by Joshua Hummel

While September is only the second month of the semester, my task of grading a set of papers for eight prose-based homework assignments submitted so far has entrenched me in the metaphorical battlefield of the class. On a Tuesday of any week, I can expect an advance of papers upon me; to hold my ground, I must retaliate with comments and scores by the following class meeting just two days later. Inevitably, I can still expect a new wave of write-ups to follow shortly after my initial defense. In certain respects, my very use of the above analogy displays a clear challenge within my role as a writing intensive teaching assistant.

Although I am ultimately in the position to help students improve their writing for the field, my description seems more analogous to fighting a war against the onslaught of student papers. With these two opposing perspectives in mind, how can I navigate a path through my work that fosters student learning without completely surrendering my life to the course’s rigorous grading process? The answer lies largely in one aspect of my life both inside and outside of the classroom: communication – with students, with the course professor, and even with other graduate school acquaintances.

On the most basic level of student assistance, my primary objective with communication should ensure that I effectively lead students to improve their own papers. A frequent note with regards to instructor review suggests that comments should more so guide students to find the correct answer themselves rather than merely point out a single solution. As such, my comments within papers often have the appearance of a personal preference (as in “I would have hoped to see a discussion of ____ here.”) or a leading question (such as “Have you considered ____ in this section?”). These comments tell students what sections of a paper they may want to further explore without revealing precisely how to conduct such an investigation. Here, students must independently discover the importance of a section, both for that assignment (should they wish to turn in a revision) and for future assignments that may involve the designated concept.

Still, in my efforts to quickly grade each paper, I may leave some vague comments that warrant further explanation. To address this concern and alleviate any fears students may have in supposedly challenging my authority, I have welcomed students to ask me about any of my comments in their papers. For some, this simple invitation seems effective. Several students typically use the time immediately following class to ask me about comments that are either hard to understand or just hard to read. With either situation, I can clarify my comments with further verbal explanations to lead students towards the key message behind my feedback. Still, I do realize that this practice for providing assistance is not necessarily successful with every student. I would suspect that some students are still hesitant to ask about specific comments, and others may neglect to read my written feedback altogether. Effective communication for these few students may only come from mandatory conferencing, a requirement I have yet to fully explore.

Beyond that with students, communication with the course professor, Dr. Lee-Schoenfeld, has proved invaluable within our quick grading process. Before we begin assigning grades to our respective halves of any write-up set, Dr. Lee-Schoenfeld and I typically meet for half an hour to discuss a rubric for each assignment. Each rubric contains point values that are given to students for both including the correct answers to the assignment’s questions and discussing important observations about various data sets. The primary purpose in a review of these rubrics is to ensure that both Dr. Lee-Schoenfeld and I are fairly consistent with one another in our grading. However, these rubrics also outline the most important points for students to learn in any given assignment; as a grader, I especially appreciate the direction they give to my own commenting efforts. To maintain consistency, Dr. Lee-Schoenfeld and I often contact each other as we complete our grading. Within these messages, we usually share student responses that may differ from answers in assignment’s rubric and consider how to evaluate them. Again, while the main objective of this correspondence is to stay consistent, these messages help to think about the concepts each student understood and those they must still learn. This behind-the-scenes communication with Dr. Lee-Schoenfeld truly shapes the dialog that I open with students through my comments.

A third category of communication, that with family, friends, and acquaintances, may best aid me in fulfilling the separate roles of graduate student and teaching assistant. Whatever the topic and circumstance of a conversation happens to be, it typically takes me away from my teaching assistantship. This departure reminds me that life exists beyond student papers yet still prepares me to embrace those write-ups upon my return. With moments away to look both back upon and forward to, I find myself all the more committed to assisting students in my time as a teaching assistant. Communication apart from the students I help then strengthens my communication with them.

Though other pieces of experience have certainly helped to prepare me for the task, communication – whether directly for, behind-the-scenes in, or separate from helping students learn the standards for writing about syntax – functions as my compass in traversing the landscape of my teaching assistantship. I will undoubtedly carry on the war to grade incoming papers (as it turns out, a new set of write-us has actually come in while composing this post), so communication must continue to lead me through the fray. Ultimately, the products of proper communication should signal that this fight is not in opposition of the students themselves; rather, it is an ongoing struggle to empower students with the knowledge necessary to win their own academic battles.