I am dying (metaphorically) grading freshman drafts this week. Wow. When I was grading their shorter work, I thought it wasn’t going to be bad grading just a few hundred more words. But these 1200 word first drafts are so deeply flawed that it takes me forever to press through one of them. It doesn’t help that they are the most boring things I’ve ever read. I often find myself going back and toning down my comments, because my initial comments reveal how irritated and bored I am. One student wrote about the emancipation proclamation being signed in 1963 and I wrote, “1963? So slavery was abolished right around the time the Beatles became popular? You should investigate this connection!” It was late and I was sick to death of grading at that point, but the next morning I regretted sending that comment. I intended it as a lighthearted way to remind the student to proofread, but the student probably thought I was an enormous smartass, and it could have hurt his or her feelings.
Reynold’s essay this week made me think about the social implications and messages I could potentially be sending students through my commentary. Am I making them feel inferior because I have more education than they do? Am I transmitting paternalistic and oppressive messages to students? Have I become The Man? As I briefly discussed in class, I’m a fan of feminism. I hate traditional gender roles because they limit the number of opportunities available to both women and men. Plus, I think gender roles are arbitrary and they don’t help society run more smoothly (other norms, like “don’t hurt people” increase human civility, and I appreciate those). I also believe that people are equal, regardless of their education level, gender, religious beliefs, etc. Each person has a voice, and a right to their own voice (as long as they don’t hurt people). I think it’s important to perpetuate this worldview through my commentary. Elitist, smartass comments perhaps reinforce negative power structures that prevent students from having a voice.
Sorry about that Beatles comment, student. That was out of line on my part.
I've also made a few comments I regret later--usually after I've been grading for an eternity. I don't generally write anything as pointed as you did, but my vocabulary definitely shifts. I go from "be specific" to "be less confusing." I start with "needs substantial revision" and end up at "needs a miracle." Just kidding about that last one.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I have found a solution to this problem: I only grade for two hours at a time. No matter how behind I am, I limit my time on RaiderWriter. Ultimately I end up grading in frequent but fairly short time segments. It keeps me sane, and I think it truly improves the quality of my commentary.
I totally loled at both of your posts...that's right. But yes, it's been nice to take this time in the semester to reflect on our practice. My answer to this is to make long comments that I hope sound personable, but that doesn't mean they aren't long. It also doesn't mean they sound personable. I'm not sure how to change these, either. I'm also not using emoticons--yet. It's interesting, though, that I feel the same power struggle when grading. It seems that where they might say "You don't care about my learning, you just give me grades," I might reply "You don't care about my standards, you're just finishing it to be done." I'm always reminding myself of MY purpose as a grader/teacher to keep these things in check. Like Hannah, I can only remind myself of these things about every 2 hours. After that it's a wash.
ReplyDeleteGood points all around. I feel the same way. Sometimes I think it is inefficient to write to the student what they need to do, and it gets really difficult to differentiate between the students that didn't care at all and wrote 1200 random words and the ones that made a genuine effort but just need that much help. I limit myself with RaiderWriter too, but I do it by number of assignments. If I get three done I can take a break for x amount of time. It is rough, but we'll get through.
ReplyDeleteI'll echo everyone else here and agree that RaiderWriter and the drafts are soulsuckers and very difficult to comment on to being fair and helpful, but also not too high horse sounding either. Especially through an electronic medium, messages can be relayed with different intention than they were meant, and that was something that came up in my comment ranking notes. In some of my commentary especially toward the beginning, I used exclamation marks somewhat frequently. The comment said I should try and stay away from using exclamation marks because it might send the wrong signal to the students. Did I mean the comments in a negative fashion? No, I was just merely trying to be more emphatic about certain things. Should I never use an exclamation mark again? No, I do not think that is the case either. But what do I think? I think I am just glad that I am not in freshman composition and undergrad years are far behind me.
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