Embrace Error with Error Analysis Logs: Make Grading Meaningful
The Error Analysis Log (EAL, linked HERE) is a strategy that evolved in reaction to a predicament known to all humanities teachers. We spend a full weekend thoughtfully grading essays only to see on Monday, students glancing at their score, skimming the comments, and tossing the paper aside. Traditional essay grading methods are ironically a labor of love, but they weren’t necessarily pushing my kids to grow from paper to paper.
About eight years ago, I designed a strategy I thought would push the needle in terms of student growth based on teacher feedback. The EAL is a grid: students identify an issue from the graded comments (weak thesis statement) and explain the issue in their own words. During one or two class periods, students may study video tutorials (EAL video tutorial collection linked HERE), meet with me for a mini-conference, or meet with trained peer writing tutors in order to revise errors. After they revise the issue, they explain what they did to get better or what they understand now (such as a new grammar concept).
The EAL works because students have an incentive to improve – rather than ignore – T feedback. I’ve also noticed that if a student knows she will have to revise an error or weakness sooner or later, she is less likely to make it in the first place. Further, they are more aware of how an audience (teacher, peer tutor) might genuinely struggle to understand their argument due to a lack of clarity, and write more intentionally as a result.
Along the way, I’ve seen students be able to articulate how they are improving, and this is due largely to the last column our class decided to add a few years ago: “my progress in mastering this issue.” Because we keep up with the logs all year, frequently devote Do Now activities to reflecting upon them, and return to revise older written work at the close of each semester, students are provided multiple opportunities to identify prior weaknesses – and celebrate how they strengthened.
In reflecting upon the improvement process, it is also my hope that my Ss realize the larger take-away: intelligence is far more malleable than it is fixed. Being a good writer is not pure “talent,” but is also a craft to be honed through dedication.
