Assignment Sheets, Rubrics, Advocating for Writing Center

General Grading: 

I build my students on a growth/revision model and focus on HOC such as organization and content first. I share all of my TW assignment sheets/rubrics with my staff, and new instructors have especially mentioned them being helpful. Below are a few of the rubrics I use.

• Technical Writing
  • Job Packet
  • Technical Instructions
  • Collaborative Project (both internal proposal and external report)
• Basic Comp
  • Para 1 Essay Rubric (Intro to Narration)
    • Para 1 Peer Review
  • Para 2 Assignment Rubric (Narration Revisited)
    • Paragraph 2 Essay Peer Review
  • Para 3 Assignment Sheet Rubric (Narration focusing on sensory details)
    • Para 3 Peer Review
  • Para 4 – Rhetorical Analysis Rubric (Rhetorical Analysis)
    • Paragraph 4 Peparagraph-4-peer-reviewer Review

 

Revision: Revision is a large component of my classes. For all of my composition classes, my students have a minimum of two drafts they must turn in with their final project. They also turn in a revision memo that details what they’ve worked in this paper compared to the last; what specific areas they revised; and what they want me to still help them with.

In my TW class, while I don’t require multiple drafts, I highly encourage them. I offer both conferences and what I coin ‘pre-grades’. For these meetings, students can come to my office with a draft and we work on it together. If they turn in that draft with their final project and write their revision memo, they score a few bonus points for incorporating revision and multiple drafts.

         Advocating Using Writing Center

Advocating and supporting the writing center is also a large component of my class and a way I encourage revision. While I incorporate peer review and provide instructor feedback during students process of writing, I also tell them that all writers go to the writing center and for courses like basic comp and critical reading, I actually require them to visit the writing center. While in the past, scholars have frowned upon required visits, recent studies are emerging showing the benefits of encouraging students to use these services, especially students which might be labeled “at-risk”. So far in using this method, students have not complained, and many have used the writing center several times throughout the semester with this method.

Other Resources:

The First Day to Final Grade is a great source for grading information. Chapter 7: Grading has the following topics:

• Grade Calculations
• Grade Books
• Grading Exams
• Grading Essays
• Grading Problem Essays
• Grading Problem Sets
• Grading Lab Reports
• Grading Group Work
• Handing Back Graded Material
• In-Class Review of Exams
• Late Work
• Missed Exams
• Calculating Final Grades

McKeachie’s Teaching Tips also has a great deal of resources for grading. There are two different chapters that address two important grading topics: Chapter 7: Assessing, Testing, and Evaluating: Grading is not the most Important Function and Chapter 10: Assigning Grades:What do they mean?

The chapters include topics such as:

• Planning methods of assessment
• Methods of assessment
  • Tests in and outside of the classroom
  • Journals, Research Papers, and Annotated Bibs
  • Portfolios
  • Peer Assessment
  • Classroom Assessment
• Can we trust grades?
• Assigning Grades: On a “curve” or against a standard?
• Reducing student anxiety about grades
• What about the student who wants a grade changed?