A little debate

In the recent issue of English Journal, I came across an article entitled “Why I Won’t Be Using Rubrics to Respond to Students’ Writing.” This is something that’s been on my mind ever since I used a rubric to score 145 student essays as part of this RU Ready grant. I found myself getting personally involved in some of the essays, but I always had that damn rubric in the back of mind nudging me toward either “Not College Ready” or “College Ready.” I spent more time trying to dance my way around the rubric on many essays than if I would have just read them and wrote my comments all over them. I have no doubt what the students would have gotten more out of.

Rubrics are so cold and impersonal. Early on in my teaching career I liked them. They seemed to give me a checks and balances system. But now more than ever, I find myself second guessing them. Do I really need them to decide what is an A paper and what is a C paper?

So if it isn’t simply to grade writing, what is the purpose of the rubric? I never solely use a rubric. I always litter my students’ essays with personal comments and suggestions. Most of my students enjoy the personal comments. In fact, I just gave a prompt to my College Composition class asking them which type of feedback they preferred (rubric vs. personal comments) and the latter won hands down. I also asked them what feedback has been most beneficial. All said they liked the comments that I left since it offered them new ideas and different ways of seeing their writing.

What frustrates me about rubrics can be summed up in one experience from second semester. In my previous College Comp class, I had one writer in particular who only cared about her grade/score. For a narrative theme she wrote a great essay on her passion for shopping. It had voice and style. She used great details to create a vivid picture for the reader. She included her thoughts and added dialogue. It was wonderful. However, because of the rubric’s requirements, she scored a 44/50 (a B). She got it back and just glared at the grade. She didn’t look at any of my comments, the last of which was, “This is a great essay. I enjoyed every word. There are some run-ons and usage errors, but those are easy to fix. It’s not easy to write so vividly and with such voice, however. You should be very proud of this piece.”

But did she care about that? No. She was just angry over her grade. Finally I had to sit down with her and go over my comments. I said, “Who cares if your score was a 44. This is a great essay. I actually laughed out loud when I read it. And I could clearly see everything you were talking about. Look at how you effectively use dialogue. Look at how you weave your thoughts into your prose so you actively reflect on the situation. That is the good stuff. Yeah, you had several run-ons. So what? We can fix those much easier than we can get you to write with voice and to be vivid and clear.”

I like this quote from the author of the article, Maja Wilson, in which she suggests that instead of marking up a rubric, we should instead “make ourselves transparent as we read -- that we pay attention to what goes on in our minds and try to put our reactions and questions and wonderings and musings and connections and images into words -- that we give the students the gift of a human response.” I’ll take that over using a rubric every time.

What has always worried me is that the state doesn’t give any of the student essays they get a human response. Students get a score and that’s it.

Even scarier is the fact that there is now software out there that does the grading for us. Nearly every textbook company who presented to us talked about their essay grading software. Where is the human response in that. In a way I can see the benefit of such software - it gives students instant feedback (sometimes it takes days for me to get essays back to my kids). The software can show them their errors and offer pre-programmed suggestions. But where does this end? Many programs already check for grammatical errors as students type. What’s next? Type in your topic and main ideas and quotes and the software will organize it for you into an essay? God help us.

If it comes to that, I’ll buy my home town paper and become editor. I’ll never teach again.

In my surveys to my College Comp students, they all mentioned how they enjoyed my personal comments the most. Only one student said that he found the rubric scoring system helpful.

Now that I think about it, I know my favorite high school English teacher did use a rubric. I remember seeing one when I was moving some of my old folders and tablets out of Dad’s. But as I did when I was a student, I quickly skipped over that to get to her comments. I really didn’t care what the grade was. I just wanted to read what she thought of it. Indeed this fall during conferences, I had one mother tell me that she loved to read my comments on her son’s papers. Brady, the son, was a rare talent. As a sophomore he wrote at the same level as my College Comp students. In that case, the rubric was just one big circle around the highest scores and a total of 50/50 at the bottom. But the comments were where I could push him. He rarely used a fragment. There were no usage errors or paragraphing problems. Instead, I used my comments to urge him to use more dialogue and reflection. I pushed him to use key details to render his descriptions authentic. I asked him why he structured his essay the way he did. When his Mom said she liked to read the comments, I was a bit scared. But it was also good challenge.

Later in her essay, Wilson asks, “Do we want them writing for the rubric, or do we want them to write for themselves and for us and for all those who hunger for the human experience melded with language.” Now that’s a bit strong for me. I have very, very few students who “hunger for the human experience melded with language.” But I do have students who are eager to write about what they want to write about - the rubric be damned. In my Comp II class, one of my favorite students, Justin, is all fired up to write about his truck. But Justin, after having him in my American Lit class, reads and writes at an elementary level. So the rubric is going to bash his work. But I can temper that with my personal commentary, which, from the sounds of his brainstorming and thinking, will be very positive.

I guess this gets at the heart of why I try to teach writing. I don’t want students to fulfill requirements (write a descriptive essay using strong verbs and adjectives and underline a compound sentence in red). I will do it because it’s our department policy, and some believe that makes students better writers (and maybe it does). I want students to learn how to craft a piece of writing, not meet requirements. Now I’m running the risk of sounding a bit like Wilson and “the human experience melded with language.” I know it’s idealistic. But I think I can pull it off.

I’ll let you know in a few weeks.