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[anthroid]

I assign first drafts, not rough drafts.  It's my sense that makes the students work a teensy bit harder.  I discuss with them the difference between the two and indeed include that in my syllabus.

I do not "give" grades.  Students earn them.  I also make that clear.  It's not a gift I award for general niceness or being extra-squeaky-clean or for being a wide receiver or for getting into medical school.  Certainly I have heard this cry; my response is, inevitably, "gosh, I hope that happens for you.  What will you be doing to earn an A in this class then?"

I require drafts; students fail the course without submitting an adequate (in my judgment; I tell them the standards in the syllabus) draft regardless of the level of their other work.  I read the drafts; I point out glaring issues, including grammar as well as argumentation or evidence problems.  I require the students to submit the marked-up draft with the final paper.  If they have not addressed the issues, and there are many issues that I have noted (not all papers are like that; some of them are dreams to read from the start), the best a student can hope for is a C.  I say this too at the get-go.

The classes in which I require serious papers might have, at most, 25 students, so I can attend to drafts and revised final papers with some concentration. 

[jkaron]

I'd like to pick up on something Fiona mentioned: her relief at not handing out a B+.  After spending years learning how to make those subtle distinctions between a C+ and a B-, or a B+ and A-, I decided to dump them just when grading papers.  Instead, a paper is an A, B, C, etc., but no longer is on a boderline.  Certainly there are B papers that are better than others, but the grade signals that, in a sense, they can compete with each other, that they are in the same rank.

It isn't so difficult to differentiate these broader bands--and we should be able to do so.  A lot of problems go away (and other exercises and scores in a course can provide the full grade spread if that is needed).  Grading is easer--and easier to justify, if still imperfect.

[avaya]

I read drafts.  Yes, I am a young faculty member.  I edit the first paragraph for punctuation/grammar and tell them to fix the rest.  I mainly focus on organization issues, arguments and support for the arguments, and content.

In terms of the "you looked at my paper, why don't I get an A?" issue, I have found it easy to deal with.  First, I tell students in class that just because I look at a draft does not mean that it will get an A.  It may be that your paper is a C paper and you come to see me with the draft, and I make suggestions to help you improve it, and you end up with a B paper.  Be happy.  Second, I tell them that to get an A, a paper needs originality and outstanding analysis - things that I cannot "fix" in a paper.  It would not be fair for me to give the student some unique analytical point - thus, sometimes students may come to me and I don't have any suggestions, and they still may only get a B because they lack the unique analysis.  However, I will tell them that at the time when they bring the draft in.

I've had the "I need an A" story and frankly I've found at least half the students who say it are liars.  I've had a number tell me that I broke their 4.0.  I was so concerned (I was in my first semester at my t-t position) that I told my department chair.  He laughed and said he bet they were lying.  He looked them up, and sure enough, they all were.

[prytania3]

Amlithist wrote:

I, too, teach comp, and for a year or two I've struggled with how much draft reading to do.  For the first ten years, I did none--zero.  I'd make them bring in a rough draft (2 copies) to class the period before the final was due--one copy was to prove to me that they'd started on it before the night before it was due, so they'd get points for this, and the other was for peer editing with a classmate.  Period.  They could also take it to the Writing Center for help.  But I wouldn't give any marks/feedback, except in those rare cases if they'd bring a copy to me outside of class. 

Then, I kept hearing all my colleagues talking about their late penalties (I have none--it's either on time, or it's a zero), their rewrites (I give none--if you can write it for an A, do it the first time in the final draft), and their comments on drafts.  So for the past year I've been marking rough drafts while they peer edit, so each student gets my feedback as well as his partner's.  The result:  they make the same mistakes on the final that I've marked and explained on the rough drafts, plus, I'm working myself to death to mark all of them! 

I hate to tell you this, but honestly, if you're giving feedback on drafts and the papers aren't getting better, then you must be doing something wrong.

[history_grrrl]

Excellent advice, folks. I just looked at the student's record, and of the ten history courses he has taken, in only one of them did he receive an A. And -- surprise, surprise -- his average is lower than what he reported to me. I also just got an unsolicited email from my TA, saying she feels like she's being subjected to "emotional blackmail" by this student. That sounds like an accurate description to me. I think he's looking for points of vulnerability that he can press on, in hopes of achieving those (unearned) higher grades. I think I'll talk to colleagues who are also teaching him now, to see if anyone else has been targeted.

[econ_anon]

I do the same thing Dr. Pi does, and I find it saves time in the end because the final grading is so easy.  The extensive comments earlier also don't require as much thought and justification as they would in a final draft because I don't have to worry as much about complaints at that point.  And I NEVER read a draft right before the paper is due-- how would they be able to read, interpret, internalize, and finalize my brilliance without at least a few days to mull over my comments?

Glad you researched your student, history_grrrl... too bad he's such a loser.

[jds2006]

OP: stand up for your TA when the time comes for grading this jerk's next paper. Get several trustworthy people to grade it so you have a consensus. Your TA may not be able to grade it as objectively as she'd like, which is the Boy Genius's tactic.

The term is Working the Ref. You complain about THIS strike call in hopes that the NEXT strike call will go your way.

[dr_evil]

I've had a number tell me that I broke their 4.0.  I was so concerned (I was in my first semester at my t-t position) that I told my department chair.  He laughed and said he bet they were lying.  He looked them up, and sure enough, they all were.

Been there, done that.

I've had students claim a TA graded something incorrectly.  My policy is to regrade the entire assignment, not just the part they thought was graded incorrectly (such as a particular test question).  The student's grade may go up or down after I grade it.  That stops some of the whiners just trying for more points, but still allows those with mistakes made to have them fixed.

[dogstar]

Au contraire! I do the same amount of work as I would at the end of the term on a final paper; I just do it earlier, and with more potential for helping the student, since they rarely pick up graded papers after the term's over to learn from my comments.

And I don't give out a lot of A's, for two reasons: first, the draft is worth so much of the final project grade that if someone really screws up on that, it's very hard for hu to pull off a final project A. And second, it doesn't happen all that often that a student who doesn't put much work into the draft will put enough work into the revision to earn an A on it either. But now they have no basis for complaining.

   This is exactly what I have found: the final papers are so much easier to read and grade, because either the paper has improved considerably, or it's stayed the same or made minimal improvement. By assigning a rough draft, I get the worst of my work out of the way earlier in the term, and lighten the load considerably at the end, when there are final exams and final grades to deal with.

  I've found that if I make myself very available to read drafts whenever a student wants, usually only a few students actually take me up on this offer. I can encourage them all I want to read their drafts, and it doesn't really matter, because hardly anyone takes advantage of the offer. But it certainly makes me look good and boosts various ratings on my evaluations. And, for what it's worth, I do genuinely want to help improve their writing, so the few who take me up on my offer get the best of what I have to give in terms of writing instruction.

  And it is also usually the case that a student who slacked on the rough draft also doesn't usually improve it dramatically in the final version, but they truly have only themselves to hold accountable, and so I get very few complaints about paper grades.

  I have had classes where I give out lots of As and classes where I give out only one or two-- it just depends on the class.

  As for students caring about grades, I was shocked to learn back when I was a TA that students do set their sights on particular grades, and it's not always an A they want. They have been quite frank with me about shooting for a "just passing" grade or a C or whatever, so now when they come to me concerned about their grades I start of asking them what kind of grade they're really hoping for. I'm always surprised at how many of them say B or C.

  But they are so bold about asking for As when they don't deserve them. I've had students who weren't doing very well email me and just flat out beg for the A-- my favorite one being the student who said she had to get an A to get off academic probation! When I first started grad school the media had decided that "overbearing Asian parents" made good copy, and so I got a number of Asian students ask me to change their Cs to As because it was an "Asian parent thing" and they'd be in big trouble, etc. Needless to say, I didn't comply and suggested that if that were the case, it was really their responsibility to put a little more effort into actually earning the A. But that whole fad died down once the media stopped trying to make it sound like every Asian parent is some kind of tryannical grade Nazi.

[twofish]

What I've done is to assign major written research projects so that they are due two-thirds of the way into the semester and then have a policy that allows the student to resubmit the papers as many times as they want until the end of the course. 

It's curious how few students take advantage of this.

[philoctetes]

I am not too surprised that students don't always shoot for As. I went to a school in my undergrad where As were rather rare things and shooting for them seemed a bit much. (Of course it was a school that provided scholarships to all A average students, whatever their entrance situation was, so the administration was not partial to grade inflation)

All I wanted was to learn the stuff and keep an average that kept me in the honours programme. That eventually translated into getting As, but not for a while.

As for reading drafts. I tell them that if they email them before a certain date I will look them over quickly and give them some advice, but I will not copy edit them. It is a bit of work, but I just make sure that the date to look at drafts is 4 or 5 days before the papers are due, that lowers the number of papers quite a bit. But I don't teach comp so I spend almost no time in class going over what is expected in a paper (they are supposed to learn that in comp aren't they.)

As for late papers, I have tried both system: docking marks and not allowing late papers. The latter is better for my schedule. But I have taken to allowing two or three short papers, or one long term paper due at the end of term. It lets them goof off all term if they want, but it means that they can't improve over the term if they choose the latter option--which teaches an important life lesson itself.

[plainjane]

One of the strategies I've found works pretty well to minimize grade-grubbing is to refuse to write the grade on the paper. I give pretty detailed feedback, and require that the students meet with me in person if they want to know their letter grade (I emphasize the if part). This means that they will have at least glanced at the comments before they come in to talk about the grade. When they meet with me, I ask them to tell me how they think the paper went -- what they did well, and what they would like to have done differently. I steer the conversation toward things they would like to change about the paper. Then I ask them what grade they think the paper deserved -- and at this point they almost always answer with a lower grade than the one I assigned.

Sometimes a student comes in who thinks they did everything right, but it's hard for them to argue with copious comments about what they did wrong.

-pj

[fym22]

Very simple.

Tell little Johnny that

1. grades are not determined based on the "needs" of the student---they're assigned based on the quality of the work.

2. whatever grade you receive is the grade you have earned.

[voxprincipalis]

You might tell the student that what hu is proposing is an excellent example of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need." If hu can figure that out and defend it, then perhaps hu might manage to earn that A after all.

(OK, Marx may not have meant the phrase in the way it is often interpreted. But Student doesn't need to know that. Or, if hu figures it out, again, give hu an A.)

VP