TA and Essay grading

Parents Forum
61

I was always a good student of literature. I got an A in a 300-level university class in Spanish Renaissance poetry when I was in 11th grade. I went to a high prestige private university and I won writing prizes. I got accused of plagiarism my freshman year in college because, according to my teacher, my paper was of a higher quality than my experience and background permitted (I told him how I had done that, and he apologized).

Anyway, in my entire life I got two Bs in literature courses. One was my first college French lit course, and that was OK with me because at the time I had been taking French for only two years and had skipped the first two years of French, so there were massive gaps in my writing and speaking abilities. The other was a lecture course that I was taking for double credit, taught by my advisor, whose semi-official pet I was. The point of the double credit was to get some credit for taking his high-powered graduate seminar, which I was doing without being registered in it. I had to write two papers, one for the TA, and one that the professor graded. The professor gave me an A, the TA gave me a B.

Several things were going on: The professor liked me, the TA didn’t. I actually wrote a better paper for the professor than for the TA. But mostly the professor and the TA were different people with different ideas and tastes. I was much more in the professor’s thrall than the TA was, and he called me out for imitating the professor too much with less thought than was necessary to do it. At the time, the professor was among the biggest names in his field, and the TA was . . . a grad student. But the TA went on to a fabulous career, and spent many years as chair of the very department in which that course was taught. He was no second-rate dummy. And experience has taught me that there was a good deal more to his criticisms than I thought at the time.

I didn’t dream of whining to the professor about it, because I was fairly certain the professor would back him up, and I thought it would do more for my reputation to take the grade like a man than to try to get it overruled. In the course of my life, that B meant absolutely nothing (except that I got one more B than my wife did).

Some side comments:

– Some universities have grad students TA in their first year; others don’t. At least that’s what my kids’ friends have reported.

– My kid’s bff is a PhD candidate at an Ivy League university where she had been accepted as an undergraduate but declined to attend, choosing instead a public university to save about $70,000 in cost over four years. Her first class as a TA was for a course she had never taken, and she was only a few weeks ahead of the students. She was absolutely appalled at the quality of their work. She had to be counseled to go easy on them so she didn’t fail them all.

– The TA’s comment cited by the OP about using complicated words could be attributable to inexperience or not, but the comment about the kid not really having a point gives me pause. It’s usually very easy to tell if someone has a point. If it wasn’t easy to identify the student’s point from a cursory reading of the paper, then it was not a good paper, almost by definition.

62

JHS, your comments must resonate true to many of us. It is impossible for any of us to know what really happened. The story of the OP does, however, question how a student can receive drastically different appraisals of his writing in the same year.

In a way, it might help for the OP to offer an insight as what constituted “too complicated” words. It is possible that the TA objected to the (over)reliance on thesaurus words often exhibited by high school students in their essays. Yes, why use “exhibited” when “shown” would have worked just as … good? Pun and grammar intended! :slight_smile:

63

This is TA experience in physics, not history, so YMMV. My husband started teaching lab sections and TAing for undergrad physics from the semester he arrived as a grad student (at a UC). All the arriving grad students were given a week of training before the fall semester started. He was paid for 2 years of TA work and then 3 years of research. That was how the PhD was funded, so there wouldn’t have been much pay for the first two years without the TA work. Grad students taught (and took grad classes) until they landed full-time research. (Masters was just a form to fill out at the 2-year point after advancement to candidacy exam.)

64

Does your son’s school have a writing center?

He could bring his graded essay and any future drafts of work to an appointment there to ask for feedback on how to strengthen his work. NOT to challenge the TA’s grading practices, but to have a presumably unbiased third party (not mom, not TA) provide feedback/thoughts on how to improve his writing.

IMHO, as an aside, it is the “prestigious” faculty and adjuncts with lots of fancy awards who are the easiest graders…often because they don’t spend a lot of time grading the work. That’s neither here nor there, just FYI.

65

I would assume that this TA didn’t get accepted to a PhD program because her level of scholarship is chopped liver. I remember spring freshman year at Cal I had a comp. lit class team taught by 2 PhD students (both probably at least late 20s). I thought that I was pretty hot stuff with my writing and my first paper came back pretty much completely red - too much passive voice, to many “the fact that” similar wordiness. They took turns grading your papers alternating and met with every student in the coffee shop across Durant to go over each paper. You then had a chance to rewrite. My second paper was less red, and it got better and better. The thing is they really took time to go over each paper deeply and critically. They didn’t just skim and call it good. This TA might be doing your son a favor by really paying attention to his writing. I agree with the 3rd party look of a marked paper.

My D had a class that was a distribution requirement with a visiting prof whose style she wasn’t a fan of. Finally she just wrote her papers in his voice. He loved them and she got and A and moved on. Sometimes that can be a valuable skill as well.

66

First, he should meet the TA during their office hours and politely ask for writing tips and obviously bring the most expensive drink they sell at Starbucks. My mom was a TA in college and my older sister is a TA right now and they make less than minimum wage so of course they’re in a bad mood.

Other than that he should just do what the TA says and try to bring food and coffee during their posted office hours. That’s actually how my mom met my dad, ironically. She still gave him a C though.

67

I have to say that the statement that the student used “far too complicated words” is a real red flag for me. It raises concerns about TA competence. If a word is just right, there’s nothing too complicated about it. In Mark Twain’s terms: the difference between just the right word and a near miss is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug. I don’t have the sense that the OP’s son is scattering his paper with phrases like “nitid omadhaun” just to cover up the absence of a main point.

As a practical matter, I will suggest that your son might want to run his essay through a Flesch-Kincaid automated program that will tell him the reading level and give a clarity score. If the reading level comes out above Grade 16, he may have more trouble with this particular TA. (QMP once wrote a term paper where the opening paragraph had a Flesch-Kincaid reading level of Grade 35. No kidding. And its clarity was -6 on a scale from 0 to 100. This sort of thing can only turn out badly, even if the paper has a logical structure and any person who has completed Grade 35 can understand it perfectly well. :slight_smile: )

In my department, grad students start serving as TAs during their first semester of enrollment. There is a brief TA orientation program during the first week the grad students are there, before the undergrads show up. That’s about it, aside from comments [sometimes] from the prof in charge of the course. It’s a science field, so grading is based on objectively assessable elements, though.

68

Ouch.
Note to future self: always send my kids to places where they pay their TAs well.

69

I thought some of you might like to know how the meeting went with the TA. She was very nice, as was my S, (or so he assured me). I do hope the readers here could understand when I was giving background stats on my S it was just that. Background info; he (nor I) did not expect to storm into her office or the Dean’s office waving around his high school medals and demanding As. Again, he has a full ride scholarship; he is an NMS and I say that because those scholarships cover EVERYTHING. Tuition, books, meals, dorms, trips abroad, shiny devices, etc. The GPA that must be maintained is very high. It keeps everyone on pins and needles. The TA said something along the lines of “I was very sick (flu) when I graded these essays. I am adjusting everyone’s grade. After conferring with Professor So and So you now have a B+. The next two essays (the rest of the grade) will require rough drafts which I will assess and you will have opportunity to correct and give back to me.” Honestly, my son was more relieved that the two future essays will have rough draft opportunities than he was over the B+. And to @sylvan8798 I did think about what you said; I did not know the TAs stats, etc. and I was perhaps being unfair to her. I googled her; found her Facebook page and well, let’s just say I wish I hadn’t. What is seen can’t be unseen. (This is not about her personal appearance at all; it is amazing what people will put on social media about themselves.) Ugh.

70

Don’t Google your kid’s TAs. That’s weird and unnecessary.

71

I think so too; actually after doing it; I know so.

72

Or a place that values its students enough to have instructors with sufficient qualifications and training, Romani.

73

So the prof found out what was going on and lectured the TA…

edited, please refrain from crude imagery.

74

For future clarification- I don’t know any professors (my own college experience, my kids, my spouse, all at a wide range of universities both undergrad and grad) who wouldn’t look at a rough draft and make comments. Not edit (sometimes there were just bullet points, not actual text) but help in structure, pointing out logical flaws, etc.

Good to know that the TA wants to help your son and not just pop a grade on top…

75

I have to admire your charitable take on this situation, blossom–charitable toward the TA, that is. From post #68, I deduce that the TA wants to help herself, not that she wants to help the OP’s son. I do feel sorry that she had to work while she had the flu, though. That can throw anyone off.

I would still like to know what the overly complicated words were.

76

I meet a lot of venal people in my life. I’m not sure that becoming a grad student in the humanities is a role where you would take an instantaneous dislike to to someone you work with (in a professional capacity) such that you would want to sabotage his academic career, have him lose his scholarship, etc. all over ONE lousy paper.

So it’s easy to be charitable here. What possible motivation (other than carelessness due to flu, which she’s already owned up to) would the TA have? And I have yet to meet a college Freshman whose writing couldn’t use some tightening, editing, enhancement. A kid winning writing awards in HS is likely not getting trained in short, punchy, declarative statements.

77

This may not apply to your son’s situation so feel free to take it with a grain of salt -

My experience with having undergrad classes (not small seminars) from the famous and fabulous was that it is very much like getting a daily TED talk. They are there to edify and entertain and allow you to bask in their glory (in addition to doing their own research, writing books and appearing as an expert on things). They are rarely interested in basking in the glory of a freshman. The TAs grade all the papers, blue book exams, handle add/drops and everything else. The professor lectures.

It sounds like your son learned a great lesson in being pro-active and finding a positive outcome. And again, if this student was accepted into a PhD program with funding she is likely not a raving idiot in the subject at hand even if her personal style is not what you would choose.

78

@QuantMech‌ I asked my son the same thing about the overly complicated words. One word I remember him telling me was “minutiae”. If it matters or you care; the essay was to compare two pieces of literature (assigned by Professor) written about two vastly different experiences during a specific time in history.

79

Glad to hear of a happy resolution. I wonder if other students complained to the professor? In any event, the point of college is to learn to write better and it sounds the way this course will be structured henceforth will encourage that.

80

@mathmom‌ My son felt like other students complained because the TA made a point to say “the Professor and I” agree u have a B+ paper. Like maybe she wanted to stop him from going to the Prof. He wasn’t going to do that anyways. He doesn’t want to make an enemy. The other two honors students had similar adjustments to their papers as well according to my son. None of them went to Prof. But maybe someone did.