1. Was your experience as a teacher or student with praise similar as the ones described in "Learning to Praise"? How do you plan to deal with praise as a teacher?
2. Do you believe grading to be an issue in writing classes as Pat Belanoff pointed out? Do you think there is such a thing as objective grading in writing classes?
RE: 2.
ReplyDeleteYes, grading is an issue insofar as the scholarship Belanoff cites shows that, for essays at least, there are no objective criteria or means by which to grade written assignments. I thought it was really funny when he said something along the lines of, "If we can't get two literary critics to agree on the meaning of a single text, how could we get them to grade the same paper the same way?" We're evaluators. Our people are the lineage of queering and deconstructing category altogether. I don't think it's entirely plausible to create rubrics for "good" versus "bad" writing; writing differs: what makes this essay rock would tank the next essay.