Marking students' writing
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Marking students' writing
I know there are softwares to mark students' errors but the problem with writing is that we do not only assess students' language but also their content or viewpoints. Is there any software for that?
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Sally Olsen
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Wow, that is strong, Clio. I use a combination of computer and personal comment but when you have to mark 700 student's submissions, it gets tiring to write or correct the same things over and over. I use the reviewing tools of Microsoft word and put comments in little bubbles beside the mistake. I have many of comments predone and just paste them in the bubble. I correct online. The students send me their writing to a special email address and I submit their writing to Turnitin.com to see if there is plagiarism or if they are copying a classmates work. The students then have to resubmit a corrected draft. I comment not only on grammatical errors but on the jobs of the text as Beverly Derewianka calls them. Is there an opening sentence, a strong thesis statement? Do they quote correctly? Do they use APA style and so on. I want them to use the grammar features to make a powerful piece of writing and so they have to know how these work.
Sally, I never correct grammar or spelling (unless it blocks communication) when the objective is to communicate.
In this way I think I help them to feel comfortable with writing.
And again I don't like the computer doing my job. This is my humble opinion.
I am sorry but I think that 700 students is too much! Are you satisfied with the job done?
In this way I think I help them to feel comfortable with writing.
And again I don't like the computer doing my job. This is my humble opinion.
I am sorry but I think that 700 students is too much! Are you satisfied with the job done?
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Sally Olsen
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We are in different situations of course. I am in an ESL situation with many native speakers around the students. If I were in an EFL situation like you, I would correct the same way you do.
Of course, this is not the ideal job. For the Business Writing part of the course, we meet with the first year students for an hour, two times only and try to tell them how to write for their Commerce courses for the next four years. It is an introductory course that covers Business Writing(2 sessions), Public Speaking (9 one hour sessions) and their resume (5 one hour sessions). They have different instructors for each part of the course. The instructors for the Public Speaking are students themselves.
The true purpose of the course is for them to have a small group of peers to consult with about everything they are doing in their first year. They meet in groups of 20 once a week for 16 weeks whereas most of their classes have 50 or more students. They get to know each other very well during the presentations for Public Speaking.
There are follow-up courses that students who are very poor in English can take and I think one of them is mandatory for third year students.
As always, you take what you can from the job and since the unstated purpose of the course is to separate the sheep from the goats and let the students realize that they are not going to do well in Commerce unless they get help, I think my comments on their work accomplishes this goal. I try to extend that with some advice of where to get help.
Foreign students often have a false sense of their abilities because the standards they come from are not very high. Then they are plunged into competing with native speaking students and the instructors either have to ignore the errors and just mark on the content which is hard if you don't understand because of the errors or mark according to the standards of the top students. Usually instructors take the first route and it means that after four years, many students have not improved that much and find it difficult to get or keep a job which involves writing.
We often hear that students follow a particular path because it doesn't involve much writing or reading. It seems to me a shame when I can provide them with ways to look at writing that are helpful and will help them grow over their four years. Of course, I wish that I could develop the course so it did follow them over four years and support them more fully and I am campaigning for next year. These things take time and you have to start somewhere.
Besides the work of 700 students gives me a great data base for my research in Systemic Functional Grammar.
Of course, this is not the ideal job. For the Business Writing part of the course, we meet with the first year students for an hour, two times only and try to tell them how to write for their Commerce courses for the next four years. It is an introductory course that covers Business Writing(2 sessions), Public Speaking (9 one hour sessions) and their resume (5 one hour sessions). They have different instructors for each part of the course. The instructors for the Public Speaking are students themselves.
The true purpose of the course is for them to have a small group of peers to consult with about everything they are doing in their first year. They meet in groups of 20 once a week for 16 weeks whereas most of their classes have 50 or more students. They get to know each other very well during the presentations for Public Speaking.
There are follow-up courses that students who are very poor in English can take and I think one of them is mandatory for third year students.
As always, you take what you can from the job and since the unstated purpose of the course is to separate the sheep from the goats and let the students realize that they are not going to do well in Commerce unless they get help, I think my comments on their work accomplishes this goal. I try to extend that with some advice of where to get help.
Foreign students often have a false sense of their abilities because the standards they come from are not very high. Then they are plunged into competing with native speaking students and the instructors either have to ignore the errors and just mark on the content which is hard if you don't understand because of the errors or mark according to the standards of the top students. Usually instructors take the first route and it means that after four years, many students have not improved that much and find it difficult to get or keep a job which involves writing.
We often hear that students follow a particular path because it doesn't involve much writing or reading. It seems to me a shame when I can provide them with ways to look at writing that are helpful and will help them grow over their four years. Of course, I wish that I could develop the course so it did follow them over four years and support them more fully and I am campaigning for next year. These things take time and you have to start somewhere.
Besides the work of 700 students gives me a great data base for my research in Systemic Functional Grammar.
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Sally Olsen
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Too true. But it doesn't hurt for them to know the conventions of writing so that if they do go on they can write in ways that fit in with the mileau they are in.
By the way, I think I left the impression that I was teaching all 700 first year students in Commerce but there are six other instructors.
We all mark differently. One marker just puts a large X if the jobs of the text are wrong and a small x if there is a grammar error or spelling error.
We rarely get spelling errors because they do their work on the computer and most use a spell and grammar check. Of course a spell check can't catch the difference between "there" and "their" and the grammar checks are not reliable either.
We really encourage them to bring their writing to the group the week before it is due and have it passed around so that they will find each other's errors as much as possible. This also gives the poorer students a chance to see the good writing of good students and tends to bring up the level in the group.
I found that in Greenland too. I used to type out the submissions and correct as I read them and then give each student a copy of everyone's work with no names. Then we marked a few as if we were the official markers and they began to see what needed to be included to make a good exam answer.
I am not sure what giving them back the corrections did for them and if they compared them to the original but they often thought they had written it exactly as it was presented if I didn't give them the originals back.
Typing out the submissions meant I had an archive of material when I went to another town and the students were interested in what their peers in other places had to say about the issues in Greenland and how they were dealing with exam type questions.
I type really quickly so it was no problem for me to do this and we had unlimited access to the copying machine for the first six months of the year until we ran out of paper and had to wait for the ice to melt to let the boats in again.
I used the best stories in the oral exam questions for the lower students because they were on familiar topics - whaling, seal hunting, dog sledding, holidays and teenage life.
By the way, I think I left the impression that I was teaching all 700 first year students in Commerce but there are six other instructors.
We all mark differently. One marker just puts a large X if the jobs of the text are wrong and a small x if there is a grammar error or spelling error.
We rarely get spelling errors because they do their work on the computer and most use a spell and grammar check. Of course a spell check can't catch the difference between "there" and "their" and the grammar checks are not reliable either.
We really encourage them to bring their writing to the group the week before it is due and have it passed around so that they will find each other's errors as much as possible. This also gives the poorer students a chance to see the good writing of good students and tends to bring up the level in the group.
I found that in Greenland too. I used to type out the submissions and correct as I read them and then give each student a copy of everyone's work with no names. Then we marked a few as if we were the official markers and they began to see what needed to be included to make a good exam answer.
I am not sure what giving them back the corrections did for them and if they compared them to the original but they often thought they had written it exactly as it was presented if I didn't give them the originals back.
Typing out the submissions meant I had an archive of material when I went to another town and the students were interested in what their peers in other places had to say about the issues in Greenland and how they were dealing with exam type questions.
I type really quickly so it was no problem for me to do this and we had unlimited access to the copying machine for the first six months of the year until we ran out of paper and had to wait for the ice to melt to let the boats in again.
I used the best stories in the oral exam questions for the lower students because they were on familiar topics - whaling, seal hunting, dog sledding, holidays and teenage life.
my opinion
I think computers can never take place of teachers.
Even if there is a software for us to correct writings, I will only account it as the aid of my teaching and revising.
Even if there is a software for us to correct writings, I will only account it as the aid of my teaching and revising.
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Sally Olsen
- Posts: 1322
- Joined: Thu Apr 08, 2004 2:24 pm
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You make the computer sound alive. A computer can only do what people tell it do, so far at least. I am just correcting the way I would correct with a pen and pencil but use the keyboard and the memory of the computer to keep my comments in storage and then put them into little bubbles at the appropriate places in the student's work.
Common errors are mistaken use of articles or missing articles, wrong tense with verbs, forgetting the "s" on plurals and then mistakes from transfer from their own language.
Many students don't know how to use quotes in their work which is very important in English. If they just copy someone's words without telling where the words came from we call it plagiarism and it is very serious in our university They can be suspended from class if they do it and after paying four times the price for the course, that is very serious for the foriegn students. Since I am the first person they meet in class, I really want to tell students about this so they will know the social practices of our university.
Most students have never written Business related texts like memos and business reports and need instruction on how to do that. They often think they can do it any old way and don't realize that there is a tradition of how things are done in business. It is different or slightly different for each business but there are general formats that need to be followed if they are to fit in and keep their jobs.
I have had some bizarre formats with students telling me that they didn't think it mattered when I give it back to them with corrections and a poor mark. It makes them think when they hand things in to their other instructors so I think that provides a useful service to them.
I always mark one sample in class and that usually makes students aware of what I am looking for but some people seem to need to be creative in a situation requiring a certain discipline and they seem to learn from the pressure of having marks deducted. We also give the students a rubric and samples of assignment on line. Since our course is only worth one credit, it is one place we can be a little strict.
Common errors are mistaken use of articles or missing articles, wrong tense with verbs, forgetting the "s" on plurals and then mistakes from transfer from their own language.
Many students don't know how to use quotes in their work which is very important in English. If they just copy someone's words without telling where the words came from we call it plagiarism and it is very serious in our university They can be suspended from class if they do it and after paying four times the price for the course, that is very serious for the foriegn students. Since I am the first person they meet in class, I really want to tell students about this so they will know the social practices of our university.
Most students have never written Business related texts like memos and business reports and need instruction on how to do that. They often think they can do it any old way and don't realize that there is a tradition of how things are done in business. It is different or slightly different for each business but there are general formats that need to be followed if they are to fit in and keep their jobs.
I have had some bizarre formats with students telling me that they didn't think it mattered when I give it back to them with corrections and a poor mark. It makes them think when they hand things in to their other instructors so I think that provides a useful service to them.
I always mark one sample in class and that usually makes students aware of what I am looking for but some people seem to need to be creative in a situation requiring a certain discipline and they seem to learn from the pressure of having marks deducted. We also give the students a rubric and samples of assignment on line. Since our course is only worth one credit, it is one place we can be a little strict.