Q+A: Writing Every Day, Grading, and Giving Feedback (AMLE24)
How do I grade writing? How do I give feedback? And how do students write every day?
Preface: As of this writing, I’m still bouncing back from the flu and my voice sounds awful. I’m not sure if I’ll record this one. Sorry!
Introduction
Last week I had the privilege to present at AMLE24 at the Opryland Hotel in Nashville, TN. For those who are unfamiliar, AMLE stands for the Association for Middle Level Education, who, according to their site, “is the only international organization of its kind for middle school educators.” According to the conference app, some 2,500+ educators from across the nation attended.
For reference, my hometown has only 2,000 people.
Whereas I’ve only previously spoken around Indiana, this was my first national conference. My talk “Help! I don’t know how to teach writing!” was well attended. According to the app, some 99 folks signed up, and I’m sure at least 75 or so packed into the tiny room. As an hour long presentation, the allotted thirty minutes felt cramped, and I left so much out, but the audience seemed well engaged.
That said, the short time slot didn’t leave much room for questions and answers, so I wanted to take a few minutes and write out some audience questions and responses. I gave myself a shorter limit with each of these responses, so I’d consider each a first draft for other things.
Side Note: For those new to the blog, The Paste Eaters Blog explores all ideas education, while my side project, Happy Casserole, exists for those off-topic, slice of list topics. I want to publish for each, but with a baby, my writing time is limited. Be sure to subscribe to each!
1. “How do you grade writing?”
Many fear writing because the answers are not black and white, right or wrong, like Math. And that’s fine: Writing is art. We forget this in the era of standardized testing. We forget the blank page is like the blank canvas, teeming with infinite possibilities. When grading writing, many want objectivity, but I’m not sure that’s possible like judging two plus two.
Let’s meander about this question. How do you feel right now? If you didn’t say a number, you’re categorically wrong. If you feel bad, you’re a one. If you feel okay, you’re a three. And if you feel great, you’re a five. Unless we’re on a ten point scale, then maybe you’re a ten. That move right there, matching numbers with words, accounts for most grading writing.
Personally, I’ve always hated rubrics. I despise them. As a mental model, they’re like nets with holes that allow mediocre writing to get free passes. If you have four factors with four options, they become intimidating grids. At least for the kids. Here’s a question: Can students grade their own writing with rubrics? Likely not.
As an anecdote, I’ve been on interview committees where we use rubrics for objectivity. And so we interview and silently complete rubrics afterwards. After several candidates, we then review the rubrics and discover the numbers don’t match our gut intuitions. Go figure.
In my mind, rubrics fail students because they separate parts from wholes. They grade by isolation, not integration. They analyze parts of writing without considering the entire project. Sure, something may work as a whole, but fail for one or more parts. And therein lies the problem.
Complex rubrics won’t do either. Consider the coastline paradox: Coastlines have fractal shapes and have different lengths depending on the units used. The larger the units, the shorter the overall result. The shorter the units, the longer the overall results. Grading writing functions similarly: The more factors used, the quality of the measurement goes down. (This is a working analogy.)
Instead, I grade either with descriptive rubrics or ladders. Let me explain.
Descriptive rubrics consider whole-part relationships. Rather than say this response deserves this grade because of these four factors, it considers all parts together. My mental image revolves around ranges like circles: How close does the response aim towards the center?
Check out an example which I use for literature quizzes:
Descriptive Rubric: Literature Quizzes
15-20. Prompt was well answered. Response was focused and contains sufficient supporting evidence. Few major mistakes in grammar and punctuation.
10-15. Prompt was mostly answered. Response has some supporting evidence, but not enough. Occasional major mistakes in grammar and punctuation, but they were not distracting.
0-10. Prompt was not answered. Response lacks supporting evidence. Frequent major mistakes in grammar and punctuation. Summarizes the text rather than answers the question.
-3. Points deducted for not using a quotation.
This includes the same elements of traditional rubrics by equating numbers with descriptors, but it considers the overall response. For this particular quiz, students needed to use a quotation, so I programmed a task-specific deduction. How else can this work? Consider my descriptive grading for letters.
Descriptive Rubric: Letters
15-20. Prompt was well answered. Meets length requirement. Contains all elements of a letter. Paragraphs were in order with plenty of supporting evidence. Few major mistakes in spelling and grammar.
10-15. Prompt was decently answered. May not meet length requirement or contain all elements of a letter. Paragraphs lack supporting evidence. Occasional mistakes in spelling and grammar.
0-10. Prompt was poorly answered. Fails to meet the length requirement. Parts of a letter are missing. Paragraphs lack evidence. Frequent mistakes in spelling and grammar.
If the letter does not contain all the parts, it will not receive above a 10.
In this case, I just adjust the language for the medium. Note my automatic near-failure situation if students do not include all the parts of a letter. (This has proven to be a serious issue. And unless I make claims explicit in the rubric, any parent can lawyer their way through arguing a better grade!)
As for ladders, I credit Michael Clay Thompson and his Advanced Academic Writing Program. Thompson’s grading functions on moving up grades based on certain conditions. (Note: I don’t think he calls them “ladders.” But the term helps students understand the grading process.)
Example Ladder (Read from the bottom up.)
“A.” Response must have “D”, “C”, and “B”. If it’s missing any previous condition, it cannot move to “A.”
“B.” Response must have “D” and “C” to be considered for a “B”. If it’s missing “D” or “C,” it cannot be considered for a “B.”
“C.” Response must have both “D” and “C.”
“D.” Response must meet this condition to be considered for a grade.
I’ve modified Thompson’s system a bit to get the following. It still doesn’t address some type of responses, so some responses force me to deviate slightly. That said, even my 8s can be trained to use it! If the kids can’t use a rubric to assess writing, it’s not a good rubric.
Academic Essay (50 Points)
+ 10: The document follows the naming convention for easy location in the future.
35-40: Thesis. Thesis is correctly located, original, specific, and proven by the body.
26-35: Organization. Paragraphs are properly organized and formatted with the required stems.
16-25: Conventions. Tone is formal with few errors in spelling, grammar, punctuation, and so on.
0-15: MLA Format. Essay follows formatting instructions and meets page requirements.
2. “How do you handle giving feedback?”
As my talk describes, use the 80-20 Rule when giving feedback: Consider the comments you write the most and type them on paper. Then, when giving oral feedback to students, circle the written feedback to individualized to-do lists. This is another Thompson idea, although I’ve modified it (See his Opus 40). In my experience, this approach truly restores joy to grading writing.
Seriously: Why spend decades writing the same comments by hand?
I don’t use comment sheets for every task, but I use them for bigger writing tasks and embed them in other tasks. (I wrote a short series this spring on this topic. See “Stop Grading Essays with Amnesia" for examples.)
What do these comments look like? Consider comments from a scripting activity, where students have to listen to a movie clip and write down the dialogue. These comments are embedded in the task sheet for Content:
Proofread Closer. This draft had too many mistakes in basic spelling, punctuation, and capitalization.
Misspelled Character Names. Misspelling character names is not good. Pay closer attention to spelling.
Add more action. This draft lacks action and non-verbals. Go back and look for movement, tone, expressions, camera changes, and so on. Add them in brackets. Italics are preferred!
Add proper punctuation. This draft lacks proper punctuation and capitalization. Pay attention to interruptions (—), trailing off (…), partial stops (,), full stops (.), questions (?), and exclamations (!).
Improve accuracy. This draft either omitted words or included incorrect words. Listen to improve accuracy.
Watch for homophones. Be sure you're using the right form of to/too/two, your/you're, our/are, and so on.
As workflow, a student brings me their sheet, and I circle what needs fixed. That’s it.
How do you get started? First, purchase Thompson’s programs for example prose. Second, grade with a notebook in hand. Find a typical writing assignment then start writing comments. The only catch is writing from a slightly disconnected perspective so the comments apply to multiple assignments. Where do you start? I suggest those areas that give outsized emotional results. You know, those mistakes that make you mad.
In the meantime, check out some task-specific comments you can steal tomorrow!
3. “How do students write every day?”
My students write every day. They write relentlessly. But they start small. In practice this means a daily journal, used either for retrieval practice or for introducing a topic. Students have notebook which never leaves the room, and they respond to a prompt during the first five minutes of class. My prompt is always yellow in my objectives, and I have an embedded timer.
We grade these journals together in mini-conferences at the end of each week. I circle mistakes but do not hold them punitive. As time goes on and students improve with these bite sized bits, you’d be shocked how much students improve their writing!
Also, these journals provide opportunities for fast peer reviews, as students can quickly read through a partner’s response for certain factors—basic capitalization, punctuation, and so forth.
What does this look like as procedure and policy? Here's a sample:
Procedure: Daily Journals
1. All students need a notebook that will stay in the room.
2. Get your own journal and be in your seat when class starts.
3. Mr. C. will introduce the journal and answer questions when class starts.
4. Write until the timer ends, aiming for 4-5 sentences per day. Once you meet the length, wait quietly.
Formatting: Start each new week on a new page. Add the day's date for each response. Skip a line between each responses. Nine weeks should take nine pages.
5. When the timer ends, students will count their sentences and record them in the margin.
Scoring Description
Responses will be graded holistically each week, meaning that longer responses can balance out the occasional short response.
0 point: No response or off-topic response.
1 point: Single sentence response. Minimal detail. Little to no effort. Incorrect facts (recall).
2-3 points: Two to three sentence response. More detail needed. Partially correct recall.
4-5 points: Four to five sentence response. Excellent detail.
Example Responses
Question: How was your summer vacation?
1 point: It was boring.
2-3 points: It was boring. I stayed home and played video games.
4-5 points: My summer was boring. We didn't travel, but I played video games and hung out with friends. I beat Breath of the Wild for the tenth time!
Whew! That said, this topic deserves its own chapter. (And trust me, it’s coming.) Experience has taught so many wrong ways of writing every day, but I wanted to give briefest of snapshots.
💡 Have you checked out my newest series, Teach Writing Tomorrow? This takes my talk “Help! I don’t know how to teach writing!” and explores first steps and next steps.
📚 While you’re here, check out some other posts:
📱 Also, check out some other posts from my side blog, HappyCasserole.
I also like giving a range (10-15 pts, for example) in rubrics. That wiggle room is necessary!