The Theory and Practice of Grading Writing: Problems and Possibilities

by Frances Zak (Editor)

Explores grading strategies for English composition teachers that are consistent with modern discourse and pedagogical theories.

Genres: Writing

224 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1998

Reviews

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

Only read about 2/3rds of it, but got some good nuggets. I mostly look for research that supports the fact that I don't comment on papers and only take about 7-10 mins to grade a paper. My favorite finding in the research is that English profs say they privilege simple, direct Anglo-Saxonate diction, and direct prose, but in actually the research bears out that they give the higher grades to those papers that are littered with latinate choices and highly nominalized prose. It seems graders get fooled by a 'halo' effect of language. I think it's because profs read a lot of bad writing, do a lot of bad writing, and therefore, out of laziness, crushing work-loads, and tiredness, grade the halo rather than the semantic drive buried under all that crap writing.