The Late, Great Connors, Lunsford Response

The way I put comments on papers is gentle, thoughtful, afraid, hopeful, and even sometimes bordering on the wistful. I do my best to read papers with an open mind, and sometimes have to remind myself to keep my mind open as I read and re-read.
It's difficult sometimes not to read as simply an audience waiting to be entertained, and I think those moments when I am delightedly entertained get marked with comments that reflect my being entertained.

Grading the papers is difficult. It gets more difficult the more I try to theorize why I am giving a certain paper one grade and another paper a different grade. To keep my grading mind focused, I usually keep some tools handy for when I get through with the second, commented-upon read. I keep the assignment sheet and the "grading standards" sheet on hand. I try to put grade emphasis on how well the particular assignment was fulfilled by the paper, looking at how well the audience, purpose, and specific requirements were met with by the paper. After I evaluate how all of those have been fulfilled satisfactorily or not, I can move on to the grading standards sheet, where I have to sort of hold court while my comments and the fulfillment of the assignment's audience/purpose/requirements argue for a placement of the paper into whichever of the grade categories. I do put considerable emphasis on organization, and I think my comments tend to reflect that. Sometimes I do ask, "Could this go here, or that come in earlier, like here?"

Asking questions has become sort of how I not only comment on student papers, but also how I tend to comment on peer drafts in workshop. I think this questions approach helps me let the draft remain the property of the writer, while being able to point out ways it might not have satisfied my expectations as a reader. Much of this approach must come from tutoring so much. It's this idea of informed consent that characterizes how I frame comments, not just in tutoring but in commenting on student papers in a class I get to teach. I don't like the idea of saying "this is wrong, do it this way." I prefer to say things like "what about if we did things a little more this way," and stuff like that. Maybe I sound like I beat around the bush, but specific examples are usually employed to make whatever suggestion I am trying to make, usually something from class, and examples from the NFG and the They Say I Say are great for this purpose.

Recently while tutoring some other 102 teacher's student I noticed and learned that this certain teacher likes to make comments on the reading logs that the students do. One way this was explained to me was that the teacher could point out interesting things in these early prewriting exercises that may eventually come to fruition in a well-developed argument once the paper writing comes around. I have recently started taking up reading logs to comment on, but since I haven't gotten to doing those comments yet, I can't say how successful it will be. I want to be able to keep some kind of track of how the students are doing when it comes to their readings, and I want to keep reminders going for them and for me, that our writing in 102 is a recursive process.

Since beginning to grade student papers last semester, my comments on student papers have varied, according to the paper, but have remained mostly consistent. I don't try to do too much, but certain papers just seem to ask for more out of me, and especially with papers that somehow miss the mark I try to be as detailed as possible. And I do try to stay encouraging. I do find myself making comments about what is going right with papers that fulfill the assignment, make interesting observations, and use the sophisticated moves we have been demystifying. I think students need to know what they are doing right, or well, just as much as they need to know what they are not doing right, or well. It takes time, and even cranking out twenty-three grades in six hours is too much at a time for me. Another teacher of 102 has a system of grading ten per day, which I can appreciate. But appreciating and incorporating are two different things. Sometimes I imagine being able to just read through once and slap a grade on there, but I know I'd probably hate myself. So, I just have to do them as I go, and comment on the great stuff as well as the not so great stuff, and take the time to judge the merits of the paper before the tribunal of me, the assignment, and the grading standards. How can people even survive teaching eight sections of comp in one semester? Not with families of their own, I assume, or with well-considered comments. I guess as I do this grading and commenting thing longer I will get better and faster at it, but I hope to stay thoughtful about the process. "It may sound easy, but nothing could be harder," : Jables, School of Rock.