Whenever I think about my, at this point, quarter century of teaching at both the high school and university level, I contemplate how I even became a teacher. As I’ve written about before, barely graduated with my undergraduate degree in secondary education and minor in English. I struggled my first few semester teaching high school, and those struggles led me to graduate school and ultimately to the university classroom. Over all of these years, my pedagogy and approach within the classroom has changed, and these changes have made me, I would hope, a better educator. Today, I want to look at some of the pedagogical changes that I have embraced over the years and how they have impacted students and their learning.

At the start of my career teaching writing in the university classroom, I found it easier to grade students on their grammar and MLA format rather than really dive into the substance and ideas they wrote about for their papers. During this time, grammar made up a large part of the currciulum, and I even taught classes dedicated solely to grammar rules. For the latter classes, grading grammar specifically was important because this was a class where students learned about run on sentences, sentence fragments, subject verb agreement, and other rules. However, making grammar a large part of students’ grades in writing intensive courses proved detrimental.

For writing assignments, I feel strongly about having rubrics. I have found, for me, that rubrics help to keep me focused on the ideas in students’ papers while also focusing on other items such as grammar, format, and sources, that students need to learn over the course of the semester. As well, since grading essays really can feel subjective, I want to make sure that students understand the grade they receive. The rubric functions as a way to show students that while grading writing has subjectivity there are also specific things they need to learn in order to succeed, and the rubric gives them guidance, along with the essay prompts, to know the outcomes I expect from them for the course.

My rubrics only consist of fifty points. Of those fifty points, grammar and format constitute ten points, so five points each. If a student’s paper has numerous grammar items that they need to fix but the ideas and argument are solid, then they could, at the most, only lose five points. To do this, the student’s grammar would have to make the essay ureadable, and that would also lead to the argument being unclear. Usually, students have common grammar items such as fragments, comma splices, and run on sentences. Those items don’t make the essay unreadable, so students, depending on the grammar items they have, usually lose one or two points. The same goes for format. If they don’t have page numbers, correct spacing, indentation, in-text citations, format on the works cited page, or other items, they may lose two to three points. So, overall, if a student loses all of these points, they will still have forty five to forty six points out of fifty, so still an A to start off the grading.

Even though grammar and format are important ingredients for writing and a writing intensive class, they do not constitute the most important ingredients. Truth be told, all of us have issues with grammar and spelling and formatting. I look back over my blog all of the time and find mistakes, and I write almost every single day. When I grade student writing, I focus on the argument, specifically if the student clearly states the argument and if the student, throughout the essay, supports that argument with research and scholarship. I focus on transitions between paragraphs and ideas. I focus on the introduction and whether or not the student grabs my attention as a reader. I focus on these things because they are the most important ingredients because without them perfect grammar and perfect formatting lack the core of written communication.

Along with changing the way that I assess student writing, I have also changed the way I penalize students if they do not turn assignments in on time. Initially, I would set a due date for essays, and for every day a student didn’t turn the essay in, I would deduct five points. If a student missed ten days, then they would receive a zero. During graduate school, one of my advisors started using a different policy that she learned about that provides students with a grace period for turning in assignments. After hearing about this policy, I began adopting it, and it has benefited me as a professor just as much as it has benefitted students.

The policy is simple and effective. Students get a week past the due date to turn in their essay without any grade penalties. If they turn the essay by the due date, I provide detailed in-line comments on the essay, pointing out structural and argumentative items as well as grammar and format items. If they turn it in during the week after the due date, I do not provide detailed in-line comments. I do, however, provide small comments on the rubric. If they do not turn the essay after the week grace period, they have to email it to me and we discuss what the penalty should be, usually a point deduction.

Now, how does this policy benefit the students and myself? Ultimately, it benefits students because they have more time to work on the essay. I have a lot of athletes and theater students, and their schedules are complicated with practices, games, and performances. I have a lot of students who work, and their schedules are complicated with work, home, and school. A lot of students may, as well, have major tests due on the day the essay is due, or they may have unexpected family issues come up. Each of these things impacts a student’s performance on the essay, and I provide the week grace period to account for these occurrences because we must always remember that students are people with lives and time constraints and issues that arise every now and then. They are learning how to manage their time, and that is somethin I speak with them about regularly.

Now, some students take advantage of this policy, and that is ok because the policy benefits me when I grade the essays. It takes a lot of time to make detailed comments on essays, and by merely having to read the essays and comment briefly in the rubric, I cut my grading time down. I do tell students too that if they want to know why they received the grade they received they need to come and chat with me and we can look it over. Some take me up on this offer.

As well, the policy still relies on time and helps students learn time management because they cannot turn the essay in on our learning management system past the week grace period. If they turn it in after that point they must email it to me. Along with this, I meet with the student and ask them what they think the penalty for the late essay should be. I put the question to them because I want them to feel like they have agency in the decision and in the ramifications for not getting the assignment done on time. Inevitably, all of the students, with possibly a few exceptions, come up the penalty I was thinking about, typically a deduction of five points.

Each of these changes in my pedagogy have made my job as a professor and my students’ experiences better. I have, over the years, taken to giving more agency to students because I want them to feel like active participants in the learning process, because they are active participants in the learning process. That is why I adopted the paper policy. That is why I started doing unessay projects. That is why I do active learning. There are other things I can do, yes, and hopefully, over the next quarter of a century I will incorporate those pedagogical techniques into my classroom turning it into a truly equitable space of learning and knowledge building.

What are your thoughts? As usual, let me know in the comments below. Make sure to follow me on Bluesky @silaslapham.bsky.social‬.