How can I spend less time grading these papers and meeting with students? (P. Hirsch, Writing Program)
Issue: I believe in the importance of teaching writing in my freshman seminar, but the grading is consuming all of my time. I don't know how people manage to have students write drafts for each paper, give feedback, meet with students in conferences AND grade final papers.
Advice--from Penny Hirsch
There are many ways to teach writing effectively without spending as much time as we sometimes think we need to. For example, one good way to save time is to refrain from correcting every error on a student's paper. Many instructors decide to concentrate on just certain aspects of a paper (such as whether a draft has a clear thesis or organization, or whether students can correct a certain kind of sentence problem, such as weak verbs) and, in fact, make corrections on only one page so that the student will get the general idea. Research suggests that students often learn more from this method than they do if they're overwhelmed with too many corrections. Other instructors use peer editing to help students get feedback from a variety of readers. Still others ask students to go to the Writing Place for help with certain kinds of problems.
The resources in this part of NuWrite suggest other ways to manage the workload, both for responding to papers and handling conferences.
Finally, it also helps to think about writing instruction more broadly to appreciate the ways in which we teach writing that are already embedded in our disciplinary teaching. For example, every time we help students learn how to do research in our field, analyze arguments, and cite sources, we're actually teaching key aspects of the writing process.
