Marking Papers

The last week of school is always crazy anywhere you go.  It seems particularly crazy here.  Instead of semesters, the University is on an 8 week quarter system.  At the 3 week mark of this quarter, someone decided that the students would need to write three essays each, and each essay should have a first, second, and final draft.  I say someone because no one is clear on who ordered the change in the curriculum.  Some rumors said it came from the new vice dean on the men's side, the same man who decided the women should stay until 4pm.  Other's thought it was our own Josia, who was so tired of being told that women are lazy and can't do the work men do in the joint curriculum meetings between the men's and the women's side that she decided to take it upon herself (and us) to prove them wrong.  Yet another rumor is that it came from our women's dean who simply read the curriculum wrong, and that it was supposed to be three drafts of one essay, not three separate essays.  Regardless of who made the decision, we had 4 weeks, to switch from teaching strictly vocabulary, to writing 3 complete academic essays in English, something the students had never even done in Arabic.

The advanced classes got started right away, and some of the classes even managed to get through two essays.  Most of the classes had just barely finished one essay.  The lowest level classes were even doing group essays, so that they were each in charge of only a paragraph, a much more manageable task at their levels.  The students were all stressing out about the essays that were due, and the teachers were all stressing about correcting all of these essays.  Then, some genius in academic scheduling decided that the physics and chemistry exams would take place during English class times in the second to the last week of classes.  When we pointed out that it was impossible for the girls to be in two places at once, and shouldn't we just cancel our classes for the week, the attendance administration insisted that we should still take attendance.  The students caught between a rock and a hard place, decided rightly, to attend their exams instead of English class.  So, now there was only one week left of class to complete at least one, and for many, two essays. Each draft had to be corrected by the teachers and handed back to the students so they could correct it and produce a final draft.

Now, a month ago, I would have thought that there was no way a University could have this problem.  In any normal situation, I would have assumed that the academic calendar is set at the beginning of the school year, and that the schedule for exams and classes would have already been worked out well in advance.  But I enough by now to know that it is ridiculous of me to expect that level of organization. And I should have seen the next schedule mishap coming, but I did not.  Apparently, no one else in the entire English department did either. The University schedulers once again decided to make the task of getting these essays done even more impossible by adding a "revision" week, in which no classes could be held, but students had the opportunity to review for more final exams that would happen the week after.  Our four weeks to write 3 essays had dropped to 2 weeks, both of which had already gone by.

Students were panicking, teachers were panicking, and for about two weeks, all anyone did was correct essays.  I found the material almost as hard to get through as the grammar.  It was depressing to read that girls hoping to enter the field of engineering, mostly thought that engineering was a field women shouldn't be in.  The grading scale we had to use for the essays was also a nightmare. It was written by the men's side, whose students only had to do one essay, which they had worked on since day 1 of the semester, because apparently someone had informed them of the requirements, but neglected to tell the women's side for four weeks.  We also didn't receive this rubric until after classes had been canceled, so our students did not know how the essays were to be graded.  It was a ten point scale, with equal points going to content, organization, grammar, vocabulary, spelling, punctuation, in-test citation (x3) and a reference page.  In what world is correct citation worth more points than intelligent compelling content and coherent grammar?  Based on this scale, a girls who wrote thoughtful papers with complex ideas and language structures (which usually meant more grammatical mistakes) got worse grades than girls who wrote very simple sentences, often incorrect with no original ideas, but somehow accurate in-text citations.  In addition, no one had decided for sure which reference style we were supposed to teach them, APA or MLA, so most girls ended up using a really strange combination of the two, and getting no points at all for the three in-text citations and the reference page, meaning the best they could do, all things being equal, was a 6 out of 10.   We were also not allowed to give any zeros, even if the whole paper was taken word for word from the internet.  The lowest grade we were allowed to give was 4 points out of 10, but based on the scale we were given, to take away a point for every 10 mistakes, even the best essays weren't getting more than 7 points.  It was sad.   Many of the teachers decided to ignore the grading rubric, and just gave all their students 10s anyway.  I think either method of grading does the students a huge disservice.  It is increasingly clear to me that the University doesn't care at all about learning, but instead about the appearance of learning.  For example, the goal is to finish level five of the Q-skills books (ESL texts published by oxford press).  So, the beginner students are started on level 2, and rushed through 4 books in 3 quarters, while the advanced students only have to get through the level 5 book in one year.  If anyone needs more time to cover a book, it's the beginners, who need help grasping the basics before we push them off to the next book when they haven't understood the first one.  Still, the University only makes one final test, so everyone has to take the level 5 final exam no matter what level they are. As an added bonus, the University can brag that their students completed 4 books this year, never mind that over half of them didn't understand most of the books they were rushed through.  On paper, the stats look great, but I'll let you be the judge.  Here are some real essays intermediate students submitted as final draft papers.  Notice how much is lacking, not only in English language skills, but also in self concept and awareness of the world.

I keep saying to myself that when I have a class of my own next year, I'm going to really make sure I start writing early on. I keep saying that  I'll do academic writing skill building from day one.  I tell myself my students will be ready when the chaos ensues at the end of the year. I keep saying I will be the one to do things differently.  I will be the teacher that doesn't just give in to the students or be dragged under by the frustrating and unfair treatment of the University.  I will demand more of my students, but fairly and consistently from the beginning.  I say to myself that I will be different, my students will be different.  But in my heart I know that every teacher here also said that to themselves when they first came.  I know that they tried hard too.  I know that this time next year, I will probably find myself in the same tough situation, frantically grading essays and trying to stay ahead of the changing requirements of the University, and ready to give up and give in, and just stop caring.  I hope not.  But looking around me at all the other teachers, and the situations they have dealt with in the last 3 or 4 weeks alone, it is a very small piece of hope.