Miss Marple Posted February 14, 2011 Share Posted February 14, 2011 Several comments on the various threads (8Filltheheart's MCT Essay issue) have made me wonder about how we, as homeschool moms, grade our student's essays. One particular comment in one of the threads mentioned that all the essays in AAW1 are "weak". I find this interesting in light of the fact that this is a respected "gifted" program and MCT has obviously been around a while teaching and grading this sort of thing. This made me remember my oldest son's writing. When he was a junior in high school he dual enrolled at our local university in Freshman Comp. 1. Every single essay he wrote received a score higher than I would have given him. I remember bringing in the essays and having our co-op writing teacher look at them. I did not feel he deserved the grades he was getting. This continued through his writing in other courses and his subsequent composition courses. I know that for myself, writing is the one subject that intimidates me. I tend to nit-pick my sons' essays. But I wonder if this obsession for "perfection" is more a reflection on my own insecurity rather than their writing. Maybe they are writing well at their level and I'm just too insecure to recognize it. Maybe I'm expecting a level of maturity in their writing that would be unusual for their ages. And the level of expectation each of us has regarding how much "support" of a topic is shown may be a reflection of our own personalities. Some of us are more sticklers for exactness and others are happy with a good overview. So how do we deal with our own personalities and insecurities getting in the way of an objective review of our student's writing? Or am I the only one who worries about this :001_huh:? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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