How we mark

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.  

 

Glorious Fridays

Most of my teaching has been on Fridays Semester 1 academic year 2012-2013. I’ve been taken even further out of my box because I’ve been teaching on a different campus and in a building where I’ve never had a regular class before. The building is modern and pleasant and in the corridors we frequently bump into porters wheeling along models of interesting body parts. Yes, I’m teaching creative writing in the School of Nursing. No school owns rooms anymore. So, actually, anything can happen.

Some interesting routines

I don’t have to get up early when I’m teaching there. This campus is the right side of the dreaded congestion on the A6. If I left the house at my old time and I’d arrive at this campus a little earlier than I used to arrive on the other one. It’s actually a little closer to home anyway.

There’s a handy Costa outlet at the bottom of the building. That was a good excuse to buy a coffee and a bottle of water to keep my voice lubricated through four hours of teaching. More often than not I’d meet a colleague from our School, similarly marooned here. We’d often have a good chat before her class started at nine.

I found that I had this teaching room to myself all day, so I’d spend the first hour and sometimes lunch times catching up on emails.

At about 9.45 I’d make sure I was ready for my first class, a first year creative writing one, checking over notes and making sure I’d got all the files open I wanted to show them on the data screen. The first students to arrive would help me get the room ready – we’d arrange the tables to form a huge square. Later when this group filled in an evaluation for the module, several students said they liked the layout of the room. In the afternoon my third years grumbled about having to put them back but even they admitted they would much rather not stare at each other’s backs.

Lunchtimes were spent either with a colleague who had a similar two classes, chatting to people I know who are permanently in this building or even using the opportunity to see some of my personal tutees, all of whom had a class one to two or two to three with me or two of my colleagues. The building next to this one, a couple of minutes’ walk away, has the advantage of a decent canteen serving real food on real plates and providing real cutlery with which to eat it. It also has a very good salad bar.                  

More often than not, after the second class was finished, I would go straight home and carry on working form there, maybe just stopping to chase up any non-attenders via email first.

Nobody can touch you in the classroom

Whilst you’re teaching you can’t be worrying about the emails that accumulate in your inbox. You are there, in the classroom, absolutely focused on the knowledge you are sharing and the people with whom you are sharing it. This is one of the main points of what we do.  

My two classes on a Friday were totally different. The first one was a first year class for creative writing. These students had done little before. The first half of the semester we concentrated on poetry.  For the second half it was script-writing. They had had a lecture earlier in the week.

The second class was a third year workshop with students emailing each other work two days before which we would then critique in class together. It could be quite intense but I was pleased that my students were so professional about it.   

That Friday feeling

Fridays were tiring but very satisfying. They went by quickly. A lot happened whist I was away from my desk. But then a lot of it couldn’t be dealt with until the following Monday and by then some distance was gained. The students seemed as well to have this relaxed Friday feeling. They still worked hard but didn’t seem to be as hung up on the details as they did earlier in the week.

Yes, I really enjoyed my Fridays last semester.    

  

Coping with the dog in the classroom

The real dog in the classroom

It really did happen to me once, during my former existence as high school teacher. It was actually what every teacher dreads. It was particularly bad this time as I and the local teacher advisor / inspector were watching my licensed teacher teach with a view to confirming her status as a qualified teacher. And she had Year 9 Set 3 for French at a time when it was not compulsory for students to carry on with a foreign language beyond Year 9.

To their great delight, and no doubt encouraged by them – mainly boys - the dog, also enjoying the lark, followed Set 3 into the classroom.

“Where did he come from?” said the teacher.

“Just followed us miss,” replied the loudest.

“Well take him along to reception and see if they can find his owner. Then get back here as quickly as possible. You can catch up for a few minutes at the end of the lesson.”

So, she did it. Handles the situation firmly and got the students back on track with minimum disruption. She was probably less fazed by it all than I or the inspector would have been.

This particular teacher always used a degree of common sense. She was a mother of teen boys and a scouting leader so had a heap of experience to draw on.  

Teachers need that. They must always be able to deal with the stray dog that comes into the classroom.

Other forms of dog

We really need to assume that our lesson will never go entirely to plan.  Most of the time, though, we are fortunate in that we deliver a close approximation of what we intended. We should note though that even when we repeat what we think will be a class identical to another it probably will not turn out exactly the same.

Different times of day, different personalities, the teacher’s own experience or boredom with the material and the atmosphere created by the physical space all affect what happens. These are all within the scope of what a teacher might normally expect.    

Then there are the surprises:

They’ve heard in the lecture what you were going to do in the workshop.

A student argues against one of your most dearly held principles.

The students insist on talking about the assignment when you actually want to teach them some more before they do the assignment.

The IT lets you down.

The students have not read what was required for the seminar.

The students have produced no work for the workshop.

A good teacher has to react to all of this positively and remain in control. You can’t let the dog win. You actually have to create a win-win solution.

Getting the ego out of the way

I’ve actually noticed that I often teach better when I’m less focussed on getting my lesson across. More learning sometimes takes place when the teacher focuses on the needs of the people in the room. I know I’ve taught better some days when I’ve been ill, when I’ve had to abandon my PowerPoint, and often when I’ve changed the lesson at the last minute.

I’ve seen an award-winning teacher just talk to a group. Technically, you could say he talked for too long, that he did not use enough visuals and he certainly didn’t project his voice. He did, however, speak softly and kept us engaged for a good hour. He understood what we needed and responded to real time feedback. He was interacting with us in a genuine way.

So, I go back to the dog. The students needed a little fun out of the situation.  They got it. But it wasn’t allowed to interrupt for too long. In fact, it then became the focus of the lesson: “Un chien est arrivé.” I’m pleased to say that my licensed teacher gained her qualified status.           

       

Contact Time - how important is it?

Higher fees

Tuition fees in Higher Education have risen 100 – 200% recently. The six to seven hours a week, 22-24 weeks a year, students spent in direct contact with lecturers – i.e. lectures, seminars and other classes - have seemed even with lower fees not to be good value for money. Of course, there is other contact – emails, meetings and one-to-one tutorials for example. We also alert them to all sorts of opportunities and we direct their reading. For the 168 hours they spend in our company students are expected to spend about another 1000 on self-directed study.

If to become a writer, as many say, you need to practise your skill for 10,000 hours, by the time our students leave us they are about a third of the way there.  Except: some of their work is literature based. And oddly, a significant proportion of them are published before they leave us. Is this because latent talent is being exercised or because we’re teaching well? Hopefully it’s a mixture of the two.

Increase in contact time

We’ve increased our contact time by just over 30%.

This has its own repercussions:

More constraint on the timetable, so more early starts and late finishes, and less chances of finding suitable rooms for every session  

Staff are less likely to be able to take a research day.

Students are less able to fit in part-time work – and may have to drop out because of financial reasons.

Student attendance

Where I work we have hesitated about insisting on attendance, except in those interactive classes that only work with a good number of students there – e.g. creative writing workshops. We do, however, rigorously chase up non-attendees because we want to know that they are still with us and still on track. More often than not good attendance is reflected in good results but there are some who rarely attend who do well. Academic freedom after all? There is a deeply-seated conviction that we should allow our students to work according to their own learning style and some students – actually particularly creative writing ones – prefer to work alone.

Teaching quality

We have another conviction that if we insist on attendance we have to offer excellent teaching matched to individual learning styles. This is actually impossible – many a school teacher has burnt out trying to achieve this – you just cannot be all things to all people. Blended teaching styles are a partial answer. The research-active university lecturer is all about a pool of knowledge that is to be passed on and most students regardless of the fees involved will recognise the responsibility they have in making the most of what happens.  That does not always translate into attending class. We’re some way away, however, from what existed fifty years ago and before that: dusty old professors reading out dry old texts from which students were supposed glean the magic themselves. With fees the way they are we’re expected to provide the magic directly.     

It seems surprising then, that the very same students who have made noises about wanting extra contact time do not turn up to class when it is offered. We might worry that what we have to offer is not enticing enough. Or maybe life and work happen to the students. Probably it’s a mixture of all three.

Prompted to some extent by a remark from one student in one of my classes I sent out a quite an assertive letter to my final year students this week. I had been a little disappointed the week before by their attendace – 40% i.e. four out of ten. It was assignment week. More normally I get 70%% to 90%.  I expected them in class unless they were on death’s door and I expected them to contribute to the workshop. Six pieces of work were submitted; I was expecting three. We had an intense workshop but I nevertheless asked myself how much they were getting from it. Could they manage without me? Possibly. They were pretty clued up.  Was the insistence on attendance necessary?

How to recognise a good teacher

Recently we had a colleague who had had a teaching award talk to us. He didn’t use PowerPoint, nor any other visual aid and he gave out no hand-outs yet he held out attention. He made the point that one good lesson is better that ten mediocre ones. We need to inspire our students to want to go and find out more for themselves, not just fill them with information. Why was his talk successful? Because of his sincerity and his professionalism in telling us exactly what we need to know. He was interacting effectively with the people in front of him.  

I try to make my classes content-rich and question-rich. I hope I’m managing it.