Learning to Write

My recollection of past assessments on writing is not that clear. It has been well over ten years since I took a college level English class. All the writing that was assigned in my History courses was primarily graded by content and organization. More recently I had some writing assignments in my Spanish classes, but they were always more of a product approach. Normally I just had one shot at writing about a prompt, and the professors would take off for content, organization, grammatical errors, and spelling. What little I remember about the English classes is that they were process oriented and that I did receive feedback on my papers throughout the process. My guess is that they used an analytical method for evaluation. The reason I believe that is when I assign papers to write in social studies classes I normally use an analytical method as a rubric. Honestly I don’t remember where I learned to use the method, but I think it was from past English classes. I believe that the procedures were explicit and appropriate because I don’t remember ever being frustrated about the way in which teachers graded my writing assignments.

I believe the scores and feedback I have received over the years has really helped improve my writing. Normally I am very open to feedback and feedback in terms of my grade. That is a great chance to learn and improve upon my mistakes. When a teacher suggests something I really listen and try to do what the teachers suggests. In the book it talks about how sometimes students can be too reliant on teachers and the writing piece largely is the teachers work. I have been reflecting on that possibility, and hopefully that has not been the case. As teachers I assume we all have those students who try and ask for help on every question. That was definitely not me since I was somewhat timid, and I don’t recall any teacher having to consistently help me so I don’t think any teacher inhibited my writing ability. Overall I felt comfortable writing in English since it is my native language, but I definitely did not feel comfortable writing in Spanish. I really craved the evaluation and feedback on my Spanish writing assignments because I was desperate to get better. 

The primary experience I have in grading writing assignments is in my social studies courses and Spanish courses. I graduated from a liberal Arts University that really stressed how disciplines are interdependent so I have tried to incorporate that mentality in my teaching methods. For instance, I try and help the English department by stressing the importance of writing. Often times I will have a rubric for a writing assignment and I will assign a grading percentage for content, organization, and spelling. Since it is a social studies class I normally only count off about 5% for spelling, but I at least try and emphasize it a little. When grading these assignments I believe the toughest challenge is being consistent. I think that inconsistency primarily comes from getting tired while grading writing papers. If I allow myself to get too tired I find myself not correcting as much, being as strict, or being focused when grading. Often times I will realize my fatigue and take a break, but when you are behind which can often times be the case, I just have to push through. One other worry I have about grading is being biased towards certain writing styles or those students who do not write similar to me. My wife and I will often times proofread each other’s papers for assignments, but we have totally different writing styles. I can’t count the times that we have told each other “I wouldn’t word it that way”. Sometimes I wonder if I count off more on papers for those who just have different writing styles than mine.       

Formal assessment is a very important tool in evaluating students and helping them see where improvement is needed. It is a very difficult task when assessing writing. Unlike judging whether or not a student learns vocabulary terms for a quiz, assessing writing can be very judgment based. Formal assessment does not have to critique every aspect of writing every time but I think it is beneficial to assess many different areas of writing at some point. For instance, students can learn and become better writers by learning from grammar mistakes, spelling mistakes, improper organization, and lack of content knowledge. Making lower grades than hoped can create an incentive for students to improve in areas that they are lacking. There are many motivating factors for students, but often time’s grades can be the biggest motivator. 

Portfolios are definitely something I am familiar with. If you are in an education program in Oklahoma teachers must create a portfolio. I assume it is the same way in Texas. We were told that principals would look at our portfolios and make hiring decisions partly based off them, and that was true for some new teachers. No principal ever asked or wanted mine. That was somewhat disappointing because I felt like all that work was wasted. After reflecting back on the experience, I think creating the portfolio made me a better teacher. I learned a great deal from creating the portfolio. It allowed me to come up with my teaching philosophy, reflections on how to plan for classes, my behavior management philosophy, reflect on ways to evaluate, and so forth. I can look back at it today and see how my philosophies have changed after having experience in the classroom. I can determine if I think my philosophies were ineffective or maybe determine that I have gotten away from a philosophy but it still might be effective.