On Grading Journals
I don’t know what sort of madness assailed me that I assigned journals this semester (I haven’t done so for years now), but I am seeing some benefit in them this time around.? I think I’m going to require (in future classes) that anyone writing journals does them online for the sake of keeping up with them, but my comments on the first round seem to have made a difference in some people’s writing.
I’ve been reading a book about teaching writing online for my composition class, and I’m starting to think that, in a class that didn’t require a certain number and a certain kind of assignment, a long series of shorter, low-stakes assignments might just be a better tool for teaching thinking than a smaller number of high-stakes assignments.? That said, every writing class I’ve ever taken has dictated a certain number of papers of a certain length, so I’ve never had a chance to try it out.? After all, every journal or blog that I’ve assigned has been an increase in workload for me and for my students beyond the already-heavy load of four or five papers of 1000 words or so, and because those papers occupy so much time for teacher and for student, I’ve treated the grading of journals and blogs more in terms of participation than in terms of dialectic steering.? I can really imagine an extended exchange of texts as an exercise in refining thought, something that doesn’t pretend to prepare students for lab reports or history essays but stands itself as the goal for a class.
I suppose I can only wait for such an opportunity and jump on it when it comes my way.
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