Response to the article Papers Papers Papers

I found this article extremely interesting and it made me look at my own papers and how they are being graded and have been graded in the past. It also made me start thinking about how I want to grade my students papers in the future.

In the first section entitled mechanical errors, I think she (it is a she isn't it?) made a great point about distinguishing what kind of corrections we are doing. Editing, correcting,and fixing every sentence is not doing our students any favors. As teachers that's giving our students an excuse to be lazy and continually make the same mistakes over and over. Personally, I think I am in the same boat as those students, I know there are things in my own writing that I continually do wrong even as a 22 year old because my teachers just corrected it for me. That's completely unacceptable. I also love how open  she? is when she talking about only using a red pen to correct errors. I think she is spot on, students should know the seriousness of their errors but still know that their ideas are still wonderful which I think can be displayed through positive comments as well as a student-teacher conversation about it.I also loved the idea of taking student written sentences (make them anonymous) and having the class correct them. This way everyone gets better at their writing skills. However I realize this is a lot of work.

I like in the second portion entitled rephrase for clarity and style how she talked about writing phrases underneath questionable sentences, not to correct student work but to let them know something needed work.

Side note the letters to students in the third section is BRILLIANT!