I went through some of my scored essays recently, and some of the commentary I saw seemed rather basic. I had a few I immediately threw away because all I got was a few underlines. I love the huge group discussion setting, but there just isn't enough accountability for detailed review because of the large mass of essays we have to grade. I would like to be told that my paragraphs had limited diction instead of being given an 8 because it was the third longest one in the packet and no one wanted to really read it. I mean, I didn't really want to either.
Should I go through this again, I would have liked to have done a two staged review session (for at least the first for each type of essay)- after we type up our essay, we give it to a partner. The partner takes home just our essay and spends a good amount of time revising it, showing us our flaws and helping us achieve our nine. We spend the next day in class working out kinks, and then print out our revised copy and give it to you for grading. Not only will the class' average increase (something that has put my grade in jeopardy before), but we will receive a more individualized and specific feedback in addition to the overall general one we were receiving anyways. I did this with a few essays my first time grading and loved it. Many essays were so wordy I crossed out whole sections of the essay and wrote my ideas to make it more concise and effective. It may not have helped the author, maybe offended them a bit, but it certainly helped me recognize the same patterns in my own writing and to eliminate those.
good feedback. it's difficult to meet the needs of so many when so many don't "do the work" as you say, the feedback you received was minimal even though not much was required - 4 essay a night really isn't that much but far too many people won't do the work and when i'm already reading 65 essays, i'm not sure how to effectively hold people accountable for their grading/feedback. the names at the bottom are intended to create some accountability - if you know friend A didn't write anything you can, good-naturedly of course, call em out for it. anyway - thanks for the feedback. any further suggestions would be welcome.
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