HANDLING THE PAPER LOAD
The kind of patient work that goes into
devising appropriate assignments and responding to them intelligently
does take more time than other kinds of teaching. But it need not pose
impossible burdens. And some work that faculty undertake with the best
intentions is actually counter-productive to the goals of
improving student writing and thinking.
Some faculty may think . . .
That conscientious teaching requires marking all grammar and language
errors.
But research shows . . .
Students can catch more than 60% of their own errors if they are taught
to proofread and held to appropriate standards of correctness. By
marking every error, we are actually training our students to rely on us
as copy-editors. Teachers may instead
- mark errors on the first page only
- mark representative errors
- place checks in the margins where
errors occur
- look over a set of papers quickly
and return error-laden essays for proofreading and correction
- use style editors or other software
packages to scan student writing for error. (This last strategy
requires some awareness of the limitations of these programs)
- create peer editing groups in their
classes (See the Mānoa Writing Program’s Peer
Review and Feedback Groups at UH Mānoa - either the brief
or full version.)
Some faculty may think . . .
That teachers need to read everything that students write.
But research shows . . .
Students can be asked to write for brief periods at the beginning or
end of a class to help them focus or achieve closure. When discussion
lags or reaches an impasse, students can be asked to write out a
response to share. Students can bring to class written definitions of
key terms to debate or questions to stimulate discussion. This kind of
informal writing need not even be collected. Its purpose is to
stimulate discussion and encourage active engagement with the
material. (See the Mānoa Writing Program’s Freewriting
and/or Teaching with Journals.)
Some faculty may think . . .
That teachers need to evaluate every piece of writing they collect.
But research shows . . .
Students tend not to read lengthy instructor comments, especially if
they will not be allowed to use those comments in composing an
additional draft. Non-evaluated assignments can work well and even be
the most frequent type of writing used in a writing-intensive class.
For example, journals and informal writings, if collected, can be
evaluated using a "minimal marking" scheme (i.e., points for
completing the assignment plus extra points or a "+" for an
insightful response). Or students can be awarded credit for the number
of entries submitted, and they can single out a limited number of
these for closer scrutiny, grading, and response. For more ideas, see
the Writing Activities to Get Students
Thinking and Learning.
Some faculty may think . . .
That more is better in terms of how much teachers respond and how
thoroughly they address the conceptual problems of the essay.
But research shows . . .
That students are often overwhelmed and paralyzed when they receive
essays on which the instructor's comments trail into every margin and
leave a depressing map of error and negative response. Even when
response is positive, saying too much is often confusing. It is better
to choose two or three elements of the essay to focus on, giving
highly specific constructive advice or commentary, than to attempt to
cover all possible areas of concern. (See the Mānoa Writing
Program’s Responding to Student
Writing.)
Some faculty may think . . .
That requiring two drafts of an essay doubles the work.
But research shows . . .
That students usually attend to comments only when they are given a
chance to revise. Otherwise, they are likely to give a one-minute
glance to the remarks you spent twenty minutes writing--or worse
still, look at the grade and toss the essay. It makes more sense, then
to invest time and energy responding to the first draft and to make
these comments truly facilitative. Respond to the final draft only
briefly, and let these comments be more evaluative. For more
information, see the Mānoa Writing Program’s Writing
and Research.
Some faculty may think . . .
That "writing-intensive" means that students should do 3-5
separate, unrelated assignments, each one entailing extensive time
commitments in devising assignments and responding to them.
But research shows . . .
That students often benefit most when the work of the semester can be
conceived as one project, phased in stages or logical sequences.
Moving through a logical sequence of assignments is one way to
increase the level of conceptual difficulty gradually, and to ensure
that students build on material they have studied in earlier portions
of the syllabus. It is more cost-effective for instructors as well,
since in some cases they will have seen and responded to smaller
components of a project before the cumulative work comes in. (See the
Mānoa Writing Program’s Effective
Writing Assignments.)
(This page is adapted from Virginia
Tech’s University Writing Program, on the Web.) |
