Third year English teacher, here. Grading essays is sucking all the joy out of my life right now. How long do you usually take to finish grading a set of 80ish essays? A week? 2? 3? I read online that if students aren’t getting their feedback within 24 to 48 hours that it’s useless to them. That feels absolutely impossible unless I’m only giving one comment per essay. I can only stand to grade about 10 essays/day w/out going crazy, and that already takes me around 2h. (Cont. in comments)

For smaller pieces like paragraphs I agree with 24-48 hours and choosing specific elements on which to focus. For essays my goal is a week. I give a lot of feedback on their essays and then give them a reflection form to complete when I return the essay. Part of that is looking at their weakest area and making a plan to improve it for the next writing piece.

I used to give verbal feedback on essays and used Kaizena (a Google add-on) to assess essays. If a kid was having issues embedding quotes, I had a mini-lesson (usually a youtube video or a handout) that I could quickly insert for the student to review and then fix their issues. Then I'd do a "glow - grow - glow" verbal message (Really love your introduction. See if you can find more evidence to back up your claim in the third paragraph. So proud of the hard work you're putting in!) and then done. I let kids redo their essays until they got them right and found that they were far more likely to listen to feedback than to read it, plus it really cut down on my grading time!

I have/had the same problem! I did cut down the massive number of hours by using a number system for grammar/mechanical errors. And I tend to look closely at grammar/mechanics for one or two paragraphs and then tell students they should be able to go from there to make corrections.

Then, I realized that if I do more work up front with drafts, the finals were better. A short conference with each kid and showing them what was wrong with their draft help produce better finals.

I use very detailed rubrics for essays and projects. Grading and feedback is just a matter of highlighting or circling the corresponding areas on the rubric.

Perhaps choose one aspect of the essay on which to focus and assess. Save the BIG papers for mids or finals. That allows students to fine tune certain aspects of writing (various papers).

Lots of good stuff here! 24 hours sounds ridiculous to me, but I get itchy if it takes more than a week. I use a lot of "marking this once" for multiple common errors. I also like to grade HARD out of the gate, and get more done faster because I'm ruthless. Then I allow a generous revision time where they can revise up to 100%. The first essay is always the most grueling, but after that I find that they rise to the expectation, and even the weakest writers make substantial gains.

This is my perspective from 10+ years teaching ELA from 8th grade through college, including some freshman composition classes. Everyone's different, YMMV, etc., but it works for me!

I think trying to mark everything is overwhelming. Look at your grading rubric and grade those specific areas. Provide feedback only on these areas and the students will still get quality instruction.

If possible stagger the assignment. Have 1/2 writing and essay, while the rest work on something else. Then switch assignments.

I do writing projects as labs and we work on them as we go and do a ton of edits, the time it reaches my desk as a final paper it is almost perfect. Takes time to plan ahead and really work on proofing stages, but worth it.

One thing is to stagger writing across different preps if that's possible. Have one section do an extended response then another on a different time line. Another thing is to take a long view of writing instruction. If you are overwhelmed by having to address ALL those errors every time, imagine the weaker writers seeing a marked up paper. They just shut down. Identify a subset of things to focus on, comment and instruct for improvement, then check for progress. THEN move onto another set. Your students got to you in a particular place on their journey; you will send them on after you've done your best. You will have to fight that understandable desire to fix everything you see. I teach ELA for all students in our school, grades 7-9 [really I do! K-12 school, current enrollment is 170 students] That makes it easier for me to conceptualize this. However, if your department has developed a set of expected skills through grade levels, you can use that as a guideline. Good luck and welcome our profession!!!Teaching effective writing well, is a TOUGH task. Just do your best. Your peace of mind is critical to your personal growth as a person and teacher.

To cut down on feedback on essays I spend a lot of time conferencing with students about their essays. I carve out two 10-15 minute sessions per student while they are drafting. They have to approach me with specific questions they want help with during this time. This way I am already giving them specific feedback they need rather than generalized feedback. In addition to me giving them feedback they also have peer editors. I make sure they have at least two sessions with their peer editors. During this time I have them write a "Dear Read" in which they are telling the person reading their essay what they feel their strengths and weaknesses are and to again ask for specific feedback. This helps give the peer editors a focus and give better feedback than just editing for grammar mistakes. I also have them self-assess their work with the same rubric I am using to grade them. Then when I sit down to grade it doesn't take me as long because they have already received feedback during the drafting phase. If I notice something across all essays I will bring it to their attention when I release the grades. I also have drag and drop comments which are commonly used comments. This cuts down my grading and feedback tremendously because they are receiving the feedback they need in the moment rather than after they already submitted the work.

Hope this helps!

I give students the ability to revise for a higher grade so from my experience they would rather get papers with thorough feedback a week or two later than one with minimal comments that was just for a grade they don't really understand why they got. I try not to be so nitpicky though and only focus on a few potential areas of improvement that I know will be of use in future papers.

If it makes you feel better, experience helps. I'm in my ninth year of teaching high school English, and those first few years were torture. I might also add that having popcorn around and listening to white noise while grading essays helps a lot with my own personal sanity.

The 24-48 hour feedback guideline is more for concepts that build immediately upon one another. For example: if you teach a math concept, then assess it, then move on to the next unit (which *uses* that concept to do the next thing), they need that quick turnaround.

If you're assessing writing skills with an essay, they need the feedback in time to be able to adjust and apply those skills by the next time you ask them to write. So the turnaround time is somewhat dependent upon what you're doing next, and how long they have before they need to use those particular writing skills again.

Generally speaking, I've found that *quick* feedback is more important on things like tests, quizzes, or small assignments. *Thorough* feedback is more effective on major essays/papers/projects.

Also: be sure you're using a solid rubric for your grading. If you have one, you can get into a good flow. A one-comment look-over then takes about 4-5 minutes (meaning you can knock out about 12 papers/hour), while a thorough feedback set takes about 10 minutes (5-6/hour). Both have their uses.

One final tip: if you have multiple preps (i.e. you teach more than one grade level, or the like), map out your semester so that the different classes aren't turning in their papers at the same time. Do a literature unit with your Sophomores while your Juniors do their research papers... things like that. That helps prevent you from getting swamped with 100 papers at one time.

I generally try to set a daily minimum - you choose what works for you. For me, I finish (my goal anyway) 10 or more a day. DO NOT work more than a 10 hour day! You aren't paid for it.

Continued: and two hours of grading essays a day for 8 to 15 days straight (depending on how many students turn in essays), on top of planning and grading all other work, sounds like torture to me. Does anyone have any tricks to just make grading and giving feedback less torturous? More fun? It’s so horrible and suuuuuch a time suck. Makes me never want to assign essays.

I often go deep with first 2 or 3 paragraphs so students can see what issues I'm addressing and what needs revising. Then they can revise and produce next draft based on what I've done.

I only fix grammar in one paragraph. That’s helps. Little by little.

Sometimes, I grade it in parts. Check each thesis. Then check each outline. Look at body paragraphs (one at a time). I give quick oral feedback and a score after each check. These small scores can be part of the larger grade.