my life

Diana,

Once again I wish I was in your class. I think that assignment sounds like fun. I’ve been making things up and building elaborate stories around them for years. (Once upon a time I thought it would be fun to write science fiction. Still do, in fact.) Having to make up references would be even more fun. (Ever play “Shock the Teacher"?) But I guess not everybody is quite the nerd that I am.

Who developed this assignment? You said all the freshman English teachers had to use it. Is it a “we’ve always done this” thing, or somebody trying out a new theory of education? (When Dad taught drafting the school had to do some sort of weird state-mandated record keeping for each student. At an advisory committee meeting I said it sounded like somebody’s PhD thesis. Found out later it was - some kid who had a friend on the state Board of Education had come up with the idea for his dissertation.)

I never cared much for curve grading, although I tended to do well when it was applied. It just seemed wrong that my grade was based on other people’s performance. I guess I wasn’t what you’d consider a team player.

Dave

I’ve always had the same problem with curving, Dave. I feel as though I’m going against my own basic principles on this matter. However, almost none of them apparently “got” the assignment. I’m afraid the grades as they stand will just crush them without accomplishing anything. Of course, my goal is to teach, and I don’t see this as teaching anything, and I can’t be certain that the assignment (or my explanation of it) wasn’t somehow flawed, in order for them ALL to do so poorly.

Our course director thunk up the assignment. I thought it was a fresh and interesting idea to TELL them to create their own sources and their own supporting facts. I’m afraid I didn’t emphasize the need for those sources to pretend to be reliable and authoritative (yes…I have heard of “shock the teacher” ;)) and the support to contribute to thoughtful, well-balanced support for their proposal.

The whole assignment is a train wreck, and as the conductor, I can’t plead complete innocence. Hence, I’m rethinking my position.

I’ve come to realize that when I tell them to enjoy writing their papers, they interpret that to mean that anything goes. To a man (so to speak), they lose sight of the educational purpose of the exercise.

d

Diana,

I suppose that’s part of learning discernment: knowing which parts of the job are open to interpretation and which parts are not.

Still, you have a point: if everybody did poorly, there’s probably a common point of difficulty that’s outside the students’ control. And if the students in the other classes did just as poorly, it’s not likely to be a single instructor, either.

Based on how you’ve described the assignment here it doesn’t seem like a hard concept to grasp: identify a problem, propose a solution, support the solution and address likely complaints. And use made-up sources. (Are you teaching these people to work for the NY Times?) But for kids who’ve spent all their lives in school, maybe the concept of a piece of non-fiction based on fictional data is just too much of a stretch.

Dave

After going to work yesterday and discussing my misgivings and subsequent plans with two colleagues–each of which has also run into problems with this paper with their students–I decided instead to create a rubric. I arranged it in four major areas: Mechanics (worth 40 points), Organization (worth 25 points), Argument (worth 20 points), and Documentation (worth 15 points). At this point, I’m unforgiving in mechanics, as they know my standards. Mechanical requirements in this paper were nothing new. Moreover, I feel strongly that this basic skill is the building block of all the others; it is easily the most important of the categories (in a comp class). Organization also was worth a great deal because (1) we’ve done it before, and (2) I gave them the outline to use. There was no guesswork involved. We’ve discussed some argument, but I placed the most emphasis upon logos, ethos, avoiding unsupported assertions and addressing obvious counterarguments (if I got some pathos, I was tickled pink). Documentation is largely a matter of being bothered to look something up and follow directions, but they’re new to it; hence, it was worth only 15 points of the total.

Each major area is broken down into compartments which are worth a certain amount of pointage. For example, 10 points of Mechanics is dedicated to punctuation, spelling, capitalization, notation (knowing how to properly note titles), and…something else. Thus, for copious errors in any or all of those specific areas, the student may lose no more than 10 points on the paper. This is to keep me from becoming disgusted and marking it down a letter grade because he can’t figure out commas or something.

I’ve graded 15 today (between 0600 and 1500, when I took my first break) by the rubric, granting as many points as I could bring myself to. Interesting result: almost none of the grades changed. In three instances, the grades actually dropped several points.

These grades will stick. No Santa. Most of their grades were based on things they should have already mastered.

Today, I gained a great deal of confidence in my ability to be objective even without the rubric. However, I plan to use rubrics henceforth–and give them to the students when I assign the paper, so they know what I want. After I fill it out, they know exactly why they got the grades they did, and they know–if they care–what to work on to improve their grades.

d

Oh My,
Are you allowed to post any of the papers? This sounds great! Not the eating of children of course, but I always fancied an argument: Why women should be statutorily required to always say “YES!” - Just think of the world peace (pun intended) involved. I would love to quote the many sources.

Long time, no post.
Hope you get a holiday break from your posh job.