University of Delaware Writing Center

When you require a preliminary draft and comment on it, student papers improve.

• By commenting on an early draft, you can avoid some problems, including content issue, plagiarism, etc.  Even better, instead of using your comments on the final paper to justify the grade, your comments will help students write a more effective paper.

Breaking up a writing assignment into a series of stages can dramatically improve student performance.

• At the very least, it prevents last-minute papers and gives students feedback—whether from you or from peer review groups—at useful points in the development of their papers.

Positive, specific comments help students write better.

• For all of us, praise reinforces good writing and is much more effective than pointing out mistakes.

Students rarely read your comments and corrections on final drafts when writing their next paper.

• Studies show that most students look only at the final grade.  Commenting on students’ early drafts is the most effective way to get their attention.

You can design writing assignments that make plagiarism very difficult.

• Require two very recent sources.
• Require an annotated bibliography.
• Require the paper to have a personal interview.
• Conference with students and require rough drafts.
• Assign drafts and require that they be turned with the final draft.
• Have oral presentations with question and answer sessions.

You can list your five major grammar and punctuation pet peeves in your syllabus and show how to avoid them.  Then explain that the appearance of any of these peeves will lower a paper’s grade by a given number of points.

• For example, if  misusing   “then” and “than” really bothers you, make it clear on your syllabus that such errors cost a certain number of  points per paper.  It’s amazing how quickly students stop making such errors.

You can teach students to limit passive verbs without having the hassle of differentiating  between active and passive voice.

• Tell students they can only use three linking verbs (is, are, was, were, am, be, been, being) per page.

You can save grading time and help students write better papers when you include a well-designed rubric in the writing assignment.

• Your students know what is important.
• Your grading is consistent.
• You don’t have to comment on everything.
• Your students can see where they are doing well and where they can improve.
• You don’t have to justify your grade.

You shouldn’t be the editor/proofreader who marks every mechanical error.In fact, marking every error or instituting extensive grammar instruction has little effect on student learning.

• Attach a grammar hotsheet to your syllabus highlighting the 5-10 errors that you think are most serious.
• You can also refer your students to a good handbook or website and tell them you expect them to correct their errors before you give them a final grade.
• Put checks next to sentences that have grammatical errors and tell the students they have to determine the error and fix it. If you hold students to an appropriate standard, they can generally correct most of their errors.
• Explain that after you find 5 errors, you are returning the paper to be self-edited;  you will grade it, without penalty, after it is corrected.

You don’t have to be a grammar guru when you grade papers.

• You are not responsible for editing papers.  Students are responsible for turning in papers that are grammatical. Direct them to a good handbook.

When you assign preliminary drafts, you are turning your students into better writers and thinkers.

• Writing, like any skill, gets better with practice.  You can read the draft quickly and make global comments, directing the student away from problems and highlighting strengths.  By requiring drafts, you also avoid having to read final papers written the night before they are due.

Almost any class can have some low-stakes writing component.

• At the beginning of class, have students turn in a summary of the assigned reading on 5x8 cards.  In a large class, you can use these to take attendance.  Since these are low-stakes assignments, you can grade them with a plus or a minus.
• At the end of class, have students turn in a summary of the lecture on 5x8 cards. Again, they can be used for attendance, and they can be graded with a plus or a minus.

Writing can be used to clarify thinking.

• Ask students to develop three questions based on the assigned reading and bring them to class. Then ask them to find at least two subquestions in each of the original questions. This activity helps them develop analytical skills as they breakdown the whole into parts. In addition, this will help the student add depth to the next paper.