It’s that time of year again. Students are getting assignments
back and there is the normal mixed reaction of joy and despair. And the perennial
question persists: how can you be objective about creative writing? This often materialises
as students query marks when someone other than the person who has taught them
assesses their work.
But let us be clear. We, and I suspect all other teachers of
creative writing, mark against a clearly defined set of criteria. We also spend
a lot of time and care on marking assessments, we mark formatively as well as summatively
even on summative assessments and we apply a rigorous form of moderation.
The criteria and what they mean
Task Has the student fulfilled the task? Are all the
bits and pieces required there? To get higher marks, has the student entered into
the spirit of it as well as obeyed to the letter? This can also almost be a
comment on effort.
Expression Can we understand the text? Has the student
clearly told us something? Is a story and / or premise clear?
Technique How good is the craft of the student, particularly
in relation to the craft elements taught within the module? For example, in a fiction
module, is there a sound structure within the piece? Is there a plot as well as
a story? What about the other creative writing skills met earlier? Is the student
able to show and not tell? Do they handle dialogue effectively? Questions for a
poetry module may look completely different, of course.
Writerly research Often we’ll look at an annotated bibliography
here. What has the writer read? What have they gained, as a writer, from
reading that? Or have they actually done some of the writerly research that all
writers often do – looked at some primary resources, recreated an experience
they are writing about, trailed their own memories or used their imagination to
create a new world?
Style Does the piece have an appropriate voice? Is it
consistent? Is it free from anything that jars it (poor grammar and punctuation
can do this)?
Reflection This
often appears in the Self-Assessment and drafts that accompany our students’
work. We expect to see evidence of thought applied to their work.
Language This is where we look for work free of mistakes:
spelling, grammar, sentence structure and syntax. One or two – literally –
typos may be forgivable but otherwise I absolutely refuse to award a first if
the student does not know how to use an apostrophe – no matter how good the rest
of the work is. Not for a degree that has “English” in the title!
Presentation Is the text correctly formatted? Is dialogue
set out correctly? Is referencing correct? Higher marks can be obtained for including
a cover page, presenting work in a helpful way and where a creative piece allows
it, using smart presentation to enhance aesthetics.
We award comments that correspond to a range of marks to
each of these criteria. The overall mark is to do with which category they fall
into most often and then influenced up or down by the other comments.
Most of our students present work that is fair, good or very
good. We have a few excellents and outstandings, and a few adequate and unsatisfactrories.
So for the bulk of students marks are between 50 and 79, with a few being above
80 or between 40 and 49. It’s very rare
indeed for students to be outstanding or unsatisfactory in enough categories for
them to obtain 90+ or below 40. We do get fails (below 40) but often than not
this is because the task is incomplete, not because what is presented is of a
failing nature.
The moderation
process
A colleague not teaching on the module moderates the work. A
proscribed sample of texts is taken. The moderators select these themselves,
though a marker may ask them to look at any they found problematic. For
example, if there are up to 100 students on a module we must select ten scripts,
through a range of marks and markers. Often this means we are selecting ten
scripts out of no more than thirty.
We have to comment on any we disagree with and often comment
even when we agree. If the marks only vary a little, no action is required.
However, we may find that generally a particular set of marks are:
- Too high
- Too low
- Too spread out
- Too close together
These four scenarios are relatively easy to adjust. We can
alter the marks on a well-defined scale. We’ve only had to do this once, actually.
And that was to put marks up.
Worst case scenario, a marker has actually been completely inconsistent.
Then we need a total remark and at this point it might be useful to bring in a
second moderator. Fortunately we have never had to do that.
Then all goes to the external examiner who looks at similar
sample.
Electronic marking
We are now in our third year of doing this. I actually like it
and I think I make more comments than I used to. There are some we can drag and
drop – I routinely use “run-on” “formatting” and “overwritten”. The student can
click on the comment and get more explanation. We can also add in extra
comments either directly on the text or in a box which appears as a bubble on
the assignment. The student clicks on the bubble to get the full comment. We also
award them a category based for each of the criteria mentioned above and add a
general comment.
This gets rid if piles of paper, means that the work is available
as soon as students have submitted, the student can actually read the
comment - they are no longer in a
lecturer’s handwriting – and students can pick up marks privately. They are
still invited to discuss them with teachers.
How I form my
comments
First I write about what the student has done well in terms
of the criteria above and in terms of the market, mentioning also anything of
interest that has not been covered in the course.
Secondly, I talk about what has been done less well within the
same areas.
