Chapter 10: Rubrics & Grading

Williams discusses several methods for grading student papers, including rubrics, setting anchor scores, and teaming up with other teachers. Briefly discuss the "anchor score" method. What might the advantages and disadvantages of this method be?

After reading this section, I was somewhat surprised to learn about this anchor method. It has the teacher holisticly read through each paper before assigning a grade. After the initial read-through, the teacher goes back and grades them in comparison with the other papers. As a student, this bothered me because I would not want a teacher to base my individual grade off of the grades of my peers.

However, from a teacher's viewpoint, I can see how this may be helpful. Since there is such a variety of writing styles because each individual writes in his or her own style, it is hard to score. As a teacher, it reduces the workload because papers of similar quality are grouped together. One grade is assigned to a paper that serves as the basis for the rest. The teacher will know the range of the papers that she is working with and therefore can hold them to similar standards.

For me, this method is too biased. Teachers may choose a paper written by a student who usually does great writing and assign it an A. However, if this student's paper does not meet the scoring requirements as it should, it will alter the standard for the rest of the class.

In my classroom, I would rather grade each paper individually. While it may take more time for me, the grader, I feel like it is in the students' best interests that they not be set to the standards of their peers. Additionally, it is easier for the students to see why they received a specific grade, like with a rubric, instead of being told that their paper was similar to "Johnny's" paper, and he got a B.