I think I might pinch Dr Crazy’s strategy for grading essays – she uses a checklist as a front page where she checks off things like “Paper offers adequate context (historical, theoretical, and/or critical) for the claims that it makes about the text(s) under discussion” – or the contrary (“paper does not offer…”) and thus sums up strong and weak points allowing more useful feedback and more efficient grading – without sacrificing traditional comments in the margins.
I start a new teaching unit tomorrow: IKT og lÊring, or learning and technology. There’ll be lots on blogs and wikis, and some wonderful guests (I’m so lucky!) – and also essaywriting. It’s silly how motivating I find tricks like the one Dr Crazy described. Suddenly I’m all excited about getting to give feedback on essays soon. Good thing I know how to fool myself into working, eh?
Norman Hanscombe
The “Cover Sheet” approach (provided always that it’s tailored to fit the particular essay) is the only effective and efficient way to mark an essay. Sadly, some markers have used it to avoid having to make the traditional comments within the body of the essay, but I guess we can never prevent even the best of ideas being abused by some? But I’m confident you’ll treat it like salt and pepper — just because one comes across pepper, for the best results, you don’t suddenly stop applying salt to the meal?