Principles for Paper Load Reduction

1. Principles for Paper Load Reduction Dr. Judith Hebb, Kennesaw State U Peggy McNash, Woodward Academy February 5, 2010 12th Annual STUDENTSUCCESS IN FIRST-YEAR COMPOSITION CONFERENCE Georgia Southern University

2. Introduction • Strategies for college success for students and teachers! • Composition theory, teaching experience • Erika Lindemann: “the ‘reader’ need not always be the teacher, and the writing need not always receive written responses” (243). • KEY=less is more

3. Designing Assignments • Quality versus quantity • Short papers (500-1500 words) • Beth Neman: writing processes “…are usually easier for [students] to grasp when the work is short enough for them to comprehend the entire unity in their minds at once. When we shift the emphasis away from the quantity of our students’ work—and of our own—we will all have more time to devote to the things that really matter, and we should, rather quickly, begin to notice an improvement both in our own time schedules and in the quality of our students’ work” (510).

4. Designing Assignments Cont. • Research paper: Process vs. product • Broad spectrum of rhetorical situations (SPA) • Mix of academic and creative

5. Designing Assignments Cont. 2 • Informal expressive private writing: mark journal, blog w/sporadic comments because “[o]ur students need only to know that we are reading what they write and that we care about their ideas” (Neman 510). • Hybrid assignments: multi-genre research paper; poem, artwork, letter, dialogue, ad, obit, description w/analysis; annotated bibliography.

6. Designing Assignments Cont. 3 • Design assignments that scaffold particular skills. • Create rubrics where you grade each paper only for a few skills. By May students will be assessed on their mastery of a number of skills; the teacher need not assess every skill on every assignment. • Not every paper (i.e., an essay portion of a test; other timed writing) has to be graded with the same diligence and thoroughness.

7. Designing Assignments Cont. 4 • In designing assignments, providing novel topics and giving students choice result in having papers more interesting to grade, interest which makes a teacher willing to keep slugging through that stack of papers.

8. Revision • Multiple drafts→growth in writing • Revision=writing • Built-in revision: “Enriched revision” with new sources • In-class essays not revised, graded holistically • Revised, edited drafts highlighted

9. Due Dates • Stagger due dates by class. • Don’t read incomplete work. • Consider sliding due dates (a week with bonus points for early submission).

10. Self-Editing/Peer Editing • Effective self- and peer editing involves: • (1) breaking down the tasks into content and specific mechanical areas, • (2) modeling of each task, • (3) time in class to allow it all to happen.

11. Rubrics/Grading • Content over form • Most students are not English majors • MLA basics for all students • Chill out: formatting, headings, paragraphs, indentions, headers, Works Cited pages, ellipses, etc.

12. Rubrics/Grading Cont. • Teacher comments: less is more; rely on minimal marking since “students learn better from shorter, more focused, teacher comment” (Hillocks and Sommersqtd. in Neman 511). • Oral peer and teacher review • Portfolio grading vs. individual paper grades • Conferences: Before fully reading papers, small groups • Utilizing institutional help: Writing center, student/staff tutors

13. Rubrics/Grading Cont. 2 • Fewer comments are in fact more helpful. • A good rubric provides key wording a teacher can highlight or circle, cutting down on the number of words the grader actually has to write. • Particularly on timed writing, SAT-type practices, the few notes on a formal rubric and a final grade should be all a teacher has to write.

14. Rubrics/Grading Cont. 3 • Teaching students your marking slang makes your life easier. • Including positive comments encourages students to read all your comments, making the time you invest more worthwhile.

15. Technology • 21st century literacies • Online journals, blogs, asynchronous discussions, PowerPoint presentations, podcasts, etc. • Upload handouts, assignments • Post announcements • To lighten the paper load, literally, have students email to you a digital draft. Make notations using the Review/New Comment feature of WORD 2007. • Electronic peer and teacher reviews

16. Technology Cont. • Technology can be key to help students self-edit. • The time invested by the teacher in creating PowerPointsand JINGS on key errors is quite effective; however, your students must have internet access at home or you must allocate class time and lab time for group review and for students to access the PowerPoints and JINGS prior to due dates.

17. Other Suggestions • Reward yourself (with a healthy snack) between groups of papers. • Plant a good paper every so often to keep you moving through the stack.

18. Conclusion • Open/maintain dialogue between hs and college teachers • Continual teacher self-reflection • Professional development • Exchange student papers

19. Resources • Lane, Barry. After THE END: Teaching and Learning Creative Revision. • Lindemann, Erika. A Rhetoric for Writing Teachers. • Neman, Beth. Teaching Students to Write. • Willis, Meredith Sue. Deep Revision. Our wiki has sample documents, some of which are pdfs and others are .docx: http://peggymcnash.wikispaces.com/ Our emails: jhebb3@kennesaw.edu peggy.mcnash@woodward.edu • Logo Photograph Site