Hi all! Hasn’t been any action this Spring on the Reflections blog – does that mean we’re all too busy reflecting?

I’m enjoying something I’m doing this semester, allowing students to revise their work. I confess I was afraid to do this before! My students post a primary source every week online, and do three writing assignments. With 40 students per section, I was worried that I’d spend all my time re-grading the revisions.

But I talked to my colleague Jim Sullivan, who does many revisions for his English classes. He has clearly worked revisions in as part of his pedagogy. So I made a time limit on mine – one revision by the following Sunday gets a “free re-grade”. Then I spend some time on Mondays doing a quick regrading. As predicted, not that many students take advantage – in fact, I wish more would. It really does seem to help divide out those who care about their work but are having a problem I can help with, and those who don’t care as much.

Just had a student email me to thank me for the opportunity!