Across the Drafts

* Nancy Sommers' article, "Across the Drafts," argues that a partnership between the student and teacher can be the best setting for influential feedback. In what ways can this partnership be beneficial to the editing process? *

One of the most important parts of giving adequate feedback is to provide an honest critique that is paired with sufficient instruction. This means that the instructor is responsible for providing the student with a legitimate critique of their work, but then also providing them with actual instruction on how to improve their ideas or errors. An instructor should not just tell the student what they have done wrong, but should offer an explanation of how the student can improve their work for the next draft, of for future assignments. After all, the whole purpose of providing feedback for students is to help them see what they did well, what they need to improve and also how they can improve. When implemented in this manner, constructive criticism can be very beneficial for students. The students also have an important role in this process. They must learn how to receive criticism and to then put the advice into effect in future assignments. Students must not view their instructor's comments as personal attacks, but as enlightening knowledge that they can carry on into their next assignment and other courses as well.

Responding to Student Writing

* In "Responding to Student Writing," Nancy Sommers argues that an edit of a first draft should focus on developing students' ideas and not on the specific mechanics of the paper. Do you agree or disagree? *

Before reading this article, I had never really thought about the different purposed throughout the editing process. However, after reading Sommers' article, I have realized how critical these processes can be for the development of a sound paper. I agree with Sommers' argument that when editing a first draft, a teacher should put the most emphasis on critiquing the students' ideas and development of their argument. It seems pointless to edit the mechanics within a student's paper if you are then going to suggest that the student expand or revise a paragraph or entire section of their work. By advising the student to expand their ideas within their paper first and then focusing on mechanics in a second or third draft, teachers can provide students with a much more efficient critique of their work.

Also relating to Sommers' ideas, I believe the most important part of editing is to not only tell the students what needs to be revised, but to actually teach them better ways of communicating their ideas. It is part of a teachers job to show and further explain to students specifically how they can revise their paper in order to more effectively communicate their ideas. By being introduced to new techniques and approaches, students will actually feel like there is a real reason to revise and improve their work.

Scoring Rubrics

*Mertler's article discusses how to design scoring rubrics for classroom use. In the article, Mertler states, "It is important to note that one type of rubric is not inherently better than the other" (p.3). In your educational experiences, do you feel that your teachers have implemented both analytic and holistic rubrics? If so, do you feel they've used the two equally?*

In my educational experiences, my instructors have used both holistic and analytic rubrics for grading. I do, however, feel that the instructor's preference has changed in my years in school. When I was in middle and high school, my teachers most often implemented an analytic rubric when grading our assignments. They would score individual parts of the assignment and then sum up these scores to create a total score. Although Mertler states, "an individual's work should be examined a separate time for each of the specific performance tasks or scoring criteria," I doubt many of my teachers took the time to do this (p. 3). Regardless, I feel that the main focus of this type of grading was to produce adequate feedback for us, as students. By assigning either qualitative levels for specific criteria, these teachers were hoping to give students a more significant degree of feedback on their work.

Since I've been in college, most of my professors have used holistic scoring rubrics. These professors are usually scoring the overall product as a whole, without judging the components separately. I believe they most often use this style of rubric because most of our assignments are summative in nature and their focus is on the overall quality, and understanding of specific content. This style of scoring is also much faster for the professor considering they do not have to read hundreds of assignments multiple times to formulate each student's score. Also, they seem to be less concerned with providing descriptive feedback to students. Due to this and the time restraints put on them, this is probably why professors are more likely to choose the holistic rubric over the analytic one.