Princeton Requested Graded Paper: Must It Be A Paper That Got an A?

MWolf
Wed, 29 Jan 2020 19:15:51 +0000

Something to think about is that a student may get a B on a paper that another teacher would have given an A. Essays are not math exams, and there is often no objective criteria for grading an English essay, despite rubrics.

If the “B” was because of poor grammar, use of cliche’s run-on sentences, etc, that is not a paper to submit. But if that B is because the teacher did not think that the topic was entirely appropriate, because the teacher didn’t like the imagery, or issues such as these, the paper could demonstrate excellent writing in ways than a paper that got an “A” because there were no grammar or spelling mistakes and it adhered to the grading rubric’s requirement.

In my uninformed and limited opinion, I think that students should submit the graded paper without the teacher’s actual grade, but with the rest of the comments. I think that teacher’s comments are always valuable, and also keep the AOs from having to recheck for grammar and spelling errors. However, the grade that is on the top of the paper will affect how anybody who reads the paper later will perceive the paper. So the paper will not be evaluated only on its own merits, but also on the opinion of the teacher who graded it initially. This will also remove issues of things like grade inflation/deflation since that is usually due to how different teachers grade the same work with the same number of errors.