This week I receive my first papers from three George Mason University writing classes. The first are always the hardest, and many teachers wish they had the courage (or foolishness) to throw them down the stairs and grade according to where they land, as myth dictates.
Once papers reach our hands, they begin to gather weight. They become heavier each day, until they are processed and entered in the grade book, at which time they lose their considerable mass. The weight in their ungraded state is combined with the weight of the anxiety of the student writers, who often don’t know how or why teachers assign the grades they do.
Just as the stacks approach the weight of lead, they accrue additional poundage with the ambivalence of the graders. In deciding a grade, there is a method to that “madness,” but the method doesn’t make it any easier to give a C to a diligent student whose writing skills are just average, or an A to the obnoxious student who challenges every word other students utter during class.
And with teachers of students K-12, there is the additional poundage of parental expectation — perhaps even the hope, eloquently expressed in an email early in the year, that you, of all teachers, will be the catalyst that will bring out the incipient writing talent of Janie or Johnnie, and that no one else in the world could possibly accomplish that feat.
Lack of inspiration on the student’s part thereby reverts back onto the teacher. Bummer.
Once those papers reach critical mass and threaten to cause the teacher’s desk to crumble, the teacher picks up the first one. The first is always hard. If the teacher is smart, it won’t be the one by the student who usually hits it out of the park. It will be written by one of the underdogs — the students you root for and applaud when they rise to the challenge. Underdog achievement lightens the pile by 10 times the paper’s weight.
As teachers plow through the piles, the task goes quickly. Most of us have consistent standards we apply to grading, and wish students realized this. Once those standards are pressed into service, each consecutive paper is easier. Does it look like the last B+? Or the last C+? Just as it’s easier to buy a car once you have several for comparison, so it’s easier to grade the further down the stack you go.
When teachers finally tackle the papers, they process them with single-minded efficiency. Grading consistency is paramount, as is the final comment. Do you say “meh?” or “just OK” at the bottom?
Of course not. Grading is not meant to be punishment, contrary to popular opinion. It’s important for teachers to comment on the student’s strengths before offering criticism.
If the stars are aligned just right, and the teacher proceeds through the stacks with efficiency, the students will learn what to improve for the next paper, and what strengths they should be proud of.
Once finished, teachers sigh and know that, yet again, the Herculean task of grading weighty papers is done. For now.
Erica Jacobs, whose column appears Wednesday, teaches at George Mason University. E-mail her at [email protected].
