Skip to main content

Incentives for first drafts

I mentioned last week that I will be having students in my upper-division writing class working together as 'co-authors'. But I'm still trying to figure out how to distribute points for each assignment. I want students to take their first drafts seriously so I feel like some part of their grade should depend on that first draft. On the other hand, I don't really want to grade the first draft the same way I would the final draft (mostly a time thing - I simply don't have the time to grade thirty papers in 48 hours with the care I would want), and I want students to take their revisions seriously as well. I've considered not assigning grades to the first draft at all and simply taking points off the assignment as a whole if they don't do a first draft, but I worry that then they won't take the first draft very seriously. Maybe that's OK, since they will have to do a revision anyway and the first draft at least makes them put their thoughts down, but since those first drafts will be reviewed by a classmates, I'd prefer that they be as good as the students can make them at that point. I've also considered making the first draft some small percentage of their assignment grade, like 10 or 20 percent, but then I feel like I'll actually need to grade the first draft. And I've considered basing part of their grade on the improvement between their first and final drafts but that seems like it could create a weird incentive for them to purposely write crappy first drafts.

Maybe there is no way to really incentivize strong effort on the first draft if I'm not willing to put the time into grading those drafts, but if anyone has any ideas, I'd love to hear them!
Labels:

Comments

  1. Angela DillsJanuary 21, 2010 at 6:36 AM

    Since it sounds like there are some basic components to the first draft (collecting data, making a graphic, and writing a couple of paragraphs), the grading on the first draft could be fairly perfunctory. Did they actually do all three of these things or not? Quick to observe, allowing you to turn them over quickly and ensure that everyone did a basic draft that can be peer reviewed. Since the next step is peer revision, the thought that one of their classmates will read their paper tends to be sufficient motivation to write something good enough to not be embarrassed by it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Jennifer ImazekiJanuary 26, 2010 at 8:30 PM

    Thanks Angela! I think you're right about the embarrassment incentive. Ironically, last year, I remember one student saying that he didn't turn in his first draft at all because he knew it wasn't very good and he didn't want his classmate to see it (which is one reason why I feel like I can't rely on that alone!).

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Comments that contribute to the discussion are always welcome! Please note that spammy comments whose only purpose seems to be to direct traffic to a commercial site will be deleted.

Popular posts from this blog

What are the costs?

I came across an interesting discussion about a 19-year-old intern who was fired from The Gazette in Colorado Springs for plagiarism. There appears to be some controversy over the fact that the editor publicly named the girl in a letter to readers (explaining and apologizing for the plagiarism), with some people saying that doing so was unduly harsh because this incident will now follow her for the rest of her career. I was intrigued by this discussion for two reasons - one, it seems pretty clear to me that this was not a case of ignorance (as I have often encountered with my own students who have no idea how to paraphrase or cite correctly) and two, putting aside the offense itself, I have often struggled with how to handle situations where there are long-term repercussions for a student, repercussions that lead the overall costs to be far higher than might seem warranted for the specific situation. As an example of the latter issue, I have occasionally taught seniors who need to p
5 comments
Read more

What was your high school economics experience like?

As I mentioned in my last post , I am asking my Econ for Teachers students to reflect on their reading by responding to discussion prompts. It occurred to me that it wouldn't be a bad idea for me to share my thoughts on those issues here and see if anyone wants to chime in. For this week, the students were asked to read the California and national content standards , an article by Mark Schug and others about why social science teachers dread teaching economics and how to overcome the dread, an article by William Walstad on the importance of economics for understanding the world around us and making better personal decisions (with some evidence on the dismal state of economic literacy in this country), and another article by Walstad on the status of economic education in high schools (full citations below). The reflection prompt asks the students to then answer the following questions: What was your high school econ experience like? What do you remember most from that class? How do
2 comments
Read more

When is an exam "too hard"?

By now, you may have heard about the biology professor at Louisiana State (Baton Rouge) who was removed from teaching an intro course where "more than 90 percent of the students... were failing or had dropped the class." The majority of the comments on the Inside Higher Ed story about it are supportive of the professor, particularly given that it seems like the administration did not even talk to her about the situation before acting. I tend to fall in the "there's got to be more to the story so I'll reserve judgment" camp but the story definitely struck a nerve with me, partly because I recently spent 30 minutes "debating" with a student about whether the last midterm was "too hard" and the whole conversation was super-frustrating. To give some background: I give three midterms and a cumulative final, plus have clicker points and Aplia assignments that make up about 20% of the final grade. I do not curve individual exams but will cu
3 comments
Read more