Pennsylvania College of Technology Dr. Vavra's ENL 121: Lit & Comp

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Introduction
Purpose of this Project
Essays of Special Note
Links to the Essays
Students' Comments
Conclusion

	udience:	#579
	hesis:	# 433     #777     #579    #514
	rganization:	#579    #275     #863    # 121     #674
	etails:	#116    #579
	tyle:	#539
	ntroduction:	#539    #426     #579    #376
	onclusion:	#453
	oils:	# 433      #539

      The papers posted here are two complete sets written during the Spring 1998 semester. The assignment was to write an essay on foils in Hamlet, following a rather detailed rubric explained in grading sheets. (The completed sheets are reproduced in each essay presented here. ) I like the assignment on foils because the concept primarily depends on finding and explaining similarities and differences. As I often note in class, similarities and differences are a major focus of Sesame Street. This children's program focuses on them because they are important in almost every field -- from Culinary Arts to Plastics. Another reason that I like the assignment is that it is a clear invitation to students to move beyond a simple outline (and paragraph) structure. As a simple example of that, students can (and most do) spend at least two  paragraphs on a single foil -- one to discuss similarities; the other, differences. (Students' outlines are included here after their essays.) Still another advantage of the assignment is that it forces students to define and learn a concept (foil) and then to apply it in a different context.
     In preparation for the assignment, the class read and discussed Ibsen's A Doll's House. In two class periods (Wednesday, March 18, and Friday, March 20) we discussed A Doll's House with particular emphasis on Rank and Ms. Linde as foils. In the course of discussing this play, I told students to look at this third major paper assignment, i.e., I wanted them to realize that the concept of foils would be important to their work on this paper. On March 25th, students wrote an in-class essay on foils in A Doll's House. This essay was graded, returned, and briefly discussed in class. Four class periods (March 27, April 1st, 6th, and 8th) were then devoted to reading and discussing Hamlet. Technically, therefore, the students had this major paper assignment on April 8th. This date is important because students' logs -- reproduced here after each essay --  indicate the date on which they claim to have started the assignment.
     As a matter of policy, I do not allow students to revise papers once they have been graded, but students are encouraged to show me a thesis and outline any time before the essay is due. My experience suggests that 1) most students who would need to revise do not understand the concept of revision, and 2) allowing them to revise after the grade simply invites sloppy first efforts. A "policy," however, is simply a guide for what to do when one has no reason to do something else. Based on what drafts, storming, revision, etc. accompanies the finished essay (in the envelope) and based on the students' logs and previous work with me, I usually give three or four students the option of revising for a better grade.
     I had long been mentioning my desire to put a complete set of essays on the web so that students could see what other students were handing in. Thus I asked the students to agree to handing in electronic copies and letting me put an entire set of papers on the web with their names on them. The majority of students decided that they would prefer that I put the papers on the web site without names, but graded with comments.
     When I received the papers and disks, I attempted to change the disk copies into HTML documents (for the web), and to grade and comment on them in the HTML version. Approximately eleven papers were done this way, but this process took  approximately two hours per paper, and there was no way in which I could complete them soon enough to give students their grades in time for them to decide if they wanted to do the fourth paper. I therefore graded the rest of the essays on the paper versions and gave students their grades. I retained copies of my comments, the students' logs, etc. The remaining papers were therefore added to this site at leisure (?) after the essays had been graded and returned to students.
     In the students' essays as presented here, the students' text and grades are in black; my additions and comments are in red. Because I have gone back over these papers at leisure, I have also indicated things that I would (perhaps "should") have graded differently. In most cases, these are a matter of a point higher here, or lower there. In general, they have little effect on the student's final grade. Even if these differences would change a grade from, for example, a C to a B, they would have little effect on the student's grade for the course. That grade includes many other components, and, at the end, my final evaluation. [I can never, at the end, lower a student's grade below the recorded average, but I can and do occasionally raise grades. At the end of the course, a student who has an average of 80 gets a B, no matter what I think of the student's overall work. But a student who has a 78 may also get a B, based on what I see as a pattern of improvement, effort, etc.]

     As noted in the "Introduction," my original purpose was simply to give students a complete set of essays so that they could see their work in the context of that of their classmates. The students' preference -- that I not use their names, and that I grade and comment on the essays -- changed my objective. I had previously considered putting out a set of graded essays with comments, but I knew that such a project is more complicated.  The complications became even more apparent once I started grading essays in the web versions.
     For one thing, grading electronically is significantly different from marking a paper. On paper, one can circle words or phrases and draw arrows. On paper, I have at times put a big "X" through an entire paragraph, or scrawled "Examples?" in big letters across an entire paragraph. Such markings are not available electronically.  On the other hand, electronic hypertext, as in web pages, allows me to prepare rather lengthy explanations for specific points and then to simply link to them from individual papers. This allows readers to click on the link, read the comment, and then hit the back button to return to the essay. [I used to do something similar by using macros in Word Perfect.]
     Another complication involves the purpose of the set of essays. With the first eleven papers in this set, I was attempting to grade the paper on the web such that the writer would get back the graded paper with comments on the web. This meant that my comments had to be made in relative haste and that they were aimed primarily at the writer of the essay. Once I realized that this would be impossible, the primary purpose shifted to presenting current and future students with a set of essays that would reflect not just the range of students' writing, but also my overall reactions to the papers.
     How to grade and comment on students' writing has long been a source of controversy among English teachers. It is a complex question. Most teachers (and probably most students) realize that many students only look at their grades. Comments are ignored, particularly if they are not positive. Early in my career, I would spend twenty or thirty minutes writing extended comments on papers only to see the student look at the grade and drop the paper in the waste basket on the way out of the classroom. I'm slow, but I'm not stupid. Once or twice of that was enough.
     Early in the semester, therefore, I do not write any lengthy comments. Instead, I usually invite the writer to discuss the essay with me. (Some students do; many don't.) As the semester progresses and I come to know the students, the nature of my comments depends on the students. The more that a student has demonstrated an interest in learning, the longer are my comments likely to be. Still another factor is the quality of the paper. I write longer, more complex comments on the better papers. The writers of these papers either mastered the basic material or followed the basic directions. Explaining the fine points takes time (and words), but since these students have shown that they care, I'll spend the time. On the other hand, weaker papers are generally the result of not following basic directions, or of not having done the basic homework, etc. If the students haven't read the basic directions I gave them, why should I write extended comments on their essays?
     This situation changes, however, when the essays and my comments are intended for the web and future students. The writer of a weak paper might not even read the comments I make, but many other students will. As a result, my comments on these papers are more detailed than they normally are.