The mysteries of grading

I was one of those students who never wondered why I got the grade I did. I would look at it, read the comments, possibly shrug or raise my eyebrows, and then move on. I guess if you would have asked me how I thought the teacher or professor arrived at this grade, I would have mentioned something about a whispered suggestion from God, or possibly a comparison to The Perfect Paper/Exam that the instructor was sure to have lying around somewhere. It didn't help that I was usually pretty on target about predicting what grade I was going to get. As far as I was concerned, my teachers immediately knew what grade to give me as soon as their hands touched my work. Or something. 

All I can say now is that I feel very sorry for all of my underappreciated instructors. Very sorry. Because grading is hard. It's possibly harder that explaining how to carry out a a bootstrapped multilinear regression analysis to your grandparents who don't own a computer, and have on occasion tried using the phone to mute the television.

It's not just figuring out what grade to give to Sammy, although that in itself can give the most reasonable person a heartburn. It's making sure that Sammy's grade is fair in comparison to Johnny's grade, who might have displayed poorer writing skills, but who had much better ideas than Sammy. It's making sure that I can back up my grade with comments and suggestions, just in case Betty doesn't agree with the fact that she got a B, while her bestie Bonnie got a B+. It's making sure that the fact that I've already graded eighteen papers doesn't make me less forgiving towards they're/their/there mistakes. It's making sure that my kids' antics as they're trying to distract doesn't mean that Allie suddenly gets an A- just  because I had to laugh so hard.

So how do we come up with all those grades?

Well, the academic answer should be something like "we utilize carefully developed rubrics that reflect the expected level of writing skills, knowledge, argumentative abilities, and critical thinking skills". And we do. Well, sort of.
Does it count if they're in our heads?

I don't know how other professors do it, although I've heard of several interesting grading methods. I know of instructors grading "holistically" (i.e., yeah, I've skimmed through this paper, and it looks like it's good enough for a B), or "effort-based" (i.e., well, it looks like they've really tried, so I'll ignore all the spelling mistakes and poor organization and give them a B+), or "improvement-driven" (i.e., wow, compared to the last paper, this is really good. There's no plagiarism, the syntax makes sense, and I think I see a few paragraphs in there too. A B+, definitely"). However, I have a method I like to call, "Be fair and stay sane".

It basically means that the first thing I will do is turn over the front page of every single paper, so that I no longer know who wrote what. Because in spite of what all professors may have told you over the years, yes, we do have higher expectations of certain students, and yes, we are more willing to forgive one student their mistakes than others. And since that's just not cool, my first action is to try to give myself carpal tunnel syndrome by turning over thirty or so cover pages.

Once properly anonymized, I will read each paper all the way through without as much as a pen in my hand. You could argue this is done to obtain a "holistic" feel for the paper. Or to make sure I can truly get  inside the student's head, to find out what they were actually trying to say. Sure, you could do all of that. In fact, however, I do this solely to save the student a lot of heartache, and myself a great deal of time. As a former copy-editor, I know that once I start correcting mistakes, I just can't stop, which means that I will easily spend close to half hour nitpicking my way through each paper, while the student will suffer a minor coronary when they get their papers back covered in blue ink. All it does is make both of us very frustrated with the other (me: "Why can't they just use proper punctuation?!", student: "Did she even read what I actually said?!").

Once I've given a paper that first look, I'll generally know whether something is a A/B, B/C, or should receive a failing grade. Then I go back for a second, more critical look, this time with pen in hand. I'll  make sure that all my feedback is somewhat constructive ("What the heck?!" just doesn't go over as well as "I'm not sure what you're trying to say here"), and that I point out both the positive and the negative ("Where is your proof for this?" is taken a lot better when preceded by a "Great idea!").

Then it's time to agonize over the final grade. Should it be a B-? Or a C+? Although the difference is only 3-5%, psychologically, there is a vast chasm between the two. Just like a B+, although only two/three points away from an A-, can bring an A student to tears. I may look back at other papers, to see what I gave them. All just to make sure I stay fair. And then, to make sure I don't lose the second part of my technique out of sight (remember "stay sane"), I make my final decision. (Although I have been known to, before I hand the papers back, go back and cross out the final grade with magic marker, and give the students a revised grade).

So there is no whisper from God, no golden standard, and no "Well, this grade just feels right" hippy-dippy-love-grading. It's a lot of work.

And now you know why we professors hate it when students challenge our grades. Because, in some cases, we're fairly certain we've spent more time agonizing over that grade than the student as on the actual assignment.

Now excuse me, I have seven more papers to grade.