The "how-to" on Grading

Christensen's little secret is that she does not grade papers. As a future educator, reading that can seems a little far fetched simply because we do issue report cards and we do have to assess our students writing somehow! The system that she promotes or encourages is instead of correcting with our notorious red pen all of the errors the student made, we should start with what our students do right. Not only what they do right but what are their strengths in their writing before completely faltering a students confidence to write. We don't want our students to "clam up" and want to avoid writing at all costs, considering many are hesitant to write as it is. We can point out what is working and in the areas that could use improvement, give actual feedback. Some ways she suggests is to write questions to encourage deeper thinking and writing. Having these questions not only is concrete feedback, but from personal experience, can be very helpful when editing or revising a paper. It allows the student to understand what the teacher is looking for but also HOW to go about adding and editing their work.

Christensen also brings up a great conversation around the language of power. As ELA teachers, we will have students from multitudes of backgrounds with different home languages and a vernacular we may not be accustomed to. As we have talked about many times, we should not discourage the range of languages and vernacular in our classrooms because in doing so, we may lose the "meaningful" aspect of our students writing if forced to only write in Marketplace English. With that being said, we cannot forget that being ELA teachers, we are responsible for teaching our students these conventions and grammar in order for them to succeed. A great way Christensen introduces the idea of correcting is by using a Patterns of Error sheet that students will have access to when revising their work. These patterns allow students to monitor their corrections as well as for teachers to monitor their progress. Finding the patterns of errors will give teachers insights into why the students are making these mistakes, as well as give students the skills to develop a habit of self checking their small grammatical/conventional mistakes.

Hawley Turner and Hicks also add great insights on the importance of using technology in a purposeful and realistic way when using it for writing. If we create a rubric with exact checkboxes to check off (the example they use is how many slides/images/ etc) students will either 'over do' it or will add anything just to meet the requirements. This does not constitute as Meaningful Writing assignment. We have to find ways to ensure that our assignments are purposeful and have the capacity to feel their writing is meaningful and will be something they want to work on. Whether its a video production, blog, voice over, etc we have to remember why we are assigning it and what we want students to leave with. These readings definitely got me thinking about my MWP and the possibilities in our units!