From The "Basics" of the Basic Communication Course: A Graduate Student Teacher's Survival Guide
We all develop our own strategies in time. But below are some
tricks and tips that I’ve found useful in grading.
1. Become
adept
at writing comments on the rubric during the speakers’ speeches. Don’t
worry about making eye contact with the speakers the whole time. The
rest of
class should be good audience members. You can, however, do quick scans
of the classroom every now and then. In short, it's okay to not look at students for their entire speech if it means making constructive comments.
2. On a separate sheet of paper, record your first impressions honestly. You won’t
show students these comments, but they will help you once you get back to your
office to grade. After competing in and coaching collegiate speech and debate
for 11 years, I can accurately predict a speaker’s grade in the first 30
seconds of their speech. After you’ve been teaching for a while, your instincts
will be similarly honed.
3. Get
the lay of the land. Wait to assign scores, and do not assign grades after each speech. Tentatively give a score for each
rubric item for the first three speeches. Later, reflect on whether
these are accurate. If so, then use them as a gauge for the rest of the
speeches. Yes, students may want their grades quickly, but grading is not only a time for you to assess your students; it's a time for you to be reflexive about your own teaching.
For example, if none of your students include transitions for their speeches, does that mean the entire class is clueless? Might it be something in your instructions to them that was confusing? Did you not provide clear examples? Maybe they don't think transitions are important. Did you stress the importance of transitions to students? Obviously, if the answers to these questions lead you to believe there was something you could have explained more clearly, you'll want to carefully consider how harshly you'll grade your students on this aspect of the speech
You might ask, "Well, if I've got a rubric and each part of the rubric has been given a point or percentage weight, how can I grade "less harshly"? Remember our previous discussion about meeting the minimum requirements: if you think you could have explained something more clearly, perhaps your "minimum" benchmark can be altered. The students won't see this alteration; you might just give a Satisfactory score based on a lower benchmark.
It's true that you could simply take those points out of the equation altogether and reduce the total number of points for the speech. But that requires more reconfiguring on the back end as the total possible points for your class will change. You could add another assignment to make up those points, but your supervising faculty member may frown upon changing the syllabus when you're already into the semester. If you've included the caveat that the number and frequency of assignments may change based on the progress of the class, then you're likely to be technically in the right if you were to add another assignment. But, you've got your own classes to worry about in the meantime--do you really want to create more work yourself?
