Slow grading of writing assignments

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are now online critiques of writing assignments. I've heard of schools where kids upload their documents and get critiqued by each other during the draft phase. This along with some teacher comments during the school day I would think would be enough and then the final can be critiqued by the teacher.

Former writing teacher here.

There are many things that would be "enough" and still be consistent with high quality teaching of writing. For starters, honor students in high school do not need copy edits from their teachers. They can just be told to fix their mechanics and sent to the writing lab. They certainly need good comments on their argument - where the analysis was good or not good, the opportunity for an appointment to discuss if confused, but they don't need their grammar edited. What they need is to rewrite, because that's how we learn.

It does not take 40 minutes to provide decent feedback on a five paragraph in-class essay, especially when all kids are writing the same essay.

[Anonymous]

Don't get me started on "peer editing" - the blind leading the blind.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are now online critiques of writing assignments. I've heard of schools where kids upload their documents and get critiqued by each other during the draft phase. This along with some teacher comments during the school day I would think would be enough and then the final can be critiqued by the teacher.

Former writing teacher here.

There are many things that would be "enough" and still be consistent with high quality teaching of writing. For starters, honor students in high school do not need copy edits from their teachers. They can just be told to fix their mechanics and sent to the writing lab. They certainly need good comments on their argument - where the analysis was good or not good, the opportunity for an appointment to discuss if confused, but they don't need their grammar edited. What they need is to rewrite, because that's how we learn.

It does not take 40 minutes to provide decent feedback on a five paragraph in-class essay, especially when all kids are writing the same essay.

Kids in middle school and high school should be writing more than 5 paragraph essays in class, no? Isn't that more of an elementary level?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Don't get me started on "peer editing" - the blind leading the blind.

I didn't say the teacher shouldn't give feedback at all. I think peer editing and some teacher editing through the draft phase is good and then the teacher can grade the final assignment. Is this any worse than the teacher below who took months to get papers back?

Op, you're lucky with 2 weeks. We've had an occasional FCPS high school English teacher take months. Months. And the Principal knows this. Nothing changes.[/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:English Teachers.

Please grade essay writing assignments quickly. When you don't, much of the opportunity for learning goes away.

We learn to write by doing it again, and again. We learn to write from editing our own work. You aren't teaching when you don't do this.

Two weeks is just too long.

Vent over.

How old are you, honey? 16?

Don't worry. You'll mature soon and develop some patience.

[Anonymous]

I have 140 students from whom I collect writing assignments. Each assignment takes 20-40 minutes to grade, so I need 47-93 hours to grade, and provide reflective feedback upon, all of the writing I collect.

Because I also have to teach during the week, I can only get approximately 4-5 hours of grading done per day (M-F). While I also, of course, grade as much as possible over the weekends, it still takes me a few weeks to get all of the assignments graded. I do get everything graded as quickly as possible, but it is a lengthy process to grade writing.

[Anonymous]

Agree with PPs that giving solid feedback, especially to developing writers, takes a significant amount of time, and the majority of that time must be carved out from out-of-school hours. I give this sort of thorough feedback after students have collaborated and shared initial ideas via GoogleDocs. It is not counted for a grade, but students do receive, in addition to lots of comments that we discuss during writing conferences in class, a rubric with present levels marked. They use this information to help them revise before they edit for subsumed skills and new skills we cover in class. It is a lengthy process that, when followed through on both ends, yields strong results.

That said, it takes time. However, it's not as though we are not continuing with other skills in class; we just spiral back to the writing once I've been able to get through them all. Two weeks is not unreasonable for this with so many classes (and, you know, families of our own to tend to).

[Anonymous]

...one of the reasons why I am a *former* MS English teacher. Takes so much time to really give good feedback -- and honestly, kids need to be writing all the time to get better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are now online critiques of writing assignments. I've heard of schools where kids upload their documents and get critiqued by each other during the draft phase. This along with some teacher comments during the school day I would think would be enough and then the final can be critiqued by the teacher.

Former writing teacher here.

There are many things that would be "enough" and still be consistent with high quality teaching of writing. For starters, honor students in high school do not need copy edits from their teachers. They can just be told to fix their mechanics and sent to the writing lab. They certainly need good comments on their argument - where the analysis was good or not good, the opportunity for an appointment to discuss if confused, but they don't need their grammar edited. What they need is to rewrite, because that's how we learn.

It does not take 40 minutes to provide decent feedback on a five paragraph in-class essay, especially when all kids are writing the same essay.

I don't know what "writing teacher" means: were you an English teacher, or something else? I do know, however, that my AP English Lit/Composition class is NOT writing five paragraph essays; the work they do--even the in-class timed exam prep--most certainly does take 30-40 minutes to read and comment upon in a way that will show the student what to correct/change for the next draft.

Maybe you were talking about elementary?

[Anonymous]

Whether the essay is 5-paragraph or not, it absolutely can take 40 minutes to grade a single essay. When I first started I easily spent over an hour on an assignment, and now, even 15 years in, it takes me 20 minutes to read a couple times, determine what the writer needs to prioritize in revision, and then determine how to communicate that effectively.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are now online critiques of writing assignments. I've heard of schools where kids upload their documents and get critiqued by each other during the draft phase. This along with some teacher comments during the school day I would think would be enough and then the final can be critiqued by the teacher.

Former writing teacher here.

There are many things that would be "enough" and still be consistent with high quality teaching of writing. For starters, honor students in high school do not need copy edits from their teachers. They can just be told to fix their mechanics and sent to the writing lab. They certainly need good comments on their argument - where the analysis was good or not good, the opportunity for an appointment to discuss if confused, but they don't need their grammar edited. What they need is to rewrite, because that's how we learn.

It does not take 40 minutes to provide decent feedback on a five paragraph in-class essay, especially when all kids are writing the same essay.

Kids in middle school and high school should be writing more than 5 paragraph essays in class, no? Isn't that more of an elementary level?

I didn't write a 5 paragraph essay until my freshman year of HS and I ended up at an Ivy League school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Whether the essay is 5-paragraph or not, it absolutely can take 40 minutes to grade a single essay. When I first started I easily spent over an hour on an assignment, and now, even 15 years in, it takes me 20 minutes to read a couple times, determine what the writer needs to prioritize in revision, and then determine how to communicate that effectively.

We are talking about an in-class essay, right?

The reality is still that the value of the comments erodes with every passing day until the kids just don't care anymore and reasonable rewrite opportunities are lost. It is great that you want to be so thorough; there are trade-offs, though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Whether the essay is 5-paragraph or not, it absolutely can take 40 minutes to grade a single essay. When I first started I easily spent over an hour on an assignment, and now, even 15 years in, it takes me 20 minutes to read a couple times, determine what the writer needs to prioritize in revision, and then determine how to communicate that effectively.

We are talking about an in-class essay, right?

The reality is still that the value of the comments erodes with every passing day until the kids just don't care anymore and reasonable rewrite opportunities are lost. It is great that you want to be so thorough; there are trade-offs, though.

Yup, and I've learned over time to hone in on the most important comments, but it still takes a long time. 15-20min/paper with marginal and end comments is pretty standard.

[Anonymous]

I completely agree, and unfortunately it depends on the teacher. In elementary, children have such short attention spans that if teachers don't grade it that very week, it's gone! In 3rd and 4th grade, that was a huge problem. Work would trickle in a month later, and DS would have completely forgotten the point of the exercise. Thankfully, the 5th grade teacher always gets the week's work out every Friday.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are now online critiques of writing assignments. I've heard of schools where kids upload their documents and get critiqued by each other during the draft phase. This along with some teacher comments during the school day I would think would be enough and then the final can be critiqued by the teacher.

Former writing teacher here.

There are many things that would be "enough" and still be consistent with high quality teaching of writing. For starters, honor students in high school do not need copy edits from their teachers. They can just be told to fix their mechanics and sent to the writing lab. They certainly need good comments on their argument - where the analysis was good or not good, the opportunity for an appointment to discuss if confused, but they don't need their grammar edited. What they need is to rewrite, because that's how we learn.

It does not take 40 minutes to provide decent feedback on a five paragraph in-class essay, especially when all kids are writing the same essay.

Kids in middle school and high school should be writing more than 5 paragraph essays in class, no? Isn't that more of an elementary level?

I didn't write a 5 paragraph essay until my freshman year of HS and I ended up at an Ivy League school.

My fourth grader has been working on 5 paragraph essays all year and we've heard other schools start in 3rd grade. By high school kids should be writing papers.