A great teacher can mark up a paper to encourage a student who needs it and let good students know they can do better."I can make a C+ feel like a Congressional medal of Honor and I can also make an A- feel a slap in the face," said the great poet and teacher Taylor Malick.
Step 1: Major and minor errors are different.
Sometimes called "higher" and "lower" concerns, it's important to prioritize major issues like content, creative thinking, and organization over more minor issues.The grade-level of your students, the assignment, and their individual concerns are some of the things that affect these designations.It's perfectly fine to call that a "higher" concern if you're in the middle of a unit.A basic writing assignment should focus on the higher concerns.
Step 2: Don't mark the paper by reading it through once.
It can be tempting to slap Bs on everything when you have a stack of 50 or 100 papers to go through and another pile of quizzes to finish and lessons to plan.Resist the temptation.Before marking anything, read through each essay individually.The student needs to address the prompt and fulfill the assignment effectively.Does the student think outside the box?Does the student state their thesis clearly?Is the thesis developed over the course of the assignment?Is the writer giving evidence?Does the paper show evidence of revision or is it a first draft?
Step 3: There is a red pen in your desk.
Getting an assignment back that looks like someone bled all over it can be a source of great anxiety in the life of a student.Some teachers think red asserts authority.That may be true, but there are other ways to show your authority.Marking essays in pencil can suggest that the issues are easily fixable, keeping the student looking forward rather than dwelling on their success or failure.It's appropriate to use a pencil, blue, or black pen.
Step 4: Use your pencil to read through the paper.
Comments, criticisms, and questions should be written in the margins.Find moments where the writer needs to clarify or circle them.Asking questions should be as specific as possible."What?""What do you mean by'some societies'?" is a better question to ask in the margin.
Step 5: Proofread for usage and other lower-order concerns.
When you've addressed the most important issues of the essay, feel free to mark some lower-order concerns.Depending on the grade-level of the essays and the skill level of your students, these may be more or less important.Some teachers use the first page as a starting point for a new paragraph.If there are sentence-level issues, mark them on the first page and stop marking them throughout the essay.
Step 6: No more than one comment per paragraph and a note at the end is required.
The goal of comments is to point out the strengths and weaknesses of a student's writing and to offer them concrete strategies to improve their work.shredding apart a failed paragraph with a red pen is not going to accomplish any of these aims.marginal comments can be used to point out points in the essay that the student could improve on.The best way to summarize your comments is to use a paragraph note at the end.Comments shouldn't justify a letter grade.Don't start a note "You got a C because...".It's not your job to defend the grade.Rather than looking at the successes or failures of the assignment, use the comments to look toward revision and the next assignment.
Step 7: You can find something to say good things about.
Try to encourage the student by finding something they have done well.The student will be more likely to repeat the behavior if they see exclamation points or "Good job" on an essay.You can always praise their topic selection if you can't find anything.Good choice!
Step 8: There are three main issues that need to be addressed in your note.
Don't force your student to fix every single thing that needs to be fixed even if they have written a terrible paper.Try not to focus on more than three areas of improvement.This will give the student concrete strategies to improve.When you give your first read-through, try to figure out what the three points are to make it easier to read the paper.
Step 9: Revision should be encouraged.
Direct your comments toward the next essay or a re-write of the current essay if that fits in with the assignment, instead of focusing on everything the student did wrong in an essay."Make sure to organize your paragraphs according to the argument you're making" is a better comment than "Your paragraphs are disorganized."
Step 10: There is a rubric that you can use.
A rubric assigns numerical values to various criteria used to make up the letter grade, usually based on a scale of 100.To get a letter grade, you assign numerical values to each section.Making the students aware of the rubric used will keep the process transparent and eliminate the idea that you pull arbitrary grades out of nowhere.A rubric might look like this: thesis and argument, organization and paragraphs, introduction and conclusion, and sources and citations.
Step 11: Give a description of the letter grade.
The students can see a description of what an A means.Write according to your criteria for the class.Give it to the students so they can read it.A (100-90): Work completes all of the requirements in an original and creative manner.The student taking extra initiative in forming content, organization, and style is shown in the work at this level.Work completes the requirements of the assignment.Work at this level is successful in terms of content, but may need some improvement in style and organization.Less of the author's original thought and creativity can be found in a B.Work completes most of the requirements.Though the content, organization, and style are logical and coherent, they may require some revision and may not reflect a high level of creativity on the part of the author.Work doesn't meet the requirements of the assignment, or it fails to meet them at all.Work at this level requires a lot of revision and is unsuccessful in content, organization, and style.Work doesn't meet the requirements of the assignment.Students who put forth genuine effort will not receive an F.
Step 12: The last thing the student sees is the grade.
After they've seen the rubric and your comments, put the grade at the end of the paper.Slapping a big letter grade at the top near the title will ensure that the student won't go through and read all the smart and helpful comments you've included.Some teachers like to give out papers at the end of the day because they don't want their students to be distracted.Give the students time to go through the papers in class so they can talk about their grades after class.They will be able to read and understand your comments.