> I return their essays with dozens of comments in the margins, a graded rubric, and a paragraph of instructions on how they should improve their work.
I read that comment as a response to the teacher’s stated goal of using the first essay to establish dominance and power. Is it bullying? I don’t think so, if it is applied evenhandedly.
Some excellent essays are probably getting marked down to achieve the shock-and-awe effect, and that’s not super fair.
But as powerful people like to say to the powerless: who said life was fair?
It doesn't seem to me to be about fairness or unfairness; it's teaching. Students didn't have to prepare a second draft, illuminated by the teacher's comprehensive remarks; but it would have been stupid not to seize that opportunity to learn.
He's marking the first drafts down to emphasize the importance of paying close attention to his remarks. And "paying close attention" to the teacher's remarks on an essay really means rewriting it.
These students aren't being bullied; quite the opposite, they are receiving individual care and attention from a dedicated teacher. If only all teachers handled essays in this way.
> If only all teachers handled essays in this way.
The interesting thing to me about some of the pro- comments being made here is their bizarre stridency. Here's another from downthread:
> I agreed with everything I read and wished I'd had so much consideration, both as a student and as a teacher.
I have some definite opinions about pedagogy but the thought of educators all working precisely the same way sounds like something out of The Twilight Zone or Orwell or something.
I didn't think I had been "strident", nor did I think the comment you quoted sounded strident. And I had the impression that the pro- commenters generally wished that their own teachers had worked like that; so I'm not sure where your impression of a kind of sinister sameness comes from.
It seems to me like there's some distance between wishing one had experienced a certain kind of teaching and wishing only one kind of teaching existed.
> If only all teachers handled essays in this way.
I guess I meant I wish all essay-markers took the trouble to make constructive comments, rather than just "2/10" at the bottom. Why take care over your essay, if the marker isn't going to show any evidence of having actually read it? And if the marker doesn't read it, presumably nobody will.
My objection is with the particulars of how the author is handling his students' first drafts, and I guess I enumerated my objections elsewhere. I agree that it's better than not doing drafts at all.
I think there’s a lot wrong with skipping the draft process and replacing it with… a graded draft, essentially. But I’m just willing to take the author at his word on the following point:
> Every essay I receive is graded with a terrible harshness.
Pretty much every essay will have flaws, things to comment on, things to improve. Students especially are not going to write perfect essays, not when professionals have editors and they do the same thing, lol.
> I return their essays with dozens of comments in the margins, a graded rubric, and a paragraph of instructions on how they should improve their work.
Has the word “bullying” lost all meaning?