Difficulties with Grading...

Establishing a way to grade papers is something I am beginning to struggle with. Throughout my junior high and high school English classes, my teachers gave us a grading rubric that they would use to grade papers with. I thought it was helpful--I knew what my teachers expected from me and I could easily mold my papers to be A+ papers. I found my writing to be more impersonal and "voice-less" but, hey, grades were more important.

Now as an aspiring teacher, I want my students to actually enjoy writing and I do not want them to write cookie cutter, boring papers in order to try and please me. As Renee stated in her one pager, I too want my students to "write with wine." When I think about this, however, I do not know how to create a grading system that is fair to all students, especially the ones who ask "What exactly do you want from me?" or "What do you want for an 'A' paper?" As of now, I would ideally want my students to follow a general set of instructions (i.e. answering a general question) and create something they are truly proud of but still relevant to the paper topic.

There are times when I really hate page requirements; sometimes I feel like I say everything I have to but still have half of a page to go before I meet the page requirement. Then I feel like I have to go back and add fillers to make it long enough, making me less proud of my paper. So for my future classroom, I would want give my general paper topics and say something along the lines of "I expect most people to write this in about 4-6 pages, but if you feel content with a finished product under four pages, I'd rather have 3 1/2 pages of great writing that I know you're proud of than four pages of mostly good writing but has unnecessary, clearly filler words and phrases placed throughout."

In my ideal world, though, I don't know how I would create a fair grading system that students can rely on. I suppose I will continue to think about it and learn from others, and hopefully by the time I have my own classroom I will be able to develop something that works and that I'm truly happy with.

Any Road will Take you There...

I hate silence when I'm writing; it's very unsettling for some reason. So I've grown accustomed to listening to music while I write. Right now I'm listening to my George Harrison playlist and "Any Road" came up on shuffle. I couldn't think of what I wanted to write for this week and good ole Georgie gave me some inspiration.

I have been going back and forth about how I want to approach my memoir, trying to think of what would work best before I even started. This wasn't really working for me. So I just started writing, going back to my feelings of when I was a seventh grader working on my Language Arts "end of the unit" project. I tried to add as much detail as I could to really put myself and readers in my mindset. I think this approach is an improvement for my draft. It still needs some work, but I will take improvement.

So, going back to George, I decided to spread some wisdom from the former Beatles lead guitarist. In "Any Road," he says:

You may not know where you came from
May not know who you are
May not have even wondered how you got this far
...
But if you don't know where you're going
Any road will take you there.


This reminds me of my writing memoir; it is hard for me to remember exactly how I felt or what my process for developing my project was. So when I wrote my latest draft, I decided to take George's advice.  I wasn't sure where my draft would go, but any approach would take me "there"--a different, more reflective tone. And I think it did. As I said earlier, I think it still needs some more work, but overall I am satisfied with it right now.  Thanks Georgie!


If you want to hear the song in its entirety, here's a link! (And for all you diehard Beatles fans, you'll notice some clips from the "A Hard Day's Night", "Yellow Submarine", and "Magical Mystery Tour" movies!)

George Harrison-Any Road

Drafting... And a LOT of Revising

Although I've recently discovered that I enjoy writing non-fiction, I still find it very difficult to write a memoir/personal essay. I have changed my draft completely from the first run-through. I love writing and "letting my creative energy flow," but for some reason, I'm having a very hard time with this draft assignment. My writing memory is meaningful to me, but I'm finding it very difficult to bring myself back to the seventh grade me in order to extend my draft.

To not be a "Debby Downer" anymore, I found last class very helpful; I realized that my first draft would be considered a healthy one, so I'm hoping my revisions will make things even better and I can power through to have an end result that I truly love.

See you all in class!