1. Making Grading Work.
- Author
-
Lotto, Edward and Smith, Bruce
- Abstract
Two teachers have developed a procedure for grading student compositions that seems fairer to both them and their students. The students are given a choice of which papers they wish to submit for grading, and when they do submit work, the papers are identified by a number only (chosen by the student and indexed in a class card file). Each teacher grades each anonymous paper holistically, and the average of the two grades is recorded (when grades differ by more than one full letter grade, the teachers discuss their reasons for the grade and reach a compromise grade). After the grades are assigned, the papers are sorted by class (identified now by student name), and the teachers provide comments to their own students' compositions. The teachers find that making grading a separate anonymous action enables them to focus on each student's particular writing needs without having to hesitate or agonize about awarding a grade. The procedure also eliminates "personalities" as a factor in grading, since teachers don't know whose paper they are grading and are not solely responsible for the grades. Students, on the whole, have reacted positively to this system, noting its extreme fairness and the increased freedom it gives them. The teachers consider the best indication of the success of this procedure to be the fact that they will continue to use it. (RL)
- Published
- 1979