Grading Students' Classroom Writing: Issues and Strategies - 0 views
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Tim Hayes on 04 Mar 12The article written by ERIC (The Educational Resources Information Center) which I must assume is a part of George Washington Univ. Washington DC. Graduate School of Education and Human Development is a broken down "checklist" of sorts. It addresses six different concerns with grading student's writing. One such concern is one I think we all might have asked ourselves at one point in time, "Why do professors need to construct effective writing assignments?"(3). The answer given to the question was interesting in that it pushed hard for effective peer reviews. While some peer review is helpful the article did address the fact that most students are unaware of how to give effective peer review. The basics of the article concerning peer review are that professors need to help students learn by example and explanation. I thought it interesting as well that the article addressed how professors can avoid giving a grade that they will have to defend after the fact, a problem for professors who grade writing without a series of rewriting stages. The solution offered is, that's right, stages of rewrites with the professor holding off giving a grade for as long as possible. One important idea brought up in the article is that "…the writing assignment should include necessary information about audience and purpose, the two pillars of writing."(3) I often wonder how we focus on the first and not the second. As the article states one of the pillars of writing is purpose, yet we seem to habitually focus on the audience and not give student's a purpose for their writing.