(This month's column was written by Malte Hinrichsen.)
"I have been correcting student papers all day," My colleague Johannes replied to my asking why he looked so greenish. I handed him a beer and patted his shoulder.
"Framing theory describes the frame of the TV monitor." Thus began one of the first student papers I had to correct. I had three options: to reject it entirely, to mark it up in red pencil, or to look for pearls in the dungheap and focus on those. The first option would have been justified, the second honest; the third is what I did.
I am sure that I am alone with this problem: Most of us cheat when correcting. But why do we hate reading student papers so much? According to a recent survey it is the single most unpopular activity of university teachers, even more despised than faculty meetings or billing travel costs. The reason: It changes us. To endure the endless corrections we have to pick roles that we hate to slip into. This metamorphosis is mirrored in our annotations. The following three types are the most common roles:
Type 1 is the punisher that catches the author in the booby traps of wrong formulations and citations. "Wrong," "false," "incorrect," "untrue," and "inaccurate" are his favorite remarks. This mindset makes it easier to correct; one only lookes for mistakes - and thus does not appreciate the potential improvements and real insights that may be scattered throughout the paper.
Type 2 acts as an artist that here and there inserts erratic, but in any case unreadable, comments. He reads superficially and stays intangibly vague. He pays with a bad conscience of not caring for his students.
Type 3 pretends to be a pedagogue. He avoids margin notes but writes an appraising end note. Only after the second reading does one realize that the note is a boilerplate that fits any student paper-and none at all. In attempting to be the nice guy he abolishes academic standards.
Whatever type one corresponds to, correcting student papers has a tendency to make us worse than we are.
Is there a solution? Of course: More teachers per student. But money is scarce. Is there a more realistic hope? Well, scientific research tells us that correcting is largely a waste of time: Most of the students (as high as 90% in the U.S.) do not read the comments. So, instead, a good workaround would be to organize one's seminar so that a single student hands in four or five versions of the same paper instead of three completely different ones. For us, as teachers, this would have benefit that of allowing us to see and appreciate the process of students' improvement over time.
Do you have other ideas? If you have thoughts on this topic (or any other), I invite you to respond to this column by contacting me at m.c.hinrichsen@uva.nl.
