Do You Find Grading Stressful? So Does bell hooks!

By Jama Coartney and Donna Westfall-Rudd -- 

In Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope, bell hooks writes about the stress of grading: 

"Like many teachers I found grading 

to be one of the most stressful aspects of teaching. Grading has become even more stressful in a world where students determine that they need to make a specific grade to be successful and want to be awarded that grade irrespective of their performance." (p. 16)

Photographer: Mari Helen
If you have had similar feelings about grading, you are not alone.  Both teachers and students find grading stressful. One of the most common solutions for reducing stress related to grading is to move to a pass/fail grading system.  There is another solution. The use of rubrics can help teachers reduce stress and anxiety over grading.  bell hooks writes about her experience and method in Teaching Community. 

"Understanding grading to be an evaluation of a student’s learning capacity and output, I worked through my tensions around grading by teaching students to apply the criteria that would be used to grade them and then to grade themselves so that they could remain aware of their ability to do needed work at the level of achievement they desired." (p.16) 

Rubrics can help teachers clarify criteria and manage the grading process in a number of ways.  Below is a list of signs that you might find a rubric valuable and useful.

  • Question whether your grading is consistent 
  • Have students who don't understand what they're supposed to do to complete the assignment 
  • Have to spend a lot of time describing assignments and your expectations
  • Have to provide the same feedback over and over
Rubrics can help.  They help with consistency. They help students understand what is wanted of them.

There are resources available online to help with developing rubrics. For example, How to Create a Rubric in 6 Steps describes an easy-to-use approach for developing rubrics. 

 If you're interested in taking a deeper dive into rubrics, check out Introduction to Rubrics, by Stevens and Levi. This text provides an in-depth introduction to developing rubrics.  

 

 

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