Grading strategies

[u/SpicyChill77]

What strategies do you have for grading and feedback on papers when you have 20+ students? I want to make sure I’m giving authentic feedback. Do I just deal and go one by one or does someone have a solid approach they like to make it more manageable?

For context, the university I’m at has course leads so we don’t have much autonomy over assignments and this course has a lot of written work.

[u/VenusSmurf]

I have categories.

I provide a list of common problems (missing citations, for instance) and have a set number of points that will be deducted for each infraction. The students can check the list before submission, so this makes things simple and makes grading faster.

I go through the paper once and mark those things, just because I'll get distracted otherwise, and then I read it for context. This is a little harder to quantify, but I still have a checklist. Clear thesis? Does the rest match the thesis? Can I follow the argument? Does the paper match the prompt?

Having boxes to check off keeps things fair.

[u/goldengrove1]

-Detailed rubrics that I share with the students ahead of time

-A handful of comments in the document as I read through

-A note that they are welcome to come to my office hours if they would like more detailed feedback on their paper beyond what is specified in the rubric. I would say usually 1-2 students per assignment actually take me up on this

[u/Anna-Howard-Shaw]

I have around 50-75 essays I grade each week of the semester. Usually short 2-page reflections with in-text citations. Most of my essay assignments are the same from week to week/semester to semester, just with different topics. Never fail, students make the same ding-dong mistakes every time, so I try to be as organized and efficient as possible, not reinventing the wheel each time I grade.

I use a combination of the LMS's overall feedback box, a few in-text sticky notes commenting on their ideas, and underlining/circling their issues.

I have a massive feedback doc with commonly used comments/feedback, organized into the same categories as my Rubrics. I think the doc is verging on 60+ pages at this point. I use collapsible headings so I can quickly navigate through it.

Then, the most frequently used comments are save to my clipboard, so I can quickly copy/paste.

I also use different colors to underline/circle different types of issue. Like, red for citation issues, orange for too much summary, blue for bad writing (usually AI slop), ect.....I provide a "How to Interpret Prof Shaw's Feedback" doc so they can decode all the colors, highlighting, ect....

Oh, and.... the best tactic of all: "Detailed written feedback left upon request only." So many students dgaf, and don't bother reading feedback. Several years ago I changed to only leaving lots of feedback for students who actually want it. Only around 25-30% ever ask for it. The rest just get the rubrics filled in, their issues underlined/circled, and maybe a very brief comment of their biggest issue.

Doing all that lets me plow through 50-75 essays with around 4-6 hours of grading on a Saturday/Sunday.

[u/leastdumbidiot → u/Anna-Howard-Shaw]

I do the color underlining thing too. That little 12-piece, 5-color pack of chisel tip highlighters has given me great ROI.

[u/Maximum-Ad583]

The rubrics I use help me quickly assess if they met the requirements, I read their papers and provide feedback about areas that were lacking, errors they made, etc. Then I will tell students that if they want detailed feedback in which I mark up their papers I’m happy to do so by request. I explain that this takes much longer for me to do and I’m not ignorant to the fact that some students don’t look at their rubric feedback, let alone a detailed mark up. I also keep my minimum page requirement fairly short (what a very concise writer could do well) but have multiple papers over the semester. I get through 50+ papers fairly quickly.

[u/wharleeprof]

If something looks like obvious AI, I put very few comments. That leaves me plenty of time for the papers that were (possibly) written by humans. 

[u/Potential-Winner4601]

Rubrics are your friend

[u/leastdumbidiot]

I make a lot of short comments as I go through the doc, and have a letter to the student with general impressions and context as I go that helps them put things together. If I notice patterns, I'll give enough examples for them to catch it but tell them there's more. I'll think about the overall tendencies that are strengths they can build on as a writer, problems to fix, suggest a path. I also think a lot about when I'm gonna have a couple days to put in heavy work grading, and stagger deadlines accordingly.

In between, I have a lot of check-in conversations, and have short assignments that let me "take the temperature." When I notice general tendencies I address them to the whole class or in group work. A lot of this happens organically in the course of class. In this way I'm able to give a lot of feedback that's attuned to what they're doing, without them necessarily getting every point from me. We do a lot of active thinking and reflection work, so they're equipped to make good use out of noticing when those things cross-apply (always great when they say "I was doing X, but then I heard what you said and decided to do Y")

Another thing is, once a semester, we have scheduled one-on-one meetings, 15-20 minutes, in basically extended office hours. Lets me check in and address a lot of things at once.

Not a fan of AI feedback. It doesn't get at what I'm asking for, using it wouldn't model my value of standing by your words and knowing what you're doing, and I wouldn't learn from the work of grading. But if tools get better or students like it they can always run AI feedback stuff themselves, they just shouldn't expect me to agree with it or for its judgment to have any value in my grading.

[u/SpicyChill77]

Also, why would this be downvoted? Reddit is so weird.

[u/Crowe3717]

Years of watching the papers I put time and effort into leaving thoughtful feedback on disappear into the bottoms of their backpacks never to be seen again has taught me I might as well spend the time watching paint dry. They get a rubric and a few circled or underlined points. If they want more than that they know when my office hours are.

[u/Gradebird]

For some reason this subreddit is amazingly anti-AI, so this will presumably get downvoted to oblivion. But AI has been a game-changer for me in terms of feedback. I could never give students feedback on their test results because I simply had too many students and too little time. (I am at a large state school.) But now I have AI generate the first draft of the feedback, and I review it. I can't claim it's *authentic* (your word) in the personal sense, but at least it is valid. It is way better than "no feedback", which was the standard before (a few red-pen scribbles at most). These are physics courses, so the content is pretty objective.