St. Martin's Chapter 5

Justine Mack

In chapter 5 of St. Martins Guide to Teaching Writing Cheryl Glenn and Melissa A. Goldthwaite discuss evaluating student essays. They begin with what they believe to be the proper way to evaluate essays being not to tear apart students essays based on sentence level grammar and structure with a red pen. Teachers who grade based strictly on formal errors do not take the time to asses the content, whether the student developed their thought, supported their argument and properly concluded their topic. In just grading based on formal errors the teacher isn’t assessing if the student actually understands the content and in turn isn’t helping them grow as a student by simply tearing apart their work. One major issue I have had with teachers comments on my essays is their sloppy handwriting, how am I supposed to know what I did wrong or what I did correctly if most of the time I cant even understand what is written on my paper. Most content based grades are based on ideas, organization, style, and wording.

When talking about marginal comments on a students essay, which are going to be where most of your comments are I liked how they said you should write comments as if you are having a conversation with the text. Marginal comments are the truly important responses that the students get from the teacher about their writing but the grade on the paper is still the first thing they look at. I feel the use rubrics` to be extremely beneficial for both the teacher and the student. Giving students a rubric before an assignment provides students with a clear understanding of what needs to be covered and gives teachers almost like a check list of what is and isn’t covered. Although, I have made several portfolios for my writing classes I never really thought about their purpose. But, it does make a lot of sense that they are used for professors and teachers to track a students success throughout the semester. I particularly like making portfolios because it gives students freedom to be creative with their work.

For my writing assignment assignment I would like to provide a rubric and for the FCO students so they know exactly what is expected of them. I would also provide as many detailed marginal comments to both encourage and critique their work.