Are pedagogy posts allowed? I wish I wasn't thinking about teaching over break, but I just handed back a stack of poetry portfolios on Friday and it's taken this long to catch up on lost sleep. So my mind hasn't had much of a chance yet to turn to other things, but now I'll get the grading out of my system and move on!
This was my first experience using a rubric to grade creative work, and I have to admit I was surprised about how well it turned out. There were a couple portfolios that didn't seem as well served by the categories, but for the vast majority of them I felt like I was giving more detailed feedback than I would have been with solely a paragraph of comments. I had room to type a little over 100 words to each student, and the grid freed me to discuss specifics in that space.
There is a companion sheet to this rubric that specifies what each category means (ex: within rhythm they're asked to think about their line breaks, stanzas, and punctuation) that I handed out on the first day. Then of the 3-4 poems that were required I asked that at least one be dramatically rethought and approached an entirely different way through revision, while all must employ basic nuance-based editing.
I have overcome my resistance to rubrics and will definitely be using them in the future! Where do you all weigh in?
2 comments:
:) Anything goes here... I threw together this space because I wanted a place for the five of us to have conversations between sessions, and I also thought it would be a good resource (hence, posts like the march / april deadline lists, etc.). But it's anything you all want it to be!
And yes, pedagogy makes sense, especially since we're all TAs here, with the exception of one lucky someone who doesn't have the burden of guilt I continually have when I neglect my grading, etc.
I have a love-hate relationship with rubrics. When I taught 1101, they were good because it took the place of extensive comments. As I'm grading for EngL 1201, I'm not using them, but instead holistic (is that the right spelling?) comments and continual feedback building. I read something every week from them, so I generally will grade the 44 essays, then start class the next week with discussion: usually I'll photocopy some of the strongest essays (with names removed) and go over WHY those were so strong, and then if I see repetitive issues, I'll type up another handout to go over that in more detail. I'm sure it is pretty boring for them, but I'm seeing improvements in their writing, so I don't regret it.
As an instructor, I walk a fine line between knowing how to teach what is best for them and wanting to be well liked, and that's hard for me. I have awfully pathetically thin skin, I'm overly sensitive, etc., which makes being a teacher / writer a ridiculous passion of mine, but there you are.
I DO like your rubric though, Meryl. It's much more thorough than my own, and I like that you leave plenty of room for comments. My own 1101 students weren't happy that I didn't write more on their pieces, and I'm learning that having 22 students versus 44 is such a different experience as far as time goes... (I hope I don't teach Lit again--not because I don't like it, but because I think the grading and time put in is not balanced--with Colleen M, I'm teaching a writing intensive, and I know Colleen C had this last semester--it's twenty pages per student and a midterm and a final exam--too much, too much!)
Them's my two cents.
Also: Maria found our blog. Hello, Maria! :)
Weird - it's my impression that 1101 is a writing intensive as well, and any course with a "W" after it's numbers. When you consider the portfolios (w/previous drafts) and the visiting writer responses, they definitely squeeze 20 pages in eventually, it's just that there's less students!
How the writing intensive designation is formulated and tallied seems to vary based on the prof, or in the case of 1101, the coordinator.Your method sounds like the best possible way to deal with that onslaught.
My resistance to rubrics came from the "creative writing can't be boxed in!" sort of attitude. But now I feel like if I HAVE to assign grades (and if CW is to be taught in traditional colleges, we do), then it's nice to have clear qualities and standards that those grades will be based upon. I like that revision is half of their grade in this case, it's another way of boosting points for that nebulous entity called "effort."
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