1. Minimal Marking A workshop presented by CUNY City Tech Writing Fellows Norman Perlmutter and Kareem Rabie

2. What aspects of grading take up the most time for you? Please think about the question above and write down a few thoughts.

3. Two main topics What can you do now? What can you do later?

4. What can you do now? What do you want to achieve with your grading?

5. Grading Exercise

6. Higher- and lower-order concerns Let's brainstorm some higher- and lower-order concerns for grading.

7. Grading goals Grading should help students to improve, not just tell them what's wrong. Focus on ideas and organization of paper, not on grammatical structure. Use shorthand for comments

8. Bean's higher-order concerns Does the draft follow the assignment? Does the writer have a thesis that addresses an appropriate question? If the draft has a thesis, what is the quality of the argument itself? Is the draft effectively organized at the macro level and at the micro level?

9. Bean's lower-order concerns Are there stylistic problems that you find particularly annoying? Is the draft free of errors in grammar, punctuation, and spelling? Bean, John C., Engaging Ideas, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2001, pp.243-250.

10. Low- and high-stakes commenting Zero response Minimal nonverbal response Supportive response with no criticism Descriptive or observational response Critical diagnostic response Peter Elbow,”High Stakes and Low Stakes in Assigning and Responding to Writing.” Writing to Learn: Strategies for Assigning and Responding to Writing in the Disciplines. Eds. Mary Deane Sorcinelli and Peter Elbow. (A volume in the series, New Directions for Teaching and Learning.) Jossey-Bass, 1997.

11. Video presentation

12. What can you do later?

13. Planning assignments Plan assignments so that they are easier to grade Not all assignments need to be graded More assignments with less commentary per assignment Writing to learn

14. Making clear grading criteria What percentage of the grade is each component of the paper worth? What quality of work must be done on each component to earn a given grade?

15. Make use of class time Peer review Check-in assignments Group work Conferences

16. Thank you for attending