. Walk’s piece was particularly useful in making me think of commenting on a student’s paper more as a conversation that I am having, not with the paper, but with the student her or himself. “Marginal comments are by nature dialogic,” Walk says, and I cannot but think of the innumerable comments I received on my papers and how much they helped me develop as a writer. Nevertheless, one of the most fruitful experiences I had in my composition class came from actually sitting down with the Professor and going over my essay. I think these kinds of meetings are invaluable because they allow both parties to express themselves in ways that because of time or other factors, doing so in writing makes harder. 

The chapter of the SMG was also quite helpful (as were the rubrics in there!!), especially in its insistence on designing clear assignments, since, in many ways, we get what we ask for. The different criteria for grading were very interesting, too. I, for instance, had never heard of contract grading, and although I am not necessarily a big proponent of it, I do think it allows us to think of the process in a different, more personalized way. This, I guess, leads to the broader question of grading in general, and the seeming contradictions between the aim for individual attention and the need for standardization in education. But this, I think, is a different story…