A Better Alternative To Grading Student Writing

by Terry Heick

It is a fast submit that simply occurred to me whereas writing about–nicely, writing about writing.

I used to be brainstorming methods to make use of know-how to assist college students enhance their writing and realized that again and again, I used to be serious about the process of writing and the way essential it’s to high quality of regardless of the author is left with on the finish.

Nice writing begins in the beginning, whether or not with an thought or want or objective of social context or spark of inspiration. No matter it’s that ’causes’ the writing to start–what’s wrought there in the beginning is sort of like a lump of clay. With out that clay, not a lot may occur and the standard of that clay issues; its texture and purity and consistency and total make-up have loads to say about what it’s capable of produce. Largely, what you’re capable of create with that clay relies on the standard and amount of that clay.

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However much more essential than the clay is what you do with it. It’s a strategy of shaping and reshaping. It’s a matter of imaginative and prescient and perseverance as a lot as it’s inspiration and expertise. The standard of the occasions and of the sequence of occasions after that preliminary lump of clay is wrought issues greater than the standard of the category itself.

As a result of writing is procedural and mechanical, expertise and techniques and habits and methods and so forth are all vastly essential. Writing is commonly seen as a matter of inspiration and expertise and love and fiction and storytelling and large phrases and magnificence, however the fact is that these iconic ‘issues’ are a product of the talents and techniques and habits and methods–and the mindset they’re utilized with.

The Goal Of The Writing Course of

Put one other means, the writing course of itself is every part. It doesn’t have for use the identical means each time and that’s one other dialog for one more day and I solely point out it briefly as a result of the worst factor you are able to do is learn this submit after which go shove the ‘diligence of the writing course of’ down the throats of would-be writers/college students who solely have to consider that they will write and have the chance to take action with skilled, high quality, and well timed suggestions to information them.

All this leads me to the title. As an alternative of grading the tip results of that course of (the completed course of), grade the standard of that scholar’s use of the writing course of–ideally based mostly on their particular strengths and weaknesses and the aim and viewers of the writing project itself.

As a result of in the end, the aim of instructing writing isn’t for college students to have created a number of high quality writing in your classroom.

The truth is, the aim of instructing writing isn’t even to have the ability to use the writing course of. Relatively, the overarching aim of instructing writing is to create in every scholar the tendency to jot down–the idea that writing is efficacious and that they’re able to writing.

With that established, academics of writing can then domesticate the behavior of and tendency to make use of some type of the writing course of that works for that scholar.

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Then, in an ideal world, the scholar could be coached to create high quality writing that accomplishes a transparent aim with a transparent viewers and hopefully improves their life and the world round them by some means alongside the best way.

Utilizing The Writing Course of

Utilizing the writing course of takes years of follow as a result of producing nice writing takes fixed imaginative and prescient and refinement. It requires the author to know what they’re attempting to say after which say it in a means that produces some impact on the world. Analysis, thought group, paragraph construction, sentence instruction, diction, punctuation, rule-breaking, tone, literary units–utilizing these concepts to speak advanced concepts is difficult work.

That’s why writing is much less of an exercise and extra of a course of not in contrast to the scientific course of. Whereas we would for professionals, it wouldn’t make a lot sense to grade youngsters doing science by the accuracy of their information. Relatively, their skill and tendency to make use of the scientific course of to check theories and gather information can be way more essential.

For amateurs in lots of fields, the method is much extra essential than the product.

If these objectives (or these like them) are at the very least partly true, then a viable different to grading scholar writing is to grade if the scholar writes and how the scholar makes use of the writing course of itself in a means that is sensible to them.

And in a means that exhibits possession of that writing course of that can endure lengthy after they’ve left your classroom.