Grading written work can be a devil of a time: 20 minutes each essay; 20 kids per class. That's 20 times 20. (Pardon me while I punch the calculator; I'm an English teacher, after all). Here we go: 400 minutes. Now, divide by 60, and we have a grand total of 6.66 hours. Really? 6.66? What did I tell you? It's absolutely devilish.
Paradise Lost
It's Monday morning; you're red-eyed and weary, handing back coffee-stained papers, setting them down as you snake from desk to desk. Your students, bubbling with excitement, snatch up their papers and scrutinize each comment. You notice them nodding their heads in agreement; you can tell they are thinking deeply. Then—as if in slow motion—your students rise to their feet in a grand ovation. One student even stands on their desk and shouts across the room: "Mr. Mendelson, your feedback changed my life!"
And scene.
Admit it. It goes more like this: Monday morning, red-eyed and weary, handing back papers, snaking through desks. Your kids, aloof, lift their essays and shuffle to the last page. They scan the rubric, spot the grade, smile or grimace briefly, and stuff their work into the recesses of their backpacks.
But I grade online, you say. Sorry to burst your bubble, but even if you're a digital grader, you're not off the hook. The abyss of Google Docs is just as deep as that of a JanSport.
In Dante's Inferno, the gates to hell are inscribed with the following warning: "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here." Well, I'm here to tell you that hope is not lost. I've traveled the downward spirals of written feedback. I've compared drafts to revisions—a "Where's Waldo?" of grading—only to find my students going through the motions, mindlessly correcting grammar, failing to resuscitate lifeless sentences, half-heartedly digging up new evidence and analysis. Over time, I've tried all types of feedback reflections, prompting students to explore their strengths and weaknesses as writers; but, when the next writing exercise comes around, it's déjà vu. Same comments, same kid, different day.
This year, I'm staying cool. No more wasted ink; no more wasted time. My new feedback method is inspired by the adage Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime. My new go-to method is personalized, and it promotes 21st century skills such as critical thinking and problem solving, initiative and self-direction, accountability and problem solving, communication and collaboration, information literacy and research skills.
Here's how it works.
Review, Reflect, Research, Revise, Reinforce
First, provide your students with specific, clear, contextualized, balanced, and forward-looking feedback. When you return the marked-up essays to your students, withhold the grade. Students should have access to your commentary and a rubric. That's all. Then, it's time for the five Rs: review, reflect, research, revise, and reinforce. Students locate trending problem areas in their essays (I often make a few suggestions in the final comments). Examples range from simple grammatical errors like the dreaded comma splice, to paragraph organization and structure, to integrating quotations and explaining evidence, to the depth and clarity of analysis. Students then work in a Google Sheet, filling in columns headed by these sentence stems:
- This assignment name is:
- The feedback I am addressing is:
- Is this a recurring issue (Y or N):
- I researched a solution and found:
- My original looks like this:
- I revised it to look like this:
- My work was peer reviewed by:
Before we take a closer look at the rationale for each category, it is important to note that this spreadsheet is maintained over the entirety of the course. This approach allows students to reflect over a period of time. They are able to celebrate remedied concerns or focus deeper on persistent issues. In step one, students name the assignment; this way they can look back, reflect, and diagnose trends. Next, students name the issue being addressed. It is important that students can explicitly reference the issue, and they usually pick up the terminology from mini-lessons taught previously in class. In step three, students assess whether the issue is recurring or new; recurring issues can be handled individually or addressed as a full-class review.
Step four is vital and, in its application of problem-solving and self-direction skills, requires some practice. In addition to materials that I may have provided, students are tasked with finding useful resources for themselves. In the spreadsheet, they are asked to provide links to resources; most importantly, they are expected to synthesize this information and report out in their own words. This exercise is not only a great opportunity for students to practice self-direction, but it is also a useful opportunity for teachers to gauge student comprehension. Are students simply regurgitating information they found online, or are they able to internalize their learning? This step takes some practice and a considerable amount of modeling.
At this point (step five), students copy and paste a section of their original work to workshop in class or on their own. The section could be anything from a wordy sentence to a point of evidence and its corresponding explanation. Finally, in step six, students are able to revise their work. Often, this work is done during class time when I am able to conference with students on the issues they are attempting to address (I may group students by problem areas, too.). Lastly—and this usually happens the following day—students peer-review their work to reinforce what they have learned. Partners are expected to share their learning and help make sure that revisions are complete and accurate. This area of reflection aligns nicely with the communication and collaboration aspects of 21st century learning.
The process does not end there, though. Now that my feedback has prompted review, reflection, research, revision, and reinforcement, it is time for students to feed-forward. Feeding-forward, as I define it, is the process of reviewing previous issues and anticipating future concerns. After the five Rs process, and before the next writing exercise, I have my students review their spreadsheets; they should be able to articulate areas of improvement and hyper-focus on these skills before and during the writing process.
Paradise Regained
At the end of each five Rs session, I compile all of my students' spreadsheets. The filter function of Google Sheets allows me to determine which issues are trending across all of my classes. With this information, I decide if any new teaching or reteaching is necessary.
When essays slither across your desk, don't be tempted by fruitless feedback. If essay grading and written feedback make you feel like you've been to hell and back, let the 5R feedback process be your ethereal wings.