CNN.com - Red ink falling out of favor with teachers - Apr 4, 2005
Now I've heard (or read) everything.
CNN.com - Red ink falling out of favor with teachers - Apr 4, 2005
I wonder if any of Jaclyn's students are suffering from the trauma and stress of her red pen?
This could one day be like the Lord of the Rings. The red pen represents the sword of Elindel which was broken and now reforged and can only be wielded by the one true Queen.
posted by TinyElvis @ 2:03 PM
1 comments
1 Comments:
Actually, I do not use a red pen. I comment in pencil and then put the final grade in ink and that goes in whichever pen color that I have handy. This is primarily because I like to edit my own comments. It's not out of fear of emotionally scarring a student.
I think the problem with red is the stigma that goes with it. The type of teacher that would use red would probably also likely write disparaging comments all over the paper, comments that might even be irrelevant or products of personal pet peeves. I had this type of instructor before: it's like he is yelling at you from beginning to end about comma splices, when, at the very least, as a writer, all you want is some acknowledgement as to whether or not your ideas made sense and from there grammar would necessarily have to follow.
The traditional red-ink teacher is the type of teacher that would give you a C because you had more than 4 errors on an otherwise brilliant paper and would give an A to a student with an error-free paper that has no sentence variety or, more importantly, substance. I've actually seen this happen.
Red-ink is actually not the problem. I believe it's teachers that think their job is to beat students into submission instead of treat them like thinkers with a problem that needs attention -- getting their thoughts out clearly and effectively in their writing (and this includes being grammatically correct).
Of course, I teach college writing, so none of this might be relevant for K-12. (That's a whole other beast.) I prefer to treat my students like thinking adults and when their message isn't clear, I say so. They don't seem to care what color the ink is. They just appreciate the honest and thorough feedback.
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