The first-year seminar I mentioned in my last post will have twenty-two students; each will be (or should be) submitting at least thirty-five reading responses during the semester. While the reading responses make students read and write about what they’ve read, I have to grade them within twenty-four hours of submission if my feedback is going to have any effect. To make grading these writing assignments as easy as possible, I’ve used a form of specifications grading with a 2 X 2 rubric.
I’ve noticed that any long-form comments I make about what a student submits — besides compliments like “Good work” — almost always relate to mechanical errors in the student’s writing. I see spelling mistakes, disagreement between the singular and plural, incorrect verb tenses, and other problems that detract from the ideas students are trying to express. My rubric hasn’t included a criteria for writing mechanics, hence the perceived need for me to type something in the tiny comment box when grading.
I’ve decided to add that criteria to the rubric to further reduce the amount of time spent grading. The rubric now looks like this:
Since each reading response will be worth 30 points rather than 20, I will probably also boost my grading scale for the course from 1,000 to 2,000 points.
Previous posts on specifications grading here, here, and here.