Grading high school math students' papers

Grading papers…the bane of every teacher’s existence. My students have two big project assignments during this five-week program, and I was responsible for grading the final project this weekend. I dreaded it because I had never been in this position before—analyzing the grade that someone deserves rather than the other way around.

First, I established a rubric of sorts. Using the prompt that the students had to follow, I created my point allocation. Although it was a projectile motion math problem, the process and instructions had students follow a four-section science-type template. As a biology major and someone accustomed to this format, I found it refreshing to see it presented outside of the science classroom. Even though the problem has physics implications, the problem was catered to parabolic and algebra II-prepared students like mine. I initially intended to grade one section at a time (ie section I for student 1, student 2…then section II for student 1, student 2…etc.). After realizing that I wanted to be able to judge each students work from a holistic approach, I decided that grading an individual completely before moving on was the way I wanted to go.

Common mistakes were prevalent and there was incomplete work that disappointed me. Despite giving the students ample time in class, there were still those who said that they just couldn’t figure some part(s) out. Out of 10 total points, passing (as determined by the program’s administrators) is a score of 7. Only four or five students did not pass, so they will be turning in rewrites shortly.

I was happy with my consistency as established by the prompt and felt that my justifications were appropriate. No students complained about grades which was a good sign, too. Although I would have modified the rubric because I didn’t feel the prompt allocated points the way that I liked, I felt that deviating too much would not have been fair to the students. As a student myself, anything that is not explicitly asked for is not fun to deal with. (Maybe that’s why I prefer hard sciences to social sciences…) So even though my co-teacher mentioned that I had flexibility and leeway to grade however I chose, I wasn’t comfortable modifying the rubric from what I interpreted the prompt asked for.

More students passed than I felt earned a passing grade. However, now the end of the program is less than 48 hours away, so I didn’t harp on my qualms. The discrepancy between my preferred grading and the way I interpreted the prompt was there, but at least I got a taste of the struggles and time consumption that grading papers takes.

Honestly, I found it a bit fun after feeling I buckled down on my consistency. Some of the answers were amusing… “well, I don’t believe there can be any other answers, unless there are other answers. In that case, I’m not sure.” Sounds like some unintentional life advice from a 14-year-old.