Time-Saving Grading Practices
Lisa Blankenship
Baruch College, (Originally delivered as a professional development workshop on Nov 2, 2017)
• Writer’s Reflective Letters
• Rubrics
• Feedback on drafts in various stages
• When and how to give grammar feedback
Using Writer’s Reflections*
Writer’s Reflections are important to Inquiry-based learning, providing a space for the writer to seriously think about and reflect on his or her writing and its effect. Writer’s Reflections are extremely useful, both for the student and instructor. For students, these reflections provide a space to explain why they approached the assignment as they did, to note what they did well in the assignment, and to indicate where they would like constructive criticism. For teachers, these reflections serve as a useful guide for the reading and evaluation processes.
Writer’s Reflections should be included with each long paper assignment, and help students prepare for the final reflection essay at the end of the semester. However, there is no one right way to assign the Writer’s Reflection, though making them an important part of the final project or paper encourages students to take them—and reflection as a whole—more seriously.
To make writer’s reflections an important part of the writing process, determine your purpose for assigning them, and state your expectations explicitly in the assignment or in a separate handout to guide students toward reflective responses. You could ask the following kinds of questions in the writer’s reflection prompt, but do not overwhelm students with too many at a time:
• What is the thesis and purpose of your essay? Remember that these are not exactly the same. Your thesis is what you’re arguing; your purpose is what you’re trying to
accomplish with your piece.
• Who is your audience and how did you adapt your writing to them? (point to specific examples)
• What did you do well in the essay? What could you improve upon in the essay?
• What sentence or paragraph do you think is most effective and why? What sentence do you find the least effective and why?
• How and why did you employ specific rhetorical strategies (e.g., enthymeme, ethos,
pathos) in your writing to persuade your audience?
• What strategies did you use to invent ideas for and explore revisions of this essay? Which invention and revision strategies work best for you? Why?
• What kind of feedback would be most helpful to you as a writer?
• What have you learned through writing this paper? How have your views about the issue changed through writing?
Specific questions can be useful in that they often ask students to point to specific moments in their papers or in their writing processes, helping to avoid the possibility of vague or vacuous reflection. A question-and-answer format is not the only approach to Writer’s Reflections, however. Another possible form is a reflection, written to readers (such as the instructor), an interested party, or even the student’s friends or family. Consider inviting students to address future or past writing identities; think about how creative applications of self-evaluation can be encouraged throughout the semester by developing alternative genres for the Writer’s Reflection. Text annotation – where a student creates commentary alongside her writing – or “pop-up video” style analysis of rhetorical choices offers students a process-centered approach to self-evaluation and can help them see the value and role of meta-analysis as one composes. Designing rubrics for self-reflection is another possible method of guiding self-inquiry. Consider constructing a table for students using the questions above as areas or topics of ongoing reflection to help focus their thinking.
Another possibility is having students write a reflection to you in which they grade themselves and provide a brief rationale for their grade. This way, you can 1) see how they perceive their own writing and your evaluation of it; 2) set up a conference with a student if his or her perceived grade is drastically different from your assigned grade—there is an obvious misunderstanding between your expectation and the student’s perception of those expectations that you can clear up in a conference; and 3) if they give themselves a lower grade, they might go back and try to make it better before they turn in their paper.
Whichever approach you take, the key idea here is to experiment with different kinds of Writer’s Reflections, to guide and promote self-reflection and to help students understand the value of thinking critically about one’s rhetorical choices. You might even to ask students what kind of Writer’s Reflections they find more helpful; just remember that Writer’s Reflections exist to get students to thoughtfully consider their writing and examine what drives the choices they make when they have rhetorical agency, so reflection should always be at the core of these letters, annotations, essays, or arguments.
*Adapted from Miami University Teacher’s Guide, Volume 66, 2013-14, Oxford, Ohio (21)
ENG 2100: Writing I
Section STRB • Fall 2015 • Blankenship
Paper 3 Assignment: Research-Based Argument
Our discussion and writing thus far have centered around the idea of “race”—its political and social implications and inequalities that result from racial categorization. Inequalities and injustices exist based on a variety of factors—among them class and gender as we’ve discussed—but in this research project I want to you focus primarily on race. Your assignment is to research a question or series of questions about race and make an argument about some aspect of that topic.
For example, you may decide to focus on stop-and-frisk, “Driving While Black,” the prison industrial complex, the Black Lives Matter movement in relation to other civil rights movements, access to jobs and affirmative action, education issues related to race, or race in film, television, and social media. A research question centered on race and social media could be: Would the Black Lives Matter movement exist without social media and cell phone technology? Remember that your research and thinking on this topic should result in a conclusion that you argue for in the form of a thesis and should be something about which people could disagree. In other words, your research questions could start with basic information about a topic, but your thesis should be complex enough that someone could not find an answer to it with a Google search.
This assignment connects to the larger goals for this course, including skills associated with critical thinking and reading (engaging with credible sources to help shape your own views), drawing conclusions based on compelling evidence, developing a position and tailoring your prose to fit a particular rhetorical situation and audience (in this case an academic research paper written for an academic audience), supporting your position/claim with compelling evidence, organizing your writing in logical and coherent ways, and revising and editing your writing so that your ideas evolve over a period of time rather than writing a paper right before it’s due.
Relatedly, your grade for this paper will consist of a number of elements: your prospectus, your Reflective Annotated Bibliographies, your drafts, your writer’s letters, and your ability to revise your work based on the feedback you receive.
GRADING CRITERIA I’ll use to assess how well you’ve accomplished the goals for this
project.
● CLEAR CLAIM: It’s clear that you have researched your topic and thought about it from a number of perspectives. You draw a conclusion from your research and experience and develop a clear, arguable claim (thesis). (30% of grade)
● QUALITY AND INTEGRATION OF SOURCES: You summarize, paraphrase, and quote
directly in syntactically sophisticated and ethical ways from the sources you’ve used for your research (at least 8 sources, 3 of which should be peer-reviewed, academic. These sources should represent a variety of perspectives and should be credible for this rhetorical context (an academic essay) (20%)
● SUPPORT FOR YOUR THESIS/ARGUMENT: You provide rhetorically persuasive reasons
and evidence to support your thesis. This support should come from sources that will be credible to an academic audience and can include evidence from your own experience.(10%)
● COUNTERARGUMENTS: You address, in ethical and rhetorically compelling ways, the
arguments and beliefs of those who disagree with your position. (10%)
● ORGANIZATION: You organize your paragraphs in such a way that your readers can
clearly follow your main argument; your readers can easily follow how you develop and support that argument in each paragraph; you group information together that goes together; you use a new paragraph when you “switch gears” to a new subject; and you use transition words and phrases to signal to your reader where you’re going. (10%)
● STYLE/EDITING/PROOFREADING: Your writing contains few if any “to be” verbs, your
writing style is concise and compelling, and you carefully edit and proofread your final draft so that your writing signifies “Standard Written English” to your audience. (10%)
● Process/Revision/Writer’s Letters: You complete your zero and first draft, you give feedback to your peer partner(s) on theirs, and you provide your readers (your peers and me) a writer’s letters on your first draft that includes the following: your reflections on your writing process so far (how much time you’ve spent on the invention and drafting process, how “finished” the draft is, and what you still need to work on and what you’re happy with). In other words, knowing your paper will be graded using the above criteria, how well have you addressed each one of them? Note: use the concepts and terminology in the rubric above to talk about your paper and address specifically in your letter how well you’ve done on each area. You also include specific questions you have for your reviewers. For your final writer’s letter, you revisit these questions and add a detailed explanation of what you changed after getting feedback (what you revised) and what you gained from this assignment. (10%)
NOTE: You will not receive feedback or a final grade without a writer’s letter on your draft.
Project specs
• 2,400 words / ~ 8 double-spaced pages (30% of course grade)
• RefAnnBibs: (2) ~5 single spaced pages each (10% of course grade)
Important dates
• Th, 11/5: List of 4 possible sources and initial questions you want to pursue + a
Reflective Annotated Bibliographies (RefAnnBibs) for one of these sources
• Th, 11/12: Formal Prospectus and Conference with Dr. Blankenship over project
• Tues, 11/17: RefAnnBibs of at least 2 sources (1 of which should be a peer reviewed, academic source and can include your initial RefAnnBib from 11/5)
• Th, 11/19: Zero draft (notes toward a rough draft)
• Th, 11/24: First draft with writer’s letter: Must be at least 2,100 words in order
to get feedback from Prof. Blankenship
• Th, 12/3: Final, revised draft with revised writer’s letter: 2,800 words
Selected Bibliography
Anson, Chris M. “Talking about Writing: A Classroom-Based Study of Students’ Reflections on Their Drafts.” Student Self-Assessment and Development in Writing: A Collaborative Inquiry. Ed. Jane Bowman Smith and Kathleen Blake Yancey. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton P, 1997.
Emmons, Kimberly. “Rethinking Genres of Reflection: Student Portfolio Cover Letters and the Narrative of Progress.” Composition Studies 31.1 (Spring 2003): 43-62.
Howard, Rebecca Moore. “Reflexivity and Agency in Rhetoric and Pedagogy.” College
English 56.3 (March 1994): 348-55.
Harris, Joseph. “Revision as a Critical Practice.” College English 65.6 (July 2003): 577-592.
Harris, Muriel. “Composing Behaviors of One- and Multi-Draft Writers.” College English 51 (1989): 174-91.
Larson, Richard L. “Revision as Self-Assessment.” Student Self-Assessment and Development in Writing: A Collaborative Inquiry. Ed. Jane Bowman Smith and Kathleen Blake Yancey. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton P, 1997.
Lindemann, Erika. “Teaching Rewriting.” A Rhetoric for Writing Teachers. 3rd ed. New York: Oxford UP, 1995. 184-206.
Yancey, Kathleen Blake. Reflection in the Writing Classroom. Logan: Utah State UP, 1998.
Yancey, Kathleen Blake, and Meg Morgan. “Reflective Essays, Curriculum, and the Scholarship of Administration: Notes Toward Administrative Scholarly Work.” The Writing Program Administrator as Researcher. Ed. Shirley K. Rose and Irwin Weiser. Westport, CT: Heinemann Boynton/Cook, 1999. 81-94.
Straub, Richard. “Reading and Responding to Student Writing: A Heuristic for Reflective Practice.” Composition Studies 30.1 (Spring 2002): 15-60.