Slow grading of writing assignments

[Anonymous]

On the subject of lazy teachers:

Today I learned that one of my colleagues (high school English) is giving his class "a week off" to do what they want in class while he grades their compositions because he doesn't want to grade at home, and he prefers to work out during his prep periods. This is his first year at our school, and I'm predicting it will be his last....but he'll get those compositions back within the week.

(I live in a different time zone than DC, so no, I am not posting at school).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:On the subject of lazy teachers:

Today I learned that one of my colleagues (high school English) is giving his class "a week off" to do what they want in class while he grades their compositions because he doesn't want to grade at home, and he prefers to work out during his prep periods. This is his first year at our school, and I'm predicting it will be his last....but he'll get those compositions back within the week.

(I live in a different time zone than DC, so no, I am not posting at school).

That's terrible. I hope the principal does something about him not working during his prep periods.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I did write papers in HS. Freshman year, we learned how to write a 5 paragraph essay and by junior year, we were writing our first research paper. Senior year was a lot of essays and a few research papers.

[Anonymous]

Are teachers doing copy editing in high school? What is a writing lab?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I did write papers in HS. Freshman year, we learned how to write a 5 paragraph essay and by junior year, we were writing our first research paper. Senior year was a lot of essays and a few research papers.

This is shocking. My freshmen have just submitted the first drafts of their research papers. I cannot fathom why a freshman class would be learning how to write a 5 paragraph essay (something they should have learned and practiced throughout late elementary/middle school)! Junior year is appallingly late to be learning to write a "first research paper": this is NOT college track, and not the path taken by AP or IB students.

[Anonymous]

Grading is painstaking, and facing a stack of 100 papers is hellish. It takes a ton of time outside of the normal workday.

Of course getting comments back ASAP is ideal, but it's just not feasible if the teacher has a lot of students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I did write papers in HS. Freshman year, we learned how to write a 5 paragraph essay and by junior year, we were writing our first research paper. Senior year was a lot of essays and a few research papers.

This is shocking. My freshmen have just submitted the first drafts of their research papers. I cannot fathom why a freshman class would be learning how to write a 5 paragraph essay (something they should have learned and practiced throughout late elementary/middle school)! Junior year is appallingly late to be learning to write a "first research paper": this is NOT college track, and not the path taken by AP or IB students.

It was a college prep school. Earlier doesn't always equal better. As for AP classes, they weren't that popular at my HS since it was a college prep school. Never heard of IB classes until reading DCUM.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are teachers doing copy editing in high school? What is a writing lab?

I would hope teachers would not be doing copy editing when grading an in-class times essay for high school kids (and in-class essays are an appropriate assignment for kids of many levels and won't be a million pages or even paragraphs).

Many schools have writing labs, which is a room with a teacher who helps you with writing assignments. at least in my son's school, you could go and get help with assignments, be they essays, term papers, or whatever. The teachers there can help with mechanics if that is what is needed, or with structuring arguments if that is what is needed.

Not all kids take AP or IB.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I did write papers in HS. Freshman year, we learned how to write a 5 paragraph essay and by junior year, we were writing our first research paper. Senior year was a lot of essays and a few research papers.

This is shocking. My freshmen have just submitted the first drafts of their research papers. I cannot fathom why a freshman class would be learning how to write a 5 paragraph essay (something they should have learned and practiced throughout late elementary/middle school)! Junior year is appallingly late to be learning to write a "first research paper": this is NOT college track, and not the path taken by AP or IB students.

It was a college prep school. Earlier doesn't always equal better. As for AP classes, they weren't that popular at my HS since it was a college prep school. Never heard of IB classes until reading DCUM.

College prep school = I didn't go to public school

[Anonymous]

So then, what is a reasonable expectation for the grading of one in-class essay?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I did write papers in HS. Freshman year, we learned how to write a 5 paragraph essay and by junior year, we were writing our first research paper. Senior year was a lot of essays and a few research papers.

This is shocking. My freshmen have just submitted the first drafts of their research papers. I cannot fathom why a freshman class would be learning how to write a 5 paragraph essay (something they should have learned and practiced throughout late elementary/middle school)! Junior year is appallingly late to be learning to write a "first research paper": this is NOT college track, and not the path taken by AP or IB students.

It was a college prep school. Earlier doesn't always equal better. As for AP classes, they weren't that popular at my HS since it was a college prep school. Never heard of IB classes until reading DCUM.

I don't believe you. I teach at a "college prep school", but even my friends who teach in public are not teaching freshmen to write 5 paragraph essays. What you describe is akin to saying that you first learned how to multiply single digits in 8th grade. Students learn to write the class "5 paragraph essay" in elementary/middle, and should be doing more than that in late middle school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I did write papers in HS. Freshman year, we learned how to write a 5 paragraph essay and by junior year, we were writing our first research paper. Senior year was a lot of essays and a few research papers.

This is shocking. My freshmen have just submitted the first drafts of their research papers. I cannot fathom why a freshman class would be learning how to write a 5 paragraph essay (something they should have learned and practiced throughout late elementary/middle school)! Junior year is appallingly late to be learning to write a "first research paper": this is NOT college track, and not the path taken by AP or IB students.

It was a college prep school. Earlier doesn't always equal better. As for AP classes, they weren't that popular at my HS since it was a college prep school. Never heard of IB classes until reading DCUM.

I don't believe you. I teach at a "college prep school", but even my friends who teach in public are not teaching freshmen to write 5 paragraph essays. What you describe is akin to saying that you first learned how to multiply single digits in 8th grade. Students learn to write the class "5 paragraph essay" in elementary/middle, and should be doing more than that in late middle school.

I don't care if you don't believe me. I went to a Catholic middle school and then a different Catholic prep school. This was in the late 80s/early 90s. Nobody I knew was writing 5 paragraph essays in elementary school. I think I remember writing 2-3 paragraphs summaries in my middle school classes for our independent reading books but we spent nearly all of 8th grade diagramming sentences. Good fun! Hell, we were still reading from basal readers in middle school. The first time I read a real novel in school was in 8th grade when I was pulled out of class for enrichment. We read The Once and Future King. I was so excited for high school since we got a book list for summer reading and while I read plenty of books on my own or for outside of school book reports, we didn't read actual books in school.

[Anonymous]

Two-weeks is not too long.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I did write papers in HS. Freshman year, we learned how to write a 5 paragraph essay and by junior year, we were writing our first research paper. Senior year was a lot of essays and a few research papers.

This is shocking. My freshmen have just submitted the first drafts of their research papers. I cannot fathom why a freshman class would be learning how to write a 5 paragraph essay (something they should have learned and practiced throughout late elementary/middle school)! Junior year is appallingly late to be learning to write a "first research paper": this is NOT college track, and not the path taken by AP or IB students.

It was a college prep school. Earlier doesn't always equal better. As for AP classes, they weren't that popular at my HS since it was a college prep school. Never heard of IB classes until reading DCUM.

I don't believe you. I teach at a "college prep school", but even my friends who teach in public are not teaching freshmen to write 5 paragraph essays. What you describe is akin to saying that you first learned how to multiply single digits in 8th grade. Students learn to write the class "5 paragraph essay" in elementary/middle, and should be doing more than that in late middle school.

I don't care if you don't believe me. I went to a Catholic middle school and then a different Catholic prep school. This was in the late 80s/early 90s. Nobody I knew was writing 5 paragraph essays in elementary school. I think I remember writing 2-3 paragraphs summaries in my middle school classes for our independent reading books but we spent nearly all of 8th grade diagramming sentences. Good fun! Hell, we were still reading from basal readers in middle school. The first time I read a real novel in school was in 8th grade when I was pulled out of class for enrichment. We read The Once and Future King. I was so excited for high school since we got a book list for summer reading and while I read plenty of books on my own or for outside of school book reports, we didn't read actual books in school.

You had a decidedly sub par education in writing/English; "diagramming sentences" does not take the place of learning to write, and it is bizarre that this is all you did in 8th grade. Your experience is NOT typical, and you will not find any "college prep" school, or even public school, with an English/writing curriculum anything like what you describe. Just accept that your situation was atypical/not ideal, and hope your children's schools are doing better.

Incidentally, I'm guessing that your Catholic school was in a small town, and that your 8th grade class spent the day mainly in one classroom, with a single class teacher who taught most of the classes throughout the day, right? This would be a person with an Elementary Education degree, and no real understanding of how writing/English should be taught in Middle school. This is also not what most posters and teachers consider a "college prep" school. I have some friends who teach at schools like this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I did write papers in HS. Freshman year, we learned how to write a 5 paragraph essay and by junior year, we were writing our first research paper. Senior year was a lot of essays and a few research papers.

This is shocking. My freshmen have just submitted the first drafts of their research papers. I cannot fathom why a freshman class would be learning how to write a 5 paragraph essay (something they should have learned and practiced throughout late elementary/middle school)! Junior year is appallingly late to be learning to write a "first research paper": this is NOT college track, and not the path taken by AP or IB students.

It was a college prep school. Earlier doesn't always equal better. As for AP classes, they weren't that popular at my HS since it was a college prep school. Never heard of IB classes until reading DCUM.

I don't believe you. I teach at a "college prep school", but even my friends who teach in public are not teaching freshmen to write 5 paragraph essays. What you describe is akin to saying that you first learned how to multiply single digits in 8th grade. Students learn to write the class "5 paragraph essay" in elementary/middle, and should be doing more than that in late middle school.

I don't care if you don't believe me. I went to a Catholic middle school and then a different Catholic prep school. This was in the late 80s/early 90s. Nobody I knew was writing 5 paragraph essays in elementary school. I think I remember writing 2-3 paragraphs summaries in my middle school classes for our independent reading books but we spent nearly all of 8th grade diagramming sentences. Good fun! Hell, we were still reading from basal readers in middle school. The first time I read a real novel in school was in 8th grade when I was pulled out of class for enrichment. We read The Once and Future King. I was so excited for high school since we got a book list for summer reading and while I read plenty of books on my own or for outside of school book reports, we didn't read actual books in school.

You had a decidedly sub par education in writing/English; "diagramming sentences" does not take the place of learning to write, and it is bizarre that this is all you did in 8th grade. Your experience is NOT typical, and you will not find any "college prep" school, or even public school, with an English/writing curriculum anything like what you describe. Just accept that your situation was atypical/not ideal, and hope your children's schools are doing better.

Incidentally, I'm guessing that your Catholic school was in a small town, and that your 8th grade class spent the day mainly in one classroom, with a single class teacher who taught most of the classes throughout the day, right? This would be a person with an Elementary Education degree, and no real understanding of how writing/English should be taught in Middle school. This is also not what most posters and teachers consider a "college prep" school. I have some friends who teach at schools like this.

I went to a Catholic middle school. It was 6th-8th grade. Then I went to a Catholic preparatory school which was 9th-12th grade. There were two 8th grade classes in my middle school plus various special area teachers (art, PE, music, etc). This is pretty typical for many parish Catholic schools even now. When I graduated from high school, I met graduates of my local public high school at a summer job as a lifeguard. This high school shows up on the list that U.S. News publishes each year. Every single student was enrolled in a summer class at the local community college for remedial writing. They had graduated from high school but failed the writing test given for placement into the community college. One or two of them was also enrolled in remedial math as well all of their own dime and the credits didn't count toward graduation. I went to an Ivy League school and graduated with a 3.5 GPA so I managed to "overcome" my "sub par" education.