Grading Papers in Class

Posted by Amy Horn Dec 3, 2006

My latest article, Alternative Assessments, came out of guilt. As I was randomly passing out papers that we were going to grade in class, one of my students told me that when he grew up, he was going to invent a machine that graded papers for teachers. And not the scan-tron thing that we use, he said. A machine that grades all papers, so that kids wouldn't have to in class, is what he was going to invent.

I told him that he would be a billionaire.

I really never meant to be that teacher who has students trade papers and grade them in class. When I took all of my methods classes years ago, I remember how evil I thought those teachers were and how lazy. Strong words but I think I really thought that way. Then reality set in when I got my own classroom and I realized that every day was not going to be a dog and pony show with a lesson that just oozed excitement and every assignment was not going to be graded by me. Over the years I've had classroom aides (paraprofessionals), older student helpers, community volunteers, and of course, kids in class grade papers. We certainly don't grade papers in class every day, but we generally grade papers in class at least once a week.

Maybe twice.

But it dawned on me that day when my student told me about his brilliant invention, that if I'm grading papers in class twice a week and other teachers on my team are also grading papers in class on an average of twice a week, our students are grading papers ten times each week.

I would want a machine, too.

So, I am going to make more of an effort to be conscious of how often and what we're grading in class and then to implement different forms of assessment where and when I can. That way, the guilt of grading papers in class can be lifted and reserved for any number of the other things I mess up on a daily basis.