Introduction
Essay writing is hard work, especially at exams. Students tend to make mistakes, which later are corrected by tutors. For earning good marks, students have to fulfill the requirements of focus, essay organization, paragraph organization, vocabulary, and accuracy. However, tutors` concept on grading are not always identical. At the same time, students are also more skilled at particular topics. This paper will analyse the result of my research on grading among students and the results of proficiency essays.
Method
My aim with this paper is to give a notion of essay evaluation, one way is by comparing tutors` and students` opinions on the same essays, and the other is to see comments on essays of the 1996 proficiency tests. My purpose was to try to uncover why students commit mistakes and how tutors identify the faults.
The skill to correct mistakes is in realizing what these are. "For many students, daily writing will increase their fluency, and fluency will help them revise their papers. But daily writing — spontaneous, indirect, and uncorrected—is a means to an end, not the end itself " (Hall, 1988 p. 53). I wished to know about essays written in 1996, and the remarks given to them, so I might learn of the experience. I also wanted to know what could influence markers in evaluating writings.
My topic chosen, I asked my tutor and received eleven proficiency essays, written at JPU Hungary in 1996, randomly chosen. It was important that I should not take either the best or the worst writings. Comments of two cross-markers could be found on them, and the evaluation of the grading categories. From my tutor I also received "Cross Markers Comments on Proficiency Test Essays, May 1996" (González , Horváth, 1996 ), a collection of comments without the essays.
I chose two of the eleven compositions, a succesful and a less succesful. One received twenty-three points, which meant that it failed. "The overall pass mark at 26 ..."( Nikolov, Horváth, 1996 p.96) would have been necessary to reach . The other composition obtained thirty- nine points which was a good mark. "The total score of the essay was 50 marks" (Nikolov, Horváth, 1996 p.96 ). These I typewrote. The reason for this was for me to be able to give copies without remarks on them to eight English majors, so they would not be distracted by the outward quality of the writing or the remarks when giving their opinion . The eight students asked to give answers to my questions about the typewritten essays were English majors. Here are three examples of the queries I asked :
Was the essay coherent, understandable?
Were there mistakes in it?
Was it interesting, understandable?
The assessments were needed to see how differently students approached the question of evaluating a piece of writing. Questions including the names of grading schemes would have been too suggestive about the aim of my inquery. The answers differed greatly. They were in agreement, in opposition to the markers` evaluation or partly identifying flaws.
Results and Discussion
I examined the answers about the weaker and the better composed essays separetaly.The evaluations of the weaker essay were of two types. I divided the answers into two groups. One group of three students claimed that the essay was an interesting work, easy to read, but contained mistakes of accuracy. The other group, five students, can be divided into two sub-groups. One sub-group, three students` remark was similar to the tutors` assessment: focus and essay organization were poor, but the three other categories—paragraph organization, vocabulary, and accuracy— were of high value. The other sub-group, two students, claimed the opposite: focus and essay organization were dim, but paragraph organization, vocabulary, and
accuracy were agreeable.
The better composed essay that achieved thirty-nine points, and was among the best works, was evaluated similarly to the weaker essay: the evaluating methods could be divided into two groups. Three students claimed that the piece was a work of good value, interesting, but containing grammatical mistakes. It is important to recognize that, just like with the weaker essay, the question was approached from only the interest and grammar point of view. The other factors were not considered. The other group, five students, gave their opinions of all five categories by which tutors marked. Their view was similar to the weaker essay`s evaluation. Out of five, four students stated that focus and essay organization were low, but the other three categories were appropriate. One student said that the essay had no focus at all, and it was impossible to understand what the composition was written about.
Examining the comments sheet, it occured to me that markers referred to focus, paragraph organization, and essay organization most of the times. In the fifteen comments addressed to the author, focus was referred to nine times, organizations five times while accuracy was referred to only once, and vocabulary was not pointed at.
"It is simply that innacurate syntax is easiest to spot and no comment is really necessary; a simple A will indicate an error However, focus and organization slips may need more explanation" ( Horvath 1997: 2).This evidence led me to conclude that the five grading categories could be placed into two groups. one is the group of focus, paragraph organization, and essay organization; the other is vocabulary and accuracy.
The direction I chose to understand how tutors and students evaluated essays was to examine the reviews given to them. The students` example showed that they concentrated on either focus and organization, or vocabulary and accuracy. Considering that students would write compositions the same way, keeping their interest on either grammatical components or organization, and focus components, the marks given to the five grading categories should differ greatly.
Examining the grades given to the five categories I realized that the grades did not differ to a great extent. In nine essays out of eleven between the marks there was only two or three marks difference. In two essays the difference reached five marks: the lowest being three points, the highest eight points. The evidence that the marks given to the five grading categories did not differ excessively shows that tutors approach the question of evaluating differently from students. Examining students reflections on essays I understood that one group of categories is always considered in greater extent than the other group, while tutors, however, they do make distinction between categories, concentrate on all the factors.
Conclusion
Evaluation methods differ between students and tutors :students pay attention to only several of the five grading categories while tutors tend to take all the factors into consideration. Through inquiry among students I obtained information of their method of essay evaluation. Answering the questions concerning two typewritten essays, they approached the evaluation from only one group of categories` point of view. Examining comments on a separate sheet I concluded that only one group of grading categories was highlighted. The marks given to the five categories in eleven essays did not differ to a great extent. If tutors evaluated one group of categories more than the other , the grades should extremely differ. However, the grades did not differ exceedingly. Examination of the marks given to the grading schemes on eleven proficiency essays and comments on a separate sheet proved the tutors attantive toward all the five grading categories.
Showing posts with label marking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label marking. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 8, 2007
W 035 F
The English Department of the Janus Pannonius University in Pecs organizes a Proficiency Exam for the first-year English majors. A part of the Exam is writing an essay. In my paper I will attempt to classify the main types of the markers’ written feedback.
My analysis is based upon four anonymous proficiency essays submitted in the l996-exam, and a summary of the markers’ comments collected and classified by Horvath Jozsef ( I received this summary from the author as a class handout ).
The Proficiency Essays create a special relationship between Author, Text and Audience.
The author is externally ‘forced’ to produce a certain type of text (an essay) on one of the theme-possibilities offered by the designers of the test. Time of the working process is restricted to about 60-90 minutes, and the required length of the text is about 400-450 words. The author knows that his text will be evaluated according to what extent it meets the criteria of the essay-genre. The author knows that presumably the only readers of his essay will be the two instructors.
The audience’s task is to assess the essay-writing competency of the candidate, and to decide upon whether he fulfilled or not the requirements. The two readers highlight the spelling , grammatical, semantic and compositional inaccuracies (such as absence or insufficient presence of focus, introduction , text-cohesion etc.), and then reports on their overall impression of the particular essay. The comments are addressed to the author himself; to the colleague marker; or have no specific addressee. This typology is by Horvath Jozsef (Cross Markers Comments on Proficiency Test Essays, May 1996, Cross-Markers: Barbara Gonzalez and Horvath Jozsef, class handout).
Horvath Jozsef must have a valid interpretation on the addressees of the remarks, since he was one of the cross-markers, thus, he was in interaction with the text, the author (recommendations) and the peer-marker as well. However, without this ‘participant’-knowledge, the reader may find it difficult sometimes to identify the addressee of the particular remark. The following three comments belong to three different types in Horvath’s addressee-based typology:
A job well done. ( Type 1: Comments addressed to the author)
Not a workable topic choice. (Type 2: Comments addressed to the other marker)
Explanation not offered. (Type 3: Comments without addressee)
These remarks evaluate the essay either as a whole (1.), or refers to (the lack of ) a certain quality of it, but their common feature is that they make statements exclusively on the text without reference to the creator, or the other interpreter of that. Syntactically, these sentences prefer passive or fragmentary organization, which results in neglecting the agent of the activity. In a grammatical sense, the addressee is not explicitly present in these sentences. For a reader who is deprived from the context with which Horvath Jozsef is familiar, there is hardly any method to relate these sentences to the appropriate addressee-types.
From a quantitative aspect, most comments (45) are addressed to no specific audience; next comes those remarks that belong to the second type (22), and finally, it is the authors who receive the least of direct feedback (15). A reason that could explain this seemingly contradictory situation lies in the fact that the authors of the assessed essays rarely receive their essays back: they are notified about the results of their exam in terms of what scores they gained, and, thus, whether they passed or failed the exam; but their tests and ,as part of it, their essays are not automatically handed out to them. It is possible for them to take a look at their tests, but this happens upon request (Horvath Jozsef’s oral information). From this, it is clear that there is not a real dialogue between the authors and those who read, interpret and assess their texts. The feedback that the markers give is usually not seeked for by the potential recipients of that.
The proficiency essays are evaluated according to the quality of the following factors: focus, accuracy, vocabulary, paragraph organization and essay organization.
The real dialogue takes place between the two interpreters: they independently review the texts, and exchange their opinions in writing. They work independently, but a mutual decision must be reached upon the grade, so they report on their observations to each other. The style of these comments is quite sarcastic, colloquial and recalls the air of informal speech. For one who is accustomed to receive much more formal, if any, feedback from tutors in Hungarian grammar schools and universities this register may seem blasphemous. This difference in style, again, may come from (besides mentality) the special communicative situation: the remarks are public in theory, but practically remain the two markers’ private affairs. Some examples for the witty-sarcastic-informal style:
and A is for AWFUL!
Admit: I’m lost.
me, too
I wish I could have read it all.
Very vague and confusing. P-y shaky.
Too many ‘somethings’ make this essay say little ‘anything’.
‘The main thing’ is that this essay barely manages to do any analysis. I remotely sense it’s
about ‘parents’, though. ( And, of course, there you go with the ruled sheets.)
True. It never stops, does it. Takes essay in jest and then flunks.
The markers’ mutual observations can be characterized as being free, informal in style, but this trait is also true in the case of all the other comments, regardless of the addressee. Thus, the distinctive feature of this type (#2) of comments is that these are really dialogue-like, and that they represent a high degree of interaction and reflection between the markers.
Horvath Jozsef created a communicative typology; in the following part of my essay I will attempt to present a typology based upon the content of the comments. I found seven principal types:
Evaluation of the author’s essay-writing competence
Evaluation of the essay as a whole
Evaluation of a part of the essay
Genre-definitions
Response to the writer’s line of thought
Asking the author about a certain part of the essay
Grade (pass/fail) recommendations
Examples:
...and the more you write, and read, the better writer, and reader, you become. You are
pretty good already! Great Piece! (1)
Author obviously a critical writer; hence, the revisions that abound. (2)
2. Original. Focused. A male-chauvinist essay, though; what about Str8 women reader’s needs? (1)
Long, but an easy read. (2)
Cool. (3)
3. Is this the end? Unconcluded, and vague about the employee. (1)
The subject selected is impossible. (2)
this does not summarize the essay. It’s too mystic on what this “picture” is, I felt (3)
4. Essay is not a letter (1)
Fax is not a letter. (1)
5. or when somebody else gets to discuss lovers’ arguments (1)
Not much friendship (3)
6. Even easier than reading? (1)
And what about a ‘friend’? (1)
7. can’t pass (2)
borderline (2)
A near-fail (2)
Not even close to passing (2)
(The numbers in brackets indicate the corresponding type from the communicative typology)
These are the main types I found, but it is obvious just from these examples quoted that there are no rigid distinctions between the types. A comment like this: Author obviously a critical writer; hence, the revisions that abound. I think I read the essay in its right order, if so, this seems a well-planned piece. Some more focus on explanation would have been in place, though. A Pass, I think. (2) integrates types 1, 2 and 7.
The communicative situation determines and restricts the application of my types quite much: type 6- comments are addressed to the author, while type 7-comments are addressed, naturally, to the peer marker.
The frequency of the types: the rarest is type 4, while the commonest are type 2 and 3.
The markers of the proficiency test essay discuss principally the quality of the particular essay either as a whole, or a part of it. This feature of the comments is mostly independent of who the addressee of the comment is. Since the function of commenting is to produce information that can be utilized later, these comments in general are useful and of relevance.
My analysis is based upon four anonymous proficiency essays submitted in the l996-exam, and a summary of the markers’ comments collected and classified by Horvath Jozsef ( I received this summary from the author as a class handout ).
The Proficiency Essays create a special relationship between Author, Text and Audience.
The author is externally ‘forced’ to produce a certain type of text (an essay) on one of the theme-possibilities offered by the designers of the test. Time of the working process is restricted to about 60-90 minutes, and the required length of the text is about 400-450 words. The author knows that his text will be evaluated according to what extent it meets the criteria of the essay-genre. The author knows that presumably the only readers of his essay will be the two instructors.
The audience’s task is to assess the essay-writing competency of the candidate, and to decide upon whether he fulfilled or not the requirements. The two readers highlight the spelling , grammatical, semantic and compositional inaccuracies (such as absence or insufficient presence of focus, introduction , text-cohesion etc.), and then reports on their overall impression of the particular essay. The comments are addressed to the author himself; to the colleague marker; or have no specific addressee. This typology is by Horvath Jozsef (Cross Markers Comments on Proficiency Test Essays, May 1996, Cross-Markers: Barbara Gonzalez and Horvath Jozsef, class handout).
Horvath Jozsef must have a valid interpretation on the addressees of the remarks, since he was one of the cross-markers, thus, he was in interaction with the text, the author (recommendations) and the peer-marker as well. However, without this ‘participant’-knowledge, the reader may find it difficult sometimes to identify the addressee of the particular remark. The following three comments belong to three different types in Horvath’s addressee-based typology:
A job well done. ( Type 1: Comments addressed to the author)
Not a workable topic choice. (Type 2: Comments addressed to the other marker)
Explanation not offered. (Type 3: Comments without addressee)
These remarks evaluate the essay either as a whole (1.), or refers to (the lack of ) a certain quality of it, but their common feature is that they make statements exclusively on the text without reference to the creator, or the other interpreter of that. Syntactically, these sentences prefer passive or fragmentary organization, which results in neglecting the agent of the activity. In a grammatical sense, the addressee is not explicitly present in these sentences. For a reader who is deprived from the context with which Horvath Jozsef is familiar, there is hardly any method to relate these sentences to the appropriate addressee-types.
From a quantitative aspect, most comments (45) are addressed to no specific audience; next comes those remarks that belong to the second type (22), and finally, it is the authors who receive the least of direct feedback (15). A reason that could explain this seemingly contradictory situation lies in the fact that the authors of the assessed essays rarely receive their essays back: they are notified about the results of their exam in terms of what scores they gained, and, thus, whether they passed or failed the exam; but their tests and ,as part of it, their essays are not automatically handed out to them. It is possible for them to take a look at their tests, but this happens upon request (Horvath Jozsef’s oral information). From this, it is clear that there is not a real dialogue between the authors and those who read, interpret and assess their texts. The feedback that the markers give is usually not seeked for by the potential recipients of that.
The proficiency essays are evaluated according to the quality of the following factors: focus, accuracy, vocabulary, paragraph organization and essay organization.
The real dialogue takes place between the two interpreters: they independently review the texts, and exchange their opinions in writing. They work independently, but a mutual decision must be reached upon the grade, so they report on their observations to each other. The style of these comments is quite sarcastic, colloquial and recalls the air of informal speech. For one who is accustomed to receive much more formal, if any, feedback from tutors in Hungarian grammar schools and universities this register may seem blasphemous. This difference in style, again, may come from (besides mentality) the special communicative situation: the remarks are public in theory, but practically remain the two markers’ private affairs. Some examples for the witty-sarcastic-informal style:
and A is for AWFUL!
Admit: I’m lost.
me, too
I wish I could have read it all.
Very vague and confusing. P-y shaky.
Too many ‘somethings’ make this essay say little ‘anything’.
‘The main thing’ is that this essay barely manages to do any analysis. I remotely sense it’s
about ‘parents’, though. ( And, of course, there you go with the ruled sheets.)
True. It never stops, does it. Takes essay in jest and then flunks.
The markers’ mutual observations can be characterized as being free, informal in style, but this trait is also true in the case of all the other comments, regardless of the addressee. Thus, the distinctive feature of this type (#2) of comments is that these are really dialogue-like, and that they represent a high degree of interaction and reflection between the markers.
Horvath Jozsef created a communicative typology; in the following part of my essay I will attempt to present a typology based upon the content of the comments. I found seven principal types:
Evaluation of the author’s essay-writing competence
Evaluation of the essay as a whole
Evaluation of a part of the essay
Genre-definitions
Response to the writer’s line of thought
Asking the author about a certain part of the essay
Grade (pass/fail) recommendations
Examples:
...and the more you write, and read, the better writer, and reader, you become. You are
pretty good already! Great Piece! (1)
Author obviously a critical writer; hence, the revisions that abound. (2)
2. Original. Focused. A male-chauvinist essay, though; what about Str8 women reader’s needs? (1)
Long, but an easy read. (2)
Cool. (3)
3. Is this the end? Unconcluded, and vague about the employee. (1)
The subject selected is impossible. (2)
this does not summarize the essay. It’s too mystic on what this “picture” is, I felt (3)
4. Essay is not a letter (1)
Fax is not a letter. (1)
5. or when somebody else gets to discuss lovers’ arguments (1)
Not much friendship (3)
6. Even easier than reading? (1)
And what about a ‘friend’? (1)
7. can’t pass (2)
borderline (2)
A near-fail (2)
Not even close to passing (2)
(The numbers in brackets indicate the corresponding type from the communicative typology)
These are the main types I found, but it is obvious just from these examples quoted that there are no rigid distinctions between the types. A comment like this: Author obviously a critical writer; hence, the revisions that abound. I think I read the essay in its right order, if so, this seems a well-planned piece. Some more focus on explanation would have been in place, though. A Pass, I think. (2) integrates types 1, 2 and 7.
The communicative situation determines and restricts the application of my types quite much: type 6- comments are addressed to the author, while type 7-comments are addressed, naturally, to the peer marker.
The frequency of the types: the rarest is type 4, while the commonest are type 2 and 3.
The markers of the proficiency test essay discuss principally the quality of the particular essay either as a whole, or a part of it. This feature of the comments is mostly independent of who the addressee of the comment is. Since the function of commenting is to produce information that can be utilized later, these comments in general are useful and of relevance.
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