Grading Papers Quickly

As an adjunct English teacher with many other responsibilities, I’ve tried to memorize and apply every technique for becoming a quicker paper grader I’ve heard throughout the years. The main thing seems to be keeping the attitude of letting your students learn from their mistakes instead of micro-managing their every rhetorical move. Here are a few strategies I’ve collected:

1. Grade for only a few things at a time per paper since (1) it’s quicker, of course, and (2) students learn better when they can concentrate on only a few issues at a time. For each assignment, though I may mark a few extra things on the paper to let students know about things they can think about for future papers, I only evaluate and figure into the grade a few certain items that I announce beforehand. For example, one paper may focus on thesis statements, clear topic sentences, and paragraph cohesion.

2. Time yourself. Only spend 10 minutes on each paper; when the timer rings, move on. I know first-time teachers who take up to an hour per paper, which probably indicates that these teachers are addressing these papers as graduate-level work and providing feedback that will be over the students’ heads. You may take a little longer than 10 minutes and feel very stressed at first, but after a while you’ll get quicker at looking for the specifics you need for assessment while also engaging with the content.

3. Only mark 1 or 2 paragraphs. There’s no need to mark every grammatical deviation your students make, since they tend to make the same error over and over. You can mark only 1 or 2 paragraphs, and then let your students know that the rest is up to them. Otherwise, you can fall into editing (rewriting) your students’ papers for them instead of encouraging them to learn from their mistakes and practice. In other words, you might end up teaching your students to simply follow directions instead of write well.

These are only a few suggestions. Please feel free to email me more ideas and I’ll add them.