[kbrown]

Grading Journals is something that I have been struggling with for the past 6 years. I thought I had a very simple process figured out where I would read the journals and grade using the 6 traits. Each 6 week grading period would focus on one of the traits and the others would be graded a little lighter. It is working really well, EXCEPT I have 150+ journals to grade and I can't keep up. I thought about having the journals due on different days for different classes, but that seems like too much for me to remember. Any suggestions? I know this topic gets discussed a lot and just wondering if anyone has figured out how to do it?

[vespergirl]

You mean like writer's or reader's notebooks?

I have a much smaller kid-load than many of the posters here so I use a more complicated rubric. But if I had that many to grade, I think I'd opt for a holistic rubric. One that I use a lot when I have a lot to grade goes like this ...

9-10 Exceeds the standard
8 Meets the standard
7 Approaches the standard
6-0 Falls below the standard

These translate nicely to easily-understandable percents/letter grades. I give the kids a more complicated rubric that explains what it means to exceed, meet, approach, etc -- but when I grade then, I can just give it the one number. Eventually, as you internalize the rubric, your gut just tells you what it is :-).

I'm sure other posters who deal with a larger load of kids will have many good suggestions too.

[ATeachH]

sharing your rubric? I would love to see how this works because I too spend WAY too much time grading 131 writer's notebooks every quarter

[kbrown]

Yes, please share your rubric if you would!!! I would love to see how this works!

[Ima Teacher]

I take up five journals every day, and I do one class per week. Within a month, I have looked at every journal. Five is not too many for a single day, and I can give more detailed feedback by taking fewer per day.

We don't use six traits, but Kentucky's writing rubric is divided in a somewhat similar way, and I'm focusing on one part each time I take papers.

I have a set rotation schedule. I printed student names on card stock, and I just put up the appropriate sign each day. Kids know that if their names are up on the sign, I have to have their journal/paper that day. If a student is absent or doesn't have the work that day, then he/she gives it to me on Friday. I have extra time to do extra journals on Fridays.

Works well and saves my sanity.

[powellstarkey]

I don' t try to look at every class all the time, I take one class and focus on them at a time, and by the end of the nine weeks, I have graded a few writing pieces from each class.

[vespergirl]

my rubric but to be very honest, it won't help you at all.

We teach some very specific strategies for writing reader response letters at the beginning of the year to give every kid a "framework" around which to write that letter. The rubric reflects this. It is not a holistic rubric. That's because I only have 30 kids right now, so I do what Ima Teacher does ... everyone has their assigned turn-in day and I crank out responses quite quickly every night. We start by teaching them to write a paragraph of summary, then a paragraph of higher-level thinking, and then a questioning/wondering paragraph. By this time in the year, we are turning the tide from that formulaic response to more response to discussion and higher-level thinking. I guess our rubric changes about once a quarter.

The 10-point rubric that I mentioned above is one that I use a lot when grading short written responses, "thinkmarks" for literature circles, and other items where I want to grade them quickly. While the numbers stay the same and what they mean (exceeds, meet, approach, fall below) stays the same --- what those criteria are changes for each assignment. To get those, I look at what my objectives were and whether they exceeded, met, etc the expectation.

If you really want the reader response notebook rubric, of course I will share it -- just PM me