Keeslers Writing World

The Tough thing for me with grading papers is the fact that I really don't feel as though i'm that much of an expert on writing. I write and I enjoy it, but I don't know every little rule or anything like that. I tend to be a lot better at suggesting what kind of content things need to be done with the paper. This is fine and all, but I feel that my lack of expertise on the rules and mechanics really hinders me and possibly would make me a little to easy on students papers. Obviously, this is a concern that I will need to address and learn more about so that I am grading all of my students fairly. I think this will be one of the greatest personal challenges that I will come accross as a teacher is making myself learn all of the "proper" ways of writing.
I also find that it's hard to grade students papers because you don't wanna tell anyone that their paper isn't good. I am uncomfortable being the bad guy in a way I guess. I know this is definitely something that i'll need to work on as a future teacher. There are gonna be times when I have to give a student a low grade on a paper or assignment because they did not meet the expectations. I feel though that many of us are going into the teaching field because we want to help students and impact them by preparing them for whatever future awaits them. I think this is another reason that it's tough, because we don't wanna see anyone fail. I found it much easier to grade and comment on papers that I didn't know were real students. However, when I graded the real student papers in class it was much tougher because I had to be very careful about what I said and how.
I believe that all teachers should be careful of their word choice when grading papers. Good teachers give constructive citicism where bad ones I feel just give critisism. I know that i've had teachers that did both and even some that would strictly give you a grade with no feedback. I always enjoyed the teachers who gave comments on the good and bad and what I could do to make the paper better. This is the style I am going to strive for in my teaching of writing. This way I can help students improve their writing and not just tell them what's wrong with it.