I teach a college writing class, a seminar actually. I’ve been teaching this class (with constant variations) at this institution for four years, eight semesters. I love the class. I love choosing readings and hearing my students discuss them. I love designing assignments and watching my students’ imaginations making meaning from my prompt, producing work that I rarely expect and often admire. I love talking about writing, and I love helping others write pieces that they can celebrate.
But I hate grading.
I hate putting an artificial value (letter grade) on something that contains a piece of someone’s soul.
Am I being overly dramatic? Isn’t this just a required course to make sure students have some basic communication skills? To the first: perhaps I am. To the second: Maybe the course seems like “just a requirement” to other people, but it is not that to me, and I would venture a confident guess that the majority of my students don’t think so either…after they’ve completed the class.
I am not a brilliant professor. I’m not even a professor…just a lowly adjunct. I am not a profound lecturer. I rarely lecture at all. But I give my class space. I give them space to write things that matter to them. I give them space to write in casual, personal voices and passionate, persuasive voices. I give them room to make mistakes, revise, and take risks. They make great strides in valuing their own insights as much as (hopefully more than) how many lines go in a heading, how to create an MLA citation page, and what the heck a semicolon is really for. How do I put a letter on that?
The need for rankings and objective values pushes me to assign a measurement to the work accomplished in my course. No matter how much I adjust my requirements and objectives, I am left with the conviction that declaring A, B, or C belittles my careful efforts to make the process of fully engaging in my seminar real. Worse than that, the grading process belittles my students’ progress in the risk-taking, word-crafting, and soul-baring that happens so beautifully from semester’s start to finish.
I’ll be back when the dreaded task is through.
Warm as Pie 
Another reason we are kindred spirits. Ah, essay grading. I just said to one of my ENGL101 students the other day, “some days I wish I had studied math instead of English.” Hang in there . . . the term DOES end and the stacks of papers eventually all get graded. But in the mean time, get yourself a new fun pen, fill your coffee/tea mug, and get comfortable. I’ll be thinking about you while I do the same!
Thanks, Annemarie. I’m finished! Horray 🙂 Wishing you patience and peace of mind!
I used to teach middle school writing and I designed the curriculum so that lots of writing was required but not graded. Like I would make them write 3 journal entries each week and I would read and give feedback (ideally) but not grade it. I would grade them in other ways–for a graded essay I would grade objective things like grammar, well organized paragraphs, etc. Obviously using a rubric makes it easier to feel like there is a real meaning behind the grade you are giving–allowing the kid to see the rubric is a lot of feedback for them also, which is great (not sure if you use one). I know if I were just reading an essay and then trying to assign an A, B, C, D, or F, I would have a hard time.
But fundamentally I agree with you. I had trouble teaching writing on a middle school level as well because I both wanted to allow them privacy and give them freedom (to be honest, to swear, etc)–the administrators didn’t like it, and after I left changed the policies so that the kids weren’t able to do that anymore . . .
Thanks for your input, Adrienne. I totally agree that some writing should never be graded, and I also really understand what you are saying about that tricky balance of freedom and accountability. The problem with final grades (as opposed to a single graded essay) is that most of the students will never pick up their portfolios, so my grade really is rather isolated. I use a portfolio system, so the students are only receiving one grade at midterm and one grade at the end of the semester. It’s tricky!
I agree! It’s so, so hard to put a GRADE on a piece of writing. I work so hard to convince students that writing is never supposed to feel finished…that there is always revision to be done. And then I have to tell them to finish it and I assign a grade to their efforts. Many of them tell me these grades affect things like medical school applications. The pressure of it all is overwhelming for me. I can’t seem to let go. This is my least favorite time of the entire academic year. So I’m with ya! We’ll get through it together.
Katy, I also heavily emphasize revision (and its continuous nature) and risk-taking. I emphasize their autonomy as writers, and yet, I can’t erase the fact that I’ve got the power of the almighty GRADE. Ugh. Well, it’s over now!