Answer the questions in 1-2 paragraphs. A paragraph is 4-6 sentences.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Week 3.2
For today's post, I'd like you to share your notes from the essay we graded in class, "The Miracle Quilt." Share your compliment sandwich (one strength, one area of improvement, one strength). Also, what grade did you give the essay and why? Explain your reasoning. Lastly, what did you learn about grading as a result of this activity?
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In the essay we graded in class, “The Miracle Quilt” I thought that it was a well-written essay. I really liked how she was so descriptive in explaining the quilt throughout the essay. One area that I would have her change would be the use of some terms; she used some words that I did not understand when she was explaining the quilt. I also really like the way that she introduced the reader into the story, she made it seem like we were discovering about the quilt along with her. I gave the essay a 94 because I found errors in her format; she did not follow directions on how to set up her paper. I also marked her down on content because of the areas that it got confusing for the readers. While doing this activity I learned that there is a lot different areas that you have to look at while grading and that some parts of the grading process are worth more points because they are more important.
ReplyDeleteStrength: Strong conclusion.
ReplyDeleteWeakness: Went into too many details and lost people who have no interest in quilting and know nothing about it.
Strength:The content was a strength because the writer brought her family into the story without saying my grandma or things like that, so she had it flow very well.
I gave the essay an 88. I felt that it had some weaknesses like some sentences were too long, there was a paragraph of only the grandma talking, and going into too many details. However she also had a strong conclusion and her content was pretty good even though she jumped around a little.
I learned that its important not to focus on one thing but to look at each category and eliminate points based of all the things under that category. For example under format it should be typed, stapled, double-spaced, title, name, class, date, no extra spaces, and page numbers. SO if someone forgot page numbers its not a 0 but maybe a 9.
The conclusion was strong. I thought that the introduction was weak and needed to pull the reader in a bit more. It got confusing with all the quilting terms threw me off. The essay jumped around alot the topics switched to sudden. I really liked how the writter flashed backed about her grandmother and talked about her expierences. I gave this essay a 90 because I felt like the format, organization, and grammar was good buth the content at parts got confusing with jumping around and all the terms.I learned from this activity that grading varies from person to person.
ReplyDeleteOne strength was the conclusion and how it made the whole story come together very well. One weakness was she spent to much time going into detail on the quilts. After a while you just start skimming because you dont care. Another strength was how she brought all the characters into the story. I gave it a 85 mainly because I got bored of the details. At the same time from a writers perspective it was great details. I learned that im a biased grader. In that if I get bored or the topic isnt something I like, the grade goes down-dominic williams
ReplyDeleteI gave the essay "the Miracle Quilt" an 80%. This paper has a lot of good vivid detail, especially in the beginning. The paragraph talks about where she got the quilt and talking about the vendor who sold her the quilt was very strong. The essay lacked organization. I felf like it went in a few different directions about quilting and I soon got lost. But the writer did use good dialogue throughout the story. I learned about how long it takes to grade an essay and how much thought goes into doing that.
ReplyDeleteThe essay we graded in class, “The Miracle Quilt” was well written. There was a lot of detail about the specific quilt in the essay. One thing I did not like about the essay was the use of terms; some of the terms she used I had never heard of and she did not explain what they were. Another thing I liked was how she worked in her personal experience with quilting and her grandmother throughout the essay. I gave the essay a grade of 92. I found errors in her format and the organization; I think she jumped around a lot with the different stories. While doing this activity I learned that grading is mostly based on our personal opinions. There are a lot different areas that you have to look at while grading an essay and some are more important than others that you will pay most attention to while grading.
ReplyDeleteOne strength was how strong the conclusion was. I felt that it made the whole story come together, which is what a conclusion is there for. One weakness that I noticed is that she spent a alot of time going into detail that she didn't need to go into detail about. I didn't read the whole essay because I lost intrest in the essay. Another strength that I thought she had was how she described the characters, and how much voice she had in it. I gave the essay a 86, because I liked the essay, but I lost intrest a few times, and I also got confused sometimes, because she jumped around alot.
ReplyDeleteI really liked how detailed the essay was, but think that the commentary included in the essay should not be a whole paragraph by itself and would be more useful if analyzed right after the quote is over. The conclusion was strong and I liked how tied the title in into the last sentence. I gave the essay a 90 because overall the essay was good, but it bounced around and did not have a fluent flow due to all the technical terms. I did not like how there was a picture in the middle of it and the introduction did not interest me. The content within the essay was good and showed that the topic was important to the writer. From grading this essay I learned what type of a grader you are as my teacher and how hard it is to grade a paper because it is very opinionated and has a lot of flexibility.
ReplyDeleteWhen grading "The Miracle Quilt" I gave it an 88. I thought it was really well-written and it gave a lot of details--you could really picture the blankets that she was talking about; however, the details became overwhelming and some words only a quilter would understand without needing explanation. I also liked that the introduction tied into the conclusion. I marked down her paper because of errors in the format as well organization. I felt that her paper jumped around a few times and made the essay harder to follow.
ReplyDeleteIt is hard grading a paper when you are not interested in the topic--you don't want to mark down on things just because you thought it was a boring subject rather than only marking down on the errors.
I thought the essay was very descriptive. It gave you a clear picture in your head about what the quilt looked like and were she found it. The only part with being so discriptive was that the author put in terms that only quilters would know what they meant. The essay lost some of my interest because I didn't know what the author was talking about. I did enjoy that the author brought in her family and connected the quilt with them. I gave this essay an 85 because I didn't like the way she organized the paper. It felt like the author jumped around a lot. I think grading is kind of difficult. It's sometimes tough to find good or bad in a paper.
ReplyDeleteMy “complement sandwich” was that the essay was well written with good grammar, however, I found that it was poorly organized but it was a unique and compelling piece. I gave it the score of ninety-one out of one hundred. I gave it 10 for format, directions and grammar. It also received a seven for organization because the format was jumpy in places and a nine for style because it was mostly good, but one paragraph was entirely quoted and difficult to follow. I also gave it a forty-five for content because of the early technical explanations that took away from the overall purpose.-McKayla Dafoe
ReplyDeleteI thougt the essay "Miracle Quilt" had a fairly stong thesis. It achieved it's purpose by invoking the reader's curiosity. However, I believe the greatest weakness of the essay was giving quilting lessons. I understand the writer, Janine Carter, was trying to give the basics of quilting so that the reader could have a greater appreciation of the time and work involved but, I think she could have accomplished this in a shorter, less boring way. On the other-hand, her conclusion was exceptional because she solidified how meaninmgful the quilt was to her and how it effected her.
ReplyDeleteI gave the essay a 78 percent, in class, mostly because the writer wasted an entire page on quilting lessons. For a three page essay I find that excessive. Our classroom activity however,has given me a greater appreciation of how much involvement there is in grading. My objectivity was questionable after finding fault with the essay.
In the essay "The Miracle Quilt" i liked the first few paragraphs of the essay when she talked about how she had gotten the quilt and why it ment so much to her. When the author said " I felt it needed a good home" she used personification which I thought showed more importance of the quilt to the author. Though it had a good beginning I felt that the essay was unorganized. She talked about how she felt about the quilt, then went into technical terms, then back to the importance of the quilt. I liked how she had tied her family into the story as in why the quitlt was important. I gave this essay a 78 because I didn't feel that the author had taken the time to reread her essay, there was good information, but I feel that she could have rearanged things to make the essay flow better. I learned that grading an essay is hard, what one person thinks could be something totally different then from the way another person feels about the essay. I noticed that when my group had some of the lowest scored for the essay while others gave the essay scores in the 90's.
ReplyDeleteOne strength that the essay had was the conclusion. I like how she explains that there is a bond between her and the quiltmaker who made her quilt even though she doesn't know who made it and probably never will. One thing that she should improve on is explaining the quilter's vocabulary because I didn't know what a lot of the technical terms meant. One weakness in this essay is the author used too much detail. She told too much about the stitching of the quilt and the patterns that it made me not interested in what she was writing. Also, I feel like some of the information was stated multiple times and some of it didn't seem important to the story. Overall, I gave this essay an 83% because the organization could have been better along with the formatting. I gave it a lower grade not only because of the poor organization but also because it was boring to me and didn't make me want to read it. Grading this essay made me realize how opinionated grading can be.
ReplyDeleteI gave the essay an 89 because it the writer followed directions, had great style. However, sometimes he or she gave too much information which seemed to ramble on. Overall the essay was good. It had a strong thesis and ending. By grading the essay i learned how long it can take to grade one paper. It also helps make it easier to write because i can grade myself like this, then make it better.
ReplyDeleteA strength in this reflection essay is the eye catching title that is easily reflected throughout the story. However, a weakness is that the organization of the essay is a bit confusing because the story shifts between the narrator and her grandmother and doesn’t always flow. But another strength is that the story itself and the author clearly have good voice and heart put into this essay. I gave this essay a 91 because I felt it accurately followed general reflection essay guidelines, had good voice behind the words, and despite some grammar and format mistakes was still a well written, fairly easy to read paper. As a result of this activity I have learned that no one grades exactly the same. As well, it has taught me that maybe personally I am too easy of a grader and need to look at things with a slightly more critical eye next time.
ReplyDeleteI thought the essay was very well organized and that the introduction was very engaging and it somewhat wanted me to read more about the essay. The essay had some low points such as if the reader didnt know much about quilting the reader could easily get lost in the reading and it could bore them. Also the topic was boring because of it was a quilt, and last time I checked quilts are not the most exciting things in the world to write about. Another strength that the essay has is that there the sentances were very mature , show variety in patterns, and there were very few sentance fragments and zero spelling errors.
ReplyDeleteThe essay, “The Miracle Quilt,” was a well written piece. However, the sentences seemed choppy and did not flow well into each other. The conventions of this essay were done well. I gave this essay an 83 overall. I did this mostly because it was difficult to read. Because the sentences were choppy it made me reread the essay more than once. If the organization had been there it would have received a higher grade.
ReplyDeleteFrom grading this essay, I learned what to look for when writing my own pieces. I need to look out not only for grammar and spelling, but sentence flow and details. The smoother a paper is read, the higher the grade will be. If I need to go back and reread a section, that section should be fixed to where it will make more sense to the reader.
In the essay, “The Miracle Quilt,” the author discussed the foundation of her quilting knowledge. Even so, the essay did have several weaknesses. I believed that the author produced a strong and effective conclusion. However, the author’s sentence fluency was not strong, and at times, the essay became boring. Nevertheless, the essay is an excellent and informative reflection about an important tradition in her family.
ReplyDeleteI gave the essay an 84. I believed that in some of the author’s descriptions, she was too technical when she used words like “muslin” and “calico.” The author also used dialogue that dragged on. The organization of the essay was also a problem. At times, the author would jump back and forth between talking about the quilt and talking about her grandmother. Through this assignment, I’ve learned that it takes quite some time to grade an essay and that there are several factors to take into consideration when choosing the proper grade.
My compliment sandwich was to be well informed, too in depth and a strong conclusion. She was very well informed about the topic and could probably have elaborated even more. However it was too in depth for a short story. In the end I thought she wrapped it up with a good conclusion. I gave it a 91 overall which fortunately was close to the 93. I think the grading in class is obviously very fair.
ReplyDeleteOne strength was that the author had a well-rounded story and you could tell that quilts meant a lot to her from her story telling abilities. One area of improvement was that the author used too many technical terms and so it was hard to keep up and understand what she was saying at times. One weakness is that the story wasn’t the most interesting story; quilts aren’t too exciting to read about. I gave the essay an 86, because at times it was not very exciting, the story was also choppy with the sentence structure, but overall it was a pretty good essay. Grading essays take a while, and it can be difficult to decide what grade to give the person. But I also think it helped me in writing a better essay because I knew what I needed to do to make the essay better.
ReplyDelete