Grading

Of all the aspects involved in teaching, grading has to be my nemesis. I love planning and preparing units. I love instructing students. I even love discipline at times because I know that by holding students accountable, I can potentially make a difference in their character. Grading, however, is something that I could surely live without. I am horrible at it. I know I don't give enough feedback; I know I don't give feedback on time. Major papers, especially, stare at me from my dining room table, taunting me with how long they have been sitting there. Robert J. Marzano, author of Classroom Instruction that Works, would hate me (Strategy #7 is setting objectives and providing feedback).

I struggle because I don't want to short change my students. They spend a great deal of time and effort on assignments, and it doesn't feel fair to breeze through their work without giving it the attention it deserves. Yet, when faced with the task of grading 55 papers in a "deserving way," I become overwhelmed, and my dining room table becomes full. Although some teachers would simply decide not to assign major papers and projects, I don't feel like that is an appropriate alternative. I have tried setting goals for myself (if I grade 5 papers every day, I can have all of them done before next weekend), and I have tried sitting down at a local coffee shop to grade a huge stack all at once. Neither has worked ideally. My current technique is to save my huge stack until right before the grading period ends, and in a state of procrastinated panic, finish it at 1:00a.m. the morning grades are due. This is something I would not recommend and would like to avoid.

I need to find ways to work smarter, not harder, and I have gathered a few ideas that I plan to try this semester. First, I plan to do more during my student conferences. Our school district currently uses the First 20 Days of Balanced Literacy by Fountas and Pinnell. In this model, students and teachers write letters back and forth about what students are reading. While I had developed a rubric for my students' letters, sitting down to use it was a different matter. One teacher in my building suggested that I grade the letters with the students during conference time. This would allow me to grade their letters on the spot and also provide the opportunity to give students immediate feedback. Easier. Better. Smarter.

Another teacher suggested doing a combined research paper, which I also plan to try. Groups of 3-4 students write one paper on the same topic, each taking a subtopic and together writing the introduction and conclusion. She makes up templates in Microsoft Publisher and requires groups to have pictures with captions, maps, graphs, offset quotes, etc. just like a true nonfiction piece of writing. She also has groups choose 5-10 vocabulary words and make a glossary. Now the students are really learning the features of nonfiction, and I only have 15 papers to grade. See, smarter.

Do you have any ideas? Ways to give your students the feedback they deserve without overwhelming yourself? Please feel free to leave a comment, as we would all love to hear from you!