How can I better familiarize students with the grading process so that they develop skills to assess their own written work and are less confused when they receive grades from me?
When it comes to student writing, we want students to understand not only the goals for our assignments, but also the criteria by which we will evaluate them. Developing a rubric, and then sharing that rubric with students, is a good start. However, students still may be unclear about “what you mean” by various criteria. Frequently, students think they understand the assignment requirements based on successes they had in other writing contexts, but end up frustrated when they are not awarded the grade they think they’ve earned. Below you’ll find some suggestions for facilitating students’ deeper understanding of grading criteria and some tips for giving them a chance to practice applying those criteria to their own and their classmates’ writing.
Tomorrow: Go over the grading criteria you will use to assess an assignment in class referencing specific examples that fail or meet your expectations. Bring examples at various levels of proficiency so students can see and discuss both their obvious and subtle characteristics. For example, examine differences between an excellent thesis and an average thesis.
Next Week: Bring in a completed sample assignment from a previous quarter, and have your students work in groups to grade that assignment according to your rubric or stated course and assignment goals. Give students a chance to look over the sample assignment and to take notes about what they think worked well and what could use improvement. Then, have students get into pairs or small groups to grade the assignment together based on the rubric and/or stated criteria that you will use for assessment. Ask each small group to find and evaluate specific places in the sample assignment relevant to each criterion. After each group has had a chance to “grade” the sample assignment, bring the class together for a large group discussion. Encourage the class as a whole to attempt to reach a consensus on a final grade for the paper.
Next Quarter: After spending time introducing students to course goals and to excellent research and writing in your discipline, develop rubrics in collaboration with them. Remind them of the course goals and ask them to think about the ways the assignment reflects those goals. One option is to give them a rubric that is partially filled out. You can include the different levels of success (e.g. “exceptional,” “good,” “average,” “needs improvement”) and have them work together as a class to generate criteria, qualities, characteristics and point distributions for selected aspects of the writing process (such as thesis, organization, ideas, mechanics, style, etc.).
Let Students Know About the Writing Center: If your students need a little extra assistance meeting your expectations and developing as writers in your class and in the discipline, the OSU Writing Center can be a valuable resource. This website includes a blurb you could put on your syllabus about the Writing Center, and you’ll also find a link where you can schedule a brief informational classroom presentation from a Writing Center representative: http://cstw.osu.edu/writingcenter/classvisit. The Writing Center aims to help students become better writers, and part of that process is helping them evaluate how their writing meets (or does not meet) instructor-identified criteria. So please let your students know about the Writing Center!
More Ways the WAC Team Can Help You: See an archive of our past tip e-mails at: http://cstw.osu.edu/taxonomy/term/40. For more ideas about how you might implement writing and assessment activities please contact us to schedule an individual consultation. To further our aim of facilitating dialogue about teaching writing, we offer workshops with faculty and graduate teaching associates that tackle issues involving the teaching of writing in various academic genres. We also can co-facilitate in-class presentations for your students, demonstrating innovative approaches to writing instruction and lending students strategies for overcoming challenges with assignments.
Upcoming Events: This quarter, the WAC Team and the University Center for the Advancement of Teaching will be sponsoring a series on Writing as a College Teaching Tool:
Have a great quarter,
The WAC Team
Dr. Chris Manion, WAC Coordinator
Lindsay Bernhagen, Comparative Studies
Mara Gross, Art Education
Deborah Petrone, Education: Teaching and Learning
Courtnie Wolfgang, Art Education