14+ Posts with Strategies to Tackle Grading

TeachingThe Teaching of WritingSelf-Care & Wellness
Written By Stephanie Hampton

Grading Categories, Strategies to Get Through Stacks, and More

During this past week of school, I had a realization that the newness of the back-to-school season was starting to wear off. I found myself getting used to routines with remote teaching, and I felt like I finally had some organization to my day-to-day schedule again. With this feeling, almost always comes the anticipated dread of the stacking up of the paper pile. Whether this stack is in-person or virtually in a Google Classroom, this pile can feel draining. I can insert other words all associated with burnout. I wanted to do a round-up of posts about grading in general on the blog that I have used throughout the years. Some of these posts are more general posts about grading categories, reflections on blocking out time, and trying to manage the load. Some of these posts are about specific ways that I work through larger assignments to give feedbacks (Hello, conferences and using rubric codes). You will also see a vulnerable post that started the blog in 2017 where I admitted that working through the giant stacks of paper is one of the reasons I would ever consider leaving teaching. As teachers, managing the to-do list and paper load is one of the most important points we make in our own self-care. My hope is that you find a strategy that lightens the stack you have growing on your teacher's desk or in your inbox. Check out these 15+ posts to inspire your grading routine.

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November Resource Round-Up: Research Writing Resources & Gratitude Warm-Ups and Materials
November Resource Round-Up: Research Writing Resources & Gratitude Warm-Ups and Materials

November content is all about research writing, gratitude, and personal learning goals.

NOVEMBER FEATURES:

  • Research and Inquiry Writing Assignment Resources (Teaching tips, grading information, lesson examples, etc)

  • Sports fiction book recommendations for kids

  • Gratitude & Giving Visual Creative Writing Quick Writes

  • Mini-Webinar on Journaling for Personal Learning

  • Gratitude Log and Gratitude Tickets for Students and Teacher Friends

  • Planning materials including a coffee-themed teacher planner to start looking toward 2024

  • Grant outline to make getting materials easy for your classroom (New year, new books?)

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How I'm Changing Grading in My Middle School English Classroom
How I'm Changing Grading in My Middle School English Classroom

I know not everyone is excited about planning for the upcoming school year. I completely understand. When I first sat down to start planning, (after only hearing the sort of plan in early August) I was completely overwhelmed. That being said, I tried to gather my resources and challenge my mindset in that moment of feeling like I was underwater. For resources, I collected planning materials, teacher books that I was reading over the summer, and my favorite cup of coffee. My mindset on the other hand? I had to consistently tell myself that there is positivity in this change. Some people are struggling with those being positive. I am trying to find a balance between protecting my peace and being a good listener to colleagues. I am not saying that this will be my most outstanding year as a teacher, but I think this year has the capacity to be the biggest year of my own individual growth. What I mean by this is that the systems that run my classroom down to the core are being changed. I have to change with it. Growth always comes from change.

One of those systems of change is grading. In the spring when we did emergency learning, (I like this phrase better because that’s what it was) I was convinced that nobody should be grading anything. I stand by that observation. There is even a big piece of me that still thinks that this should be the case as I continue to look at the number of students I teach that are included in vulnerable populations. My students who are homeless, hungry, watching other siblings, lack internet access, speak another language, and more. I am particularly aware of my students of color as they move into a school year where conversations about George Floyd and Breonna Taylor are left as ellipsis and not periods. However, I wanted to find a way to make my grading system in my classroom fair and equitable for and to all parties. So, if you are making progress in my class, the end result is shown in the grade book and in the conversations about that progress. This isn’t about points. It’s about people. This post outlines my understanding of Zerwin’s text, and it applies her theories to my classroom model. Hang tight! You will see my grading categories, how I plan on entering things into my grade book, and my new learning goals.

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5 Tips and Tricks for Teaching the Argumentative Essay
5 Tips and Tricks for Teaching the Argumentative Essay

When that beautiful time of year rolls around to teach the argumentative essay to your middle school students, you might find yourself crinkling your nose and thinking, “Oh boy, let’s just get through this.” 

I don’t blame you! 

Teaching the argumentative essay is no easy feat. You aren’t just teaching students the flow and structure of writing, but you are also teaching them how to research, evaluate evidence, make a claim, argue, convince, and write in a formal style. Many of these skills might be new to your students, so it is important to go slow, keep it simple, and make it very clear. 

Today we are going to be looking at 5 tips and tricks to help you teach the argumentative essay to your students in a fun, clear, and simple way!

  1. Mentor Texts are Golden

  2. Structure is Everything

  3. Research is Key 

  4. The Little Details Matter

  5. Checklists are a Must

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How I Teach Reading AND Writing in 58 Minutes
How I Teach Reading AND Writing in 58 Minutes

The phrase that I have heard so many times in meetings and throughout professional developments is: “We have to stop going a mile wide and an inch deep.” I will often keep track of how many times I hear this in meetings on a sticky note. Not kidding. The alternative to this is of course that we need to be focusing on an inch-wide worth material while going a mile deep in the quest to find mastery. As this idiom relates to teaching, secondary English Language Arts teachers have the particular problem of being tasked with teaching both reading and writing in small blocks of class time. Here are some particular questions I often get on the blog, in my classroom, and the questions I ask myself on days when I am pulling my own hair out:

How do I fit it all in?

What gets left out if I can’t do it all?

How am I building readers AND writers?

Is reading more important than writing?

Does my curriculum guide provide that balance of reading and writing for me?

These are just a few questions that cause any ELA teacher to pause and reflect and perhaps think, “how is this job even possible.” My brain often looks like a tangled Pinterest feed with ideas about strategies and resources.  I don’t have any hard answers here. I just want to provide how I attempt to “fit it all” into my blocks of class time each day, week, and year. I have many things I love and will continue to do, and I have things that I try out all the time. This goes back to my non-negotiables because I have things that I will always continue to do because I can visually see learning taking place in front of me, and I have things I try to improve on all the time. My goal with this post is NOT to try to say what the correct strategies are for “fitting it all in,” but simply offer a way one teacher is doing it in the spirit of collaboration and sanity. 

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Ways to Conquer Three Types of Assessments (So, I'm Not Taking Papers Home)
Ways to Conquer Three Types of Assessments (So, I'm Not Taking Papers Home)

The secret behind our workload is our mindset. While I named my blog and place of reflection “writing mindset,” it really means teacher mindset regarding the job we are doing each day. I just so happen to love teaching reading and writing. The way we think about assessment leads us to take papers home. We believe that we have to take stacks home to provide effective feedback in our English Language Arts classrooms because that has been the tradition. However, a change in mindset can cause us to sway in our thinking; teachers can become flexible in how and why they assess materials in the classroom. Simply, We can minimize the paper load coming home each time we hand out an assignment due to the perceptions we have about the assignment outcome. Bottom line? We control our paper. 

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10 Strategies for Reading and Writing Conferences to Try This School Year
10 Strategies for Reading and Writing Conferences to Try This School Year

In my recent posts, I have declared my two main goals for this upcoming school year are building empathy and prioritizing reading. I want to focus on helping my students try to be better people who dislike reading less. Perhaps, I can also help them call themselves readers as they travel through the school year in my classroom. A way to access this love of reading is through conferencing in both realms of reading and writing. While I have used conferences in the past, this year I want to be extremely purposeful with conferences. I did mentor text warmups this past year, and I want to continue to keep my mentor text routine. I love using mentor texts to empower writers. However, I want to start class each day with independent reading. This will force me to put conferences at the beginning of class; it will become the most important thing we do each day. In order to make reading a priority, I have to show them that it matters. 

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English Teacher Anxiety: Using Our Own Tools to Quiet Panic
English Teacher Anxiety: Using Our Own Tools to Quiet Panic

When I first started working on this post, I looked up synonyms for anxiety. Not that I needed a definition, I just was curious what would pop-up on the page. The word that stuck out to me the most was mistrust. As English Teachers and teachers in general, we mistrust ourselves based on our profession workload because it is a.) overwhelming and b.) important work. We come to grasp that we can never achieve perfection, and for many perfectionists, this means in our minds we think we are settling. Teacher anxiety does not apply to just English Teachers alone, but the volume of paper and grading that is specific to the teaching of English creates an interesting dynamic where we often feel behind, tired, and downright depressed. I am not putting on the table that other subjects do not have grading issues, but there is a special place in my soul that dies a little when I take 76 MLA research paper rough drafts home to grade.

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Paper Grading the Pomodoro Way
Paper Grading the Pomodoro Way

I woke up last Saturday morning and said to myself, "I have a plan today." As I typed those words I chuckled because the best-laid plans are often disastrous. And by disastrous, I mean bargaining with myself to put off chunks of grading so I can take in or on other aspects of my life.  My plot involved getting through 94 argumentative essay drafts in one day. These were the final writing assignment given to my Advanced students before the writing post-tests. This was also the last step I had to take before going through test preparation and state testing. 

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Five Tips to Make Writing Conferences Go Faster
Five Tips to Make Writing Conferences Go Faster

I just finished 95 student writing conferences on Friday. Besides going through my fair share of coffee and green ginger tea, I have come out on the other side a bit more reflective. This whole process started with a student comment three weeks ago, when students were getting ready to turn in their first draft of their research papers.

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How Hop-Checks Keep the Writing Teacher Sane
How Hop-Checks Keep the Writing Teacher Sane

I first starting calling these things labeled "hop-checks" as a joke. I was talking with my teaching buddy on our plan time, and she was telling me about her "class list" system that she uses during class. "So, you just hop around with a pen and pencil and check off what they are doing?" I asked. Her response was "Absolutely, I do." Little did I know that hop-checks would become not only common practice- but exemplary practice- in my writing classroom. 

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Completely Change How You Grade With Rubric Codes
Completely Change How You Grade With Rubric Codes

This started on a Saturday, the Saturday before the Monday when I had to hand back rough drafts to my students. I wanted no part of them. I wanted nothing to do with them. Glancing at my comfy blanket and cup of coffee, I was a human replica of the emoji "ugh." Not wanting to embrace my stack of papers, I started texting a fellow English teacher about her method of using rubric codes. She uses numbers to correspond with different points on a rubric that come up over and over. We have had this discussion before, yet, I was resistant because I had always wanted to follow "traditional" feedback routes. Things I love: ink over typeface, writing in the margins, and seeing a child's face go, "You spent alllll that time on my paper?" Yes, yes I did. I have had many conversations about the writing process lately because it seems as ELA teachers, we all tackle this beast differently. I am not willing to budge on giving feedback on rough drafts, even though some instructional models no longer call for this step in the process. Rubric codes never seemed to fit...until it did. 

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Paper Problem Series Post 3: Make a Plan
Paper Problem Series Post 3: Make a Plan

After confessing the reason I would leave teaching, I wanted to tackle the whole paper problem head on. I often will get an idea in my head and have that "brain-on-fire" type of feeling when it comes to teaching. It is one of the reasons why I teach. However, taking on too huge of a problem without a step-by-step plan is going to lead to burnout.  I feel like the whole "paper problem" is too much to chew on before I am back practicing in real life in the classroom. I want to think about implementing some key changes that I took away from my readings over summer break to change not only my methods, but perhaps the way I do business. From my post where I identified the main problems that exist in my systems and mindset, I have concluded to focus on these three main areas for going back to school:

1.) Using mentors for the teaching of writing. 

2.) Restructuring the writing workshop. Students will write more in class, participate in stations, collaborate with each other and me, etc.

3.) Streamline processes that I have in place so that I am taking less paper home that does not need to go home. (I.E. paper that does not require extra feedback)

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Paper Problem Series Post 2: Reviewing My Systems
Paper Problem Series Post 2: Reviewing My Systems

One of the biggest pieces of advice that I give to new teachers is to always be prepared. Not just the regular "I have got a plan prepared," but the "I have a plan and 2 backup plans just in case this whole thing goes to the birds" type of prepared. The term "systems" always has sounded fancy to me, but the instructional routines, expectations, and actual structures that are in place in any classroom dictate the quality of the learning environment and level of success regarding classroom management. Simply, the routines of how we do business in the day-to-day in my classroom impacts learning on all levels. I have a type of organized process for many things...and then for some things I don't. After coming to terms with the paper problem, I wanted to start by reviewing the systems I have in place so that I can take on the school year in the fall ready to give high-quality feedback in a high quantity without going completely insane. 

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Paper Problem Series Post 1: Identify the Problem
Paper Problem Series Post 1: Identify the Problem

I love a good problem. Problems that seem to have impossible solutions seem to be the best puzzles to try to solve in the field of education. Something like getting Math teachers to love writing or eliminating tracking in student schedules or figuring out how to motivate the one student that seems like no strategy, plan, solution, or special team can figure out a plan to help. The problem that I am trying to tackle involves English teachers and how to take in, process, utilize, and implement grading practices/feedback during writing instruction and in the day-to-day ELA classroom. 

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The Reason I Would Leave Teaching
The Reason I Would Leave Teaching

The post is titled "The Reason I Would Leave Teaching" because the reason I am going to discuss is the only and main reason I would ever consider getting a different profession. I could easily go to nonprofit work or even sit behind a desk. I wonder sometimes what it would be like to pee whenever I wanted to or to be able to go on a lunch hour to a spot "around the corner." These are luxuries that teachers don't have. And many reasons that teachers leave do not involve my main reason for contemplating leaving. In fact, I am in love with classroom management. I love tough kids. I see many teachers leave the profession because they are not getting the support when it comes to classroom management or organization. I also see teachers leave due to pay, working conditions, lack of supplies, lack of support from administration, class sizes, etc. Eddie B Comedy offers some amazing jokes about teacher issues and the Michigan Education Association wrote a pretty great article titled "The Disappearing Educator." I often give this article to interns to make sure they know what they are getting into in terms of this profession.

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Writing Mindset Reflection: What are your favorite grading strategies and tools? How have you adapted grading for online learning?

teacher grading
Stephanie Hampton

A dedicated educator with over a decade of experience in public education, specializing in English Language Arts, writing instruction, and using mentor texts in the classroom. Stephanie currently works as an educational consultant. When she isn’t talking about teaching, she is with her family, spending time journaling, and enjoying a fresh cup of coffee.

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