One trait of effective teaching is returning student assignments in a timely manner with helpful feedback. As professors, marking papers is often a central task in the many things we do to mentor and advance our students’ learning.

Writing courses are demanding when it comes to feedback and assessment. But there are many ways to lessen the demand significantly. To that end, we have gathered several grading suggestions that may be helpful:

Grading is a time to hear from students and to experience the connections they make about the content you enjoy. Focus on the opportunity grading provides to assess whether students are learning what your course sets out to teach. Consider grading a “data gathering” time to take stock of individuals’ learning and progress and your teaching and clarity.

While you read student work, be on the lookout for small successes and students’ struggles. Keep a positive attitude about students and your grading load—this may motivate you to face the grading stack with purpose and curiosity.

If you break an assignment into smaller writing tasks or assign a one-draft reflection piece, consider giving full credit or no credit in order to reduce your grading time.

For smaller reflection pieces or ongoing course reading responses, you don’t have to take the time to deliberate over A, B, or C when you can instead give full credit or no credit. Coach the students specifically on what you expect to read in the assignment and what the purpose is, and if the writing meets the standards, award the assigned points. If the writing seems rushed or ideas are scattered, give no points for the assignment. This is better used on recurring writing tasks where you afford students a first round of “resubmits” for those who earn zero points. This approach saves you time and often results in better reflections because students know what’s expected and that there’s little margin for sloppy or careless reflection writing.

Or, read over assignments such as annotated bibliographies in class during partner or small group workshops and give points for completion. This allows for on-the-spot feedback if a student’s sources are not appropriate to the assignment, and your grading is complete before leaving class that day. At the end of class, you can give whole group feedback about concerns or encouragement you have for students at this stage of the assignment. You save time, get to dialogue with students, and complete grading quickly.

Distribute an explanation of grading or a rubric at the point when you assign the writing task or very soon after introducing the assignment.

Encourage students to use the rubric for self-evaluation and peer feedback during their stages of writing.

A week after assigning the paper, look at the rubric during class for a quick discussion and “check in” about the guidelines and expectations for the paper. This will reduce the instances of you reading papers that don’t fit the assignment, and it will remind students to start drafting the paper early. More developed papers are less demanding on readers’ time and focus.

Consider using the rubric for draft-one feedback by assigning students to evaluate themselves in class or as a homework task. Ask students to write up a plan for revision and give them points for the plan (instead of you doing careful reading of an early draft). This will encourage students to turn in a more developed draft later that is ready for your feedback. That way you'll avoid wasted time reading (quite as many) drafts that aren't fully developed.

When grading final products, save time by composing very few, if any, comments. Instead, mark the aspects for feedback on your rubric with simple checks or highlighter on the description from the rubric. This is especially appropriate when you’ve already read draft two and provided feedback and comments toward revision.