C.+Grading+'Papers'

You can do everything on-screen that you can on paper -- leave comments, highlight a rubric, mark grammar errors... and if you are on-screen, you aren't lugging around, losing, or wasting paper. On-screen grading also lets you edit your own words and copy in frequently made comments. An additional benefit is that you then have constant and easy access to samples of student work -- helpful for parent meetings and developing anchor papers with kids and colleagues.

//Important Note: One of the most significant benefits I've found to grading on-screen comes on the day I return work to students. We take part of the lesson to polish work -- to read through comments and struggle with and correct grammar issues. Some of my most important grammar instruction comes on that day with individual kids, as they actually need to think about how to improve sentences, rather than just seeing a few things circled on the paper page for reasons they don't really understand.//

Once you've figured out how you'll collect and return work, you'll want to figure out how to manipulate the electronic document. These suggestions are for use with various word processing programs. You could also take your grading online with Googledocs. I'm not as experienced with that because I'm not crazy about the comment options or the time needed to actually "turn it in," but I have colleagues who love it, and there are some hints to get you started on D. The Googledocs Option.

My strong preference for a streamlined grading process is Word. My students don't have word, so we use Pages instead.

**__ WORD: __**
Open any word processing document. Go to "View" Select "Toolbars: Make sure that you have selected "Reviewing."

If Reviewing is on, you should get two new buttons above in your toolbar: "New Comment," and "Track Changes." To see what each does, play around with your document for a bit. Put your cursor at any point of the document and click "New Comment;" a comment box should spring up at the left. Click on "Track Changes" and try deleting text or adding text into the body of the document.

When I'm actually grading, I leave Track Changes off. It gives me more comment boxes in the margin than I think are actually helpful for kids, and in-text comments often distort the look of the student's paper... while small additions like commas or punctuation changes usually go unnoticed.
 * Easiest method for grading:**

Instead, I use the "new comment" button for all manner of comments, and the highlighter to mark grammar and spelling errors. I also use the highlighter to mark the rubric that students pasted in before they submitted their work.

When I pass back the work, we take a portion of a lesson to read through graded papers and correct all highlighted marks. Kids sometimes don't see why something is highlighted, so that gives us a chance for individualized grammar instruction. They correct their work on the spot, and then save the polished essay to their essays folder within their English folder. That final revision could count as an additional grade.

**__ OPEN OFFICE/ LIBRA OFFICE :__**
At my school, I have Word on my computer, but the students don't. They have Open Office, Pages, and NeoOffice. I ask them to work in Open Office so that they can both leave each other comments during the writing process and also see all of the comments I made using Word. If they open a document in NeoOffice that has comments and Track Changes marks from word, they won't see the comments.

To make comments: Press "Option" + "Command" + "n." A comment box should spring up at the left. Mark grammar errors using the highlighter, and a comment box if you think the student needs more explanation.
 * Easiest:**

My students tend to enjoy using the comment feature during peer reviews during the writing process. Just make sure the writer deletes comments before turning in!

__**PAGES**:__
This year, I transitioned from Open Office to Pages, because Pages gives students more options in creating and formatting documents than Open Office does. You can use Track Changes in Pages as well as New Comment, though for the reasons listed above under Word, I generally just use the comment button.

To set your preferences:


 * Open a Pages document, go to "View," and select "Customize toolbar."
 * Then drag the "Comment" icon into your Pages toolbar. You can also drag the "Track Changes" icon. When you release it over the toolbar, it should join the other tools for your future use.

I find the highlighter annoying to use in Pages -- it takes too long. So, instead of highlighting errors, I select the place where I've found the error, and I click the New Comment button. Usually I don't write anything there, but sometimes I do if the student seems to not recognize what he or she is doing wrong. Because the highlighter is more difficult in Pages than changing the font color, I highlight appropriate sections of grading rubrics and change them to a bright color.