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October 11, 2005
Papers and Rewrites
All in all I'm having a good semester as a professor -- 3.5 classes and working with an honors project keep me busy, but that's what I like to do. However, one of my cranky moments is striking. I'm finishing up marking rewrites of a paper for one of my classes; out of the 12 folks who chose to submit a rewrite only 2 significantly rewrote their papers. The rest corrected marked errors (sometimes introducing new errors!). One tires of explicitness. A rewrite involves a new writing of the paper, not responding to proofreading remarks.
I go through semesters and phases in which I don't allow rewrites at all. For instance, for the intermediate art history class I'm teaching I am not allowing rewrites specifically because I offered to read rough drafts; the sad fact that only 2 or 3 of the 32 students took me up on the offer doesn't change the situation that they all had the opportunity to hear from me before I put a grade on the paper. I may get a few more rough drafts for paper 2, which is due in about 2 weeks -- we'll see. For first year classes I generally do permit rewrites.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at October 11, 2005 11:48 PM