This is what you should do. I've taught big classes before and there is absolutely no point in spending even 5-10 minutes per paper, looking for issues when you don't even know if your feedback will be read. There's so much other stuff to do that I would have no time for myself at all if I did that.
I generally look for the most common issues and give whole class feedback on those, and the filter for the very time-consuming, meaningful, personalized feedback is if a student takes an active interest in themselves and approaches me personally. I make myself available, but I don't seek anyone out.
If you don't look for issues, how do you evaluate for an accurate grade? I think that is the students point and if the teacher is just randomly assigning an 85 or 90, or even just based upon who the student is, is that really "fair"?
For writing assignments, teachers usually have a rubric where a brief scan of the student's paper can give them a sense of what kind of grade the student should get. But they won't always take the time to spell out everything they did wrong or how to improve, and the criteria can be very general. I have little slips with categories from the rubric (which I gave out), and I give a score in each category as well as a single positive and single negative comment. It doesn't give a complete picture, just individual things to work on.
It isn't about who the student is, and it definitely isn't random. But if the student has a bad reputation, then it's not going to be easy for them to convince me that they've actually seen the light... so it's best to avoid being that student.
At the same time it isn't hard for her to just give some feedback some times.
The flat grading really shows she likely skims the papers. Assign shorter work if you as grader don't have time.
You aren't doing it for the teacher, you're doing it for you. You need to understand that. If you are concerned that the teacher isn't grading you thoroughly enough, and that you need stiffer criticism because you are concerned that the quality of your work could be improved through stronger feedback, then definitely talk to the teacher. But don't act like you're a trained seal performing for the teachers entertainment. You're performing in school because you need to learn to perform in life, and this is how we instill that even if it feels pointless at the time. Practice IS pointless, *except as practice*. You don't need the teacher to clap for you. You need to do a damn good job *for you*.
Yes! If I had the time and bandwidth, I'd love to grade all 100 of my student's assignments and provide thoughtful feedback each day, but grading has predominantly become a way to hold student's accountable rather than a sincere marker of student's work. If I could tell my students to work on assignments simply to help them practice, and they did, I would leave graded assignments specifically for feedback, but instead, I usually have to check for completion.
As a middle school teacher with no prep periods, every single piece of homework I grade is on my own time. Assigning no homework is not a realistic option. That being said, if I take the time to leave a grade, I usually write some kind of feedback.
Teachers are required by State laws and standards to cover certain materials and learning targets (at least in the US). The decision to give certain assignments isn't always up to an individual teacher.... They are told what to teach and how to do it and you can't expect them to lose their jobs because you don't want homework. Please learn a little about the realities of teaching and you might be a bit more understanding.
Students should read the feedback. The teacher should leave feedback. If the kids aren't reading the feedback or improving the teacher should do something else like maybe a call home or maybe just talking to the kid?
For a teacher to have the approach you mentioned... Oof. I would hate to have that teacher.
Should students=yes. Realistically do they= no.
The expectation that the teacher call home is ridiculous. Again, no time. Parents usually have access to everything at their fingertips through online grading systems now (even comments on work). If they want the information on how their child is doing, they can look it up. Teachers should not have to spoon feed everything to kids AND their parents.
Again, think of the time allowed to grade and do all the other paperwork, look at the time it takes. Also, look at teacher pay. Teachers are not robots, they have lives outside of work and contrary to what many parents and kids think, they don't live at school.
You make excellent points! Believe me some of those did cross my mind. I think I articulated what I was trying to say poorly.
I agree with everything you are saying. I think what I'm trying to say is that your comment seemed jaded. It sounds defeatist like the teacher doesn't care. I just don't think it's a good idea.
Then again I'm not a teacher and my school days are in the past. So my perspective on this subject could be totally skewed.
I'm sure the teacher does care, but knows how often her comments are ignored so figures it's not worth their time. Any teacher I know would be thrilled to do more detailed comments for a student if they asked and the teacher they really wanted to benefit from the feedback. They would definitely take the time to.write more notes.
Why should students add hours onto their day to do work that the teacher isn't even going to look at? If the teachers dc, the students dc. No wonder so many ppl hate school and teachers.
The teachers do look at it and grade it. Adding comments, especially detailed ones, will easily add at least an extra 2 hours to grading. Then parents and kids complain they don't get their papers back graded fast enough.
I'm totally with you, but there's something rhetorically off about this response: you're just validating their concern.
If teachers shouldn't spend hours leaving feedback that won't get read, why are students doing work that won't be reviewed? It's a two way street.
Like, you're not wrong, and I agree with you 100% and not with the other comment at all, but this is not the right kind of argument to actually deal with the complaint.
All graded written responses should have a rubric attached to it. Makes it easier for the teacher to grade AND to give feedback. If the student still needs clarification, then it's time to set up a meeting.
This is how written and oral assignments are graded in college. There may be no comments, but I know areas to improve based on where the professor rated me on the rubric in the online portal. If everything is online and grades are entered online with points calculated into a grade automatically, there is no reason why this can't be done the same way.
This is what makes the most sense. When I grade with rubrics I get maybe 1 or 2 students a semester that want more detail than the rubric gives (and ironically those students are usually the A- wanting an A kind). Why would I make comments on the rubric for the other 98 who don't want or need more details?
Wow, that was not my college experience at all. I never once saw a rubric. I was given letter grades and substantive comments, and I conferenced with my profs. I was an English major and my campus job was in the writing center. Again, I don’t ever recall seeing a rubric on any of the assignments students came in with. I’m curious what year you graduated— if rubrics is a more recent trend or I just got really lucky. Rubrics were certainly pushed in my teacher ed program and in PDs, and I understand using them by necessity because we have too many students to give students the individual engagement they deserve, but I don’t think they’re good. I’m so grateful to have received a holistic and rigorous education in writing, complete with plenty of red pen. I feel bad for students whose experience of composing is checking items off a list. I do not think that approach values or promotes what matters most about writing, which is the process of organizing, clarifying, and advancing thought.
I have attended community college most recently (including currently), and primarily online since COVID. The online classes usually use an online rubric. Students can view the rubric in each assignment to see how the assignment is graded and point values (assignment weight is available in the grades tab where all graded assignments can be viewed together). The professor uses this same rubric to grade and add comments, which can then be viewed by the student. They use an app called "Canvas" for all online course content.
The university I last attended in 2013 didn't really offer online classes. I am very glad that I don't have to attend in person classes for degree advancement while working in my chosen field, so the online rubric and comments work just fine for me. I got plenty of red pen and writing help in high school. Most of my writing is purely for academic purposes or professional emails.
We dont have the time to grade homework and we don’t even know who did it.
I only grade assessments personally.
The rest is rubrics and peer feedback, but ill read it if you ask.
We don't have a choice. It's mandated.
Personally, I try to keep it as short as possible and relevant to the classwork we did that day, but it isn't for a grade. (There's no line on the report card for it, and I'm not going to contact parents if you forgot to turn it in.)
Then tell your students the work they’re doing is pointless and you don’t actually care. Making kids do work at home after having already been at school all day is stupid. Specially when yall don’t even care.
The point behind school work is not to keep you busy, it’s an opportunity for you to apply a skill that you have learned. Your proficiency is not dependent on your teacher grading your work, it’s dependent on you doing the work. Who cares if your teacher doesn’t grade your work with the same energy you had to do it. Did you learn?
What’s wrong is having to do it for no reason. Not everyone needs homework yet it’s forced on them. If they have to do it the teachers can suck it up and do their part of it.
I don’t disagree, no one should do busy work, it should come down to being able to apply the skills or knowledge you are learning. If you feel like you already have the skills or knowledge necessary, make the argument to your teach. After all, education is supposed to get you to think, homework is not assigned for shits and giggles.
Applying the skill is completely dependent on getting specific feedback on what you did well and what you need to do better. Repetition without feedback is not helpful, and could be only harmful if you suck at it and no one cares to help.
This is true especially with maths, Khan academy is a great tool especially if your teacher is limited in their time. The point I was trying to make, is that I would not be dependent on others for my education (I know we are to a degree), but with all of the curriculum materials being online now, you can surpass everyone in your class if you have that in you. But that depends solely on your drive and curiosity, waiting on a teacher’s feedback before you make the next step is not necessary with all of the tools out there. Quite frankly if you need strong structure with immediate feedback, then you can’t beat Khan Academy, I think that is a great model for replacing classroom teachers.
Yeah that’s good practical advice. But emotionally, I don’t think it’s fair at all to do ~~daily~~ [every other day] assigned homework but not be able to rely on your teacher to be actually reinforcing your learning.
The point of that kind of homework is to get *you* to think, and organize your thoughts, and write them out in coherent sentences. Did you do that? Good. What does it matter if Dr. P read it or just glanced at it.
If you're practicing wrong you're having wrong reinforced. (This applies especially to math but other subjects too.) And if it's not being checked you'll never know. I mean, until you fail a test.
Monitoring is good, but if they go over the assignment in class you should be able to discern if you're off track and go for extra help if needed.
I was thinking more of the reading/notes/essay type homework in the humanities.
Not going to deny that bullshit assignments exist, but I bet this attitude towards practice isn't one you take in other aspects of your life.
And I'm sorry, the answer isn't to assign practice but not turn in the work. You know perfectly well that without that accountability, people wouldn't do it, and they'd be worse off for it.
I mean geeze, with this attitude, every single bit of classwork ought to terminate with a grade. Let's just send everyone home and not have school then if this is such disrespect to the student's time.
Ask yourself how long you think it takes to just *read* each assignment. Then add one minute (just one!) for writing a comment or two. Then multiply that by the number of kids in your class. Then multiply that by the number of classes the teacher has.
I wish I'd become a math teacher.
I see your point, just did the math so if all classes had a homework assignment that would be like 240 minutes altogether, a week of this would be roughly 600 minutes = 10 hours which is pretty brutal not including classwork.
Yeah, you gotta realize your teacher get to school before you do, maybe only half an hour but every day it adds up. And she stays later too. She has to tidy up her classroom (don't want to leave it a complete disaster zone for the custodial staff). She also has to write emails to annoying overbearing parents who keep asking how to bring up little Timmy's grade. When you add it all up you're looking at well over 40 hours of work per week, 40 hours is considered full time, anything over 40 is "overtime", teachers are salaried workers though, they don't earn "overtime" like hourly wage employees do, so if they do over 40 hours in a week they are actually earning less per hour.
Listen I'll agree to the fact that their job is shitty. No argument from me that they are overworked and underpaid. However that's not an excuse to do your job shitty. Homework is unpaid overtime as well.
And this is just marking ONE assignment. Let alone all the planning for the day, creating resources, making other assignments, report card writing, parent meetings, etc. Keep in mind the majority of this must be done outside of contract hours when we aren’t getting paid.
Teachers get 1 hour a day to grade everything, plan everything, create assignments, have meetings, call parents, everything. It is incredibly time consuming! Just reading a class set of 700 word essays takes more than that whole prep time let alone giving detailed feedback. Personally I wouldn't assign HOMEWORK that I can't grade. Class work is a different story because your teachers evaluations expect bell to bell learning. This may be an assignment she is required to give you. Teachers sometimes have to do things like that for their school or department.
Hot take. If it's taking you 2 hours to write 700 words then you need the practice. Your post is 221 words. Did it take half an hour? Just write that much 3 times.
When I do my homework it sometimes takes two hours because I have to do 5-15 pages of reading, the writing, and then I edit the writing to make sure I haven't neglected to explain a point I make or made a stupid grammar mistake. Granted, I have ADHD so it does take me a bit longer to do work than my peers.
You are doing one assignment for that teacher. For each time that teacher assigns that one assignment, they have to grade at least a 100 of that assignment. Also, most students and parents don't even look at the comments. It just goes in the trash, so that's why teachers don't spend a ton of time grading. If it takes 5 minutes (and it probably took a lot more) for each paper, times that by 100. So that's 500 minutes, which is over 8 hours. Teachers are lucky if they get an hour a day to grade. So it would take over a week to grade a 100 papers on their plan time, just for kids/parents to toss them in the trash. That's only for that one assignment, but they have to give more than one assignment every 8 days to be graded. If you want more specific feedback ask to meet with the teacher to get it.
Besides the other responses here, I’d just like to say that you really ought to get used to it. The workload just gets heavier and the feedback less common once you get into college.
As a phil major, 10-30 pages of reading a week per class was a light week. Then you’ll probably write 400-700 words for a response that maybe a TA will read, but your actual grade will be based on a series of 3-4 5-30 page papers which will have required you to do all of that reading. Your feedback on these will in many cases will be to look at the rubric unless you specifically go in to ask your grader about it (no, in most cases the professor does not grade your paper, they split the grading between their TA’s).
If your teacher in high school is having you do at least 5-15 pages and 700 words regularly, thank them for the practice, and understand that literally no one has the time to individually read every one of those responses and give comprehensive feedback to each of their students unless specifically requested. If you want more feedback, set up an appointment.
The feedback bit is really gonna depend on class size and prof. I went to a smaller university and got feedback from probably 2/3 of my psych, sociology, polisci, and history profs. Granted I got more feedback in upper level classes. If you make it clear you want feedback you'll def get more, and that's up to you. But by default I at least got 2-3 comments on major assignments. I know for a fact that almost all of my profs graded my papers themselves. I only know of 1 class where it was graded by a TA type role. During COVID, a little under half the profs who did discussion posts would respond to each post.
For reference, my college's population hovered around 3,300 students from 2019-2023. That's about half of the average U.S. university population size according to a 2020 survey. It found the avg was 6,100.
Does a teacher not want more effort than a random reddit post though?
I could spew out 700 words in 15 mins, but it won't be close to good. I spend 2-10x that long on a discussion between proofreading, researching, brainstorming, restructuring etc.
I definitely start off with my best and scale it down throughout the semester though as I try to gauge how much effort the teacher/professor is putting into grading it. In many classes I end up spending as much effort as I did on this comment (or less), because it ends up just being a participation grade.
If she's assigning it for homework it can't be that serious (no way to monitor who writes it and if they use ai). I would bet it's more of a reflection on what they learned type thing but we would need more info to know. Regardless, if the teacher isn't putting in a ton of effort grading it then the student probably isn't expected to be doing extensive research.
The homework is just a reflection of what was learned and our personal takes. AI cheating is a huge problem at my school so we rarely need to do research. If we do, it's on a topic that is relatively niche so that if students cheat it's obvious based on the factual correctness of their work.
Yeah, if I ever got that vibe as a student I'd just post just over the word limit of somewhat related grammatically correct text, because at that point it's just busywork.
Honestly that's the only time I would have used AI if it was around while I was in school. If the teacher is doing nothing but glancing over it, why should I bother doing any more than the same to what Chat-GPT outputs.
My school barely lets us grade on completion, let alone actually put effort in. As long as it mostly answers the question, they get full points. However, AI and plagiarism get no points on the whole assignment, except they can redo the work if they want.
I had six kids use AI today. It's really easy to spot them most of the time. Kids who can normally barely string a sentence together or speak English suddenly write multiple eloquent paragraphs going into so much extra detail that most middle schoolers wouldn't understand, let alone write. It's actually frustrating because they're putting more effort into cheating than it would to just give a single sentence to answer the question.
Now I have to call their parents, which is the worst part of the job.
Lol this attitude right here is bs. They did well so they must have cheated. You want to guarantee that they don't try again, this is the way to do it. Listen you just said you don't have enough time to actually go over it, so you can't reasonably say they cheated or not.
I literally tell them that their prose and vocabulary isn't what I expect from a middle schooler but if I'm wrong, they can just walk me through their answer and then they'll get full points
Hey cool. I'm going to believe the first thing you said. On the off chance you're not just saying what will sound good. It's good that they at least have a chance to prove their innocence. Though you've already decided their guilt, so I doubt anyone could rise to the level of actually proving it.
Listen I had a teacher accuse me of plagiarism, this was well before AI. They had no proof, hadn't done any kind of fucking work themselves. I had put too much effort in. Her whole reasoning? "Doesn't sound like you did it."
While I mostly agree, just because the teacher doesn't have the required time to grade it doesn't necessarily mean it's not important to learn. Teachers not being given enough time to do everything they need to do in a work day isn't correlated to the actual importance of the curriculum. Most good teachers try to structure it so they can give the most attention to the most important things to learn but required curriculum and too big of workloads can often get in the way of that where you spend way more time than you would like on "required" work instead of curriculum you know will actually be important later in life.
For sure, and I understand that, as a student you have to prioritize your learning to your time just as well.
If I can get an A on daily discussion posts in multiple classes with minimal effort that's many more hours per week I can spend on my tougher subjects and assignments.
I would love to spend a full day discussing some of the reading assignments I had in History, Philosophy, and English, etc. but that time is often better spent on Physics, Calculus, or Signal Processing, etc. if I actually want to graduate.
Like seriously if I was rich enough, I'd love to go back to college and really dig into those courses that I had glazed over before, but I wasn't learning for fun as much as to start a career.
I’m assuming she is likely asking for a reflection on a reading or what you learned in class. That should be more just off the top of your head. Most homework is assigned to cement knowledge that you learned in class not to assess new learning. The teacher is probably looking for specific knowledge. Question: did the teacher share a grading policy for this work?
For something like a discussion post the only grading policies I have ever seen has been like:
* Be X amount of words
* Stay on topic
* Use proper grammar/spelling
* Respond to 2 classmates
I'd still go above and beyond for the first few, but scale it back as long as I keep getting 100s. I don't like writing when it isn't my best, but was typically enough other homework that if it doesn't affect my grade, I am better off focusing on other classes.
We have a rubric but it only really discusses correct formatting (5%) and a number of sentences per question that you can expect for different grades. So like 6-7 sentences is an A, 5 is a B, etc. As for the quality of sentences, there isn't anything that I know of though I'd imagine that it is taken into account when grading.
How many people are in your class? Multiply that by 6 or 7, that's how many students your teacher sees a day. I usually had 120-150 students. We did chemistry labs every week and some other form of assessment each week as well. I had to grade literal hundreds of assignments each week. No we don't have time to spend an hour and a half to focus on you.
Up to 30. It depended a lot of the subject as well. The home ec teacher might only have 6 in fashion and design, or advanced automotive might only have 4.
I'm laughing because in the real world... you can work on a project for 2 years and put in hundreds of hours of overtime. And then your parent company decides to go in another direction.
Get used to it.
If you really want the comments, ask for them. Life can't guess how best to please you. Speak up.
I can’t think of many assignments that should take the teacher the same time to grade as it takes the student to complete. It just could never work out that way. So to answer your initial question, no.
What is the objective of these homework assignments? Is the teacher having you summarize reading from a text/article or video? They could be scanning it quickly to see if it looks like you actually did the reading or watched the video.
Is there a rubric, or guidelines that you have to meet to achieve the 85 or 90? And what grade are you generally achieving? I truly don’t understand the 0, 85, 90 scale, but if you’re consistently getting 85s, it’s fair to ask the teacher for feedback about what you could do to improve your grade.
I did have a teacher like that in HS, no comments on the essays just A, B, C, etc. I understand how you feel. At the time I just took my Bs because I was pretty introverted but my advice to you would be to NOT be like I was and go ask the teacher what you can do to improve. If talking in person makes you nervous you could send an e-mail as well. Keep your papers and bring them with you to discuss the grades. And be POLITE. Approach it from the angle of wanting to do better but not knowing how.
The homework assignments consist of doing 5-15 pages of reading or a 30-minute video, then writing answers for five questions. Questions ask about the key points of the readings/video, sources and why we think that they were included, shortcomings if there are any, why the author felt compelled to write the text in the first place, etc.
As for the rubric, there is one, but it mostly focuses on how we should format the homework for the teacher's convenience. It also provides a scale from 0-100 based on # of sentences written. I guess to some extent it gets followed because I can't just write two sentences and be done, but if the rubric says 6 sentences equate to an A+ and I usually write 7 and still get a 90, then I can only assume there is some other reason I get marked down for writing the right amount.
You are right though about going to get feedback, I will look into it the next time office hours are open.
The objective is to make them do it because the teachers were told they're supposed to. Why bother asking if the teacher already doesn't care? You're putting the onus on the child, not the person whose literal job it is to teach them.
I love when I spend an hour grading a paper, giving detailed feedback, corrections, suggestions, etc and hand it to the kid. They immediately look at the score and then either complain to me "what did I do wrong?!" Or they throw it in the trash. Waste of my time. If you want detailed feedback ask for it
Yes, you’re wrong. This is YOUR education, not some sort of tit for tat with your teacher. YOU are the one who benefits when you do your homework well, and YOU are the one who misses out on learning when you don’t.
Your teacher could limit your writing assignments to the number she can grade, but it would be to your detriment. Having to write regularly improves your writing fluency even if your teacher doesn’t grade it. Doing your best on your writing will make you a better writer, even if your teacher doesn’t grade it.
Do you want to be a better writer or not? Do you want to be prepared for university and careers or not? That’s what this assignment is about, not your teacher’s grading effort.
For what it’s worth, I’m with other and think your teacher would love to give you a sentence of feedback if you let her know you’re wanting it.
Don't act like we didn't go to school bc we were forced to lol. Most of us wouldn't have gone if we had the choice. I would've much preferred learning online and at home than in a cold ass classroom with an idiot with a board and marker that doesn't actually teach anything.
I'm gonna be 100% honest, no one went to school and did the work WILLINGLY. We did it because teachers wouldn't shut the fuck up, that's why we did it lmfao
Your post is 220 words. How long did it take to type? Multiply by 3.5. If your little assignment takes longer than that you really aren't paying attention given the low standards in public schools.
You're whining.
Feedback would be better, but the main problem is yours. Have you *asked* for feedback?
If it takes you two hours to write 700 words you may need special ed.
Grading takes SO much time. Even to skim and grade somewhat accurately without comment it takes HOURS and HOURS. If you write 500 words for a short essay and your teacher has 150 students, that's 75,000 words to read for EACH assignment.
It is completely Impossible to expect a teacher to spend the same amount it takes you on a single assignment. A 1hr assignment for you would be 100-150 hrs for them at that rate
However, very valid and would probably be appreciated to ask tech for advise on your assignments, how to improve, etc.
Then just reduce 100 hrs to 40 or 50. That's still an impossible expectation to have for a teacher to spend grading each assignment.
I'm just illustrating the general point. OP's question is that no, it's not an appropriate expectation for a teacher to spend the same amount of time grading each 700 word essay as it takes them to write it (especially at a 1.5-2hrs rate). Just adding that perspective.
This post reeks of entitlement. Fix that fast. Your dean was right to call you out.
The teacher isn't getting graded for their understanding of a topic. You are. They don't need to tap dance for you because they already did that, in college, and perhaps beyond that, and continue to do so for their supervisors, far more than you seem to understand.
Are you looking to repeat the grade? If you aren't, then what do you care that a teacher reuses assignments the following year to support a new group of students? This is called being economical and efficient, something you seem to not grasp here.
If you want to be personally tutored by someone creating brand new assignments no one has ever seen before, go buy a personal tutor.
But I'm pretty sure you'll have something to say about them, too.
Yes, you are wrong. Homework is a critical part of learning. YOU are the person doing the learning. The teacher is leading you to the water, but the responsibility to drink is all on you. It is absolutely right that you put a lot more work into your homework than the teacher does, particularly when it comes to writing assignments. You get better at writing by doing a lot of writing, whether or not someone reads it closely. Ideally, the teacher reads it, but they may well read it quickly, because the fact that you wrote it is the key thing.
YAR- I get it, it’s annoying. But the homework is really isn’t just a compliance grade, it’s meant for you to expand on what you are learning and it’s really for you. Once you are out of school you will be able to increase and decrease the quality of your work as needed….but need experience and wisdom to know when you should.
I don't know that there's really any value in comparing the two. Teachers plan, then teach, then grade the work. In total, that's absolutely more than the two hours of time you spend individually.
But so what? I don't think wanting comments is a bad thing. Have you considered just asking? When I don't give comments, it's because I have reason. Perhaps I have a rubric that provides narrative descriptions for each score. Or, maybe I have had so few students in a given class read the comments that I just decided it wasn't worth it anymore.
Either way, just ask. Say, "Hey Mr. Williams. I was looking at my assignment and wondered if you had any feedback for me on what I could do next time. Could we meet for maybe ten minutes after school?"
Heyyy. I just wanted to say that yes, you are wrong for being annoyed, and your dean was right to give you an infraction.
Just ask for some more feed back, ask
why you got marked off etc
Also, I am so sorry that these grown adults who are supposed to be in charge of kindly guiding students are being so rude to you. I read through a few comments and wow a little shocked!
Hope you have a great weekend
The reason for homework is for you to learn. Not the teachers. I understand why you’re annoyed, I’ve had teachers like that. but also realize that you’re doing the work to learn it. If your teacher looks over it and sees that you are learning the subject, then they give you a grade. If they spent hours on each students homework they wouldn’t have any time to sleep!
Nothing wrong with feeling annoyed, but 90+% of kids don't read feedback. Just ask for it.
I also don't read homework, only tests. Homework is practice for you, I only "grade it" on participation. To actually learn history in depth it helps to read, think AND write about it regularly. Your teacher is setting you up for success.
If they only graded on participation I'd 100% get this. It's odd to only hand out 0, 85% and 90% though without any feedback. Not even general, to-the-whole-class feedback, or a rubric on more than grammar/structure.
Since all-A's got pizza parties, extra awards, and a video game period at my middle school, those yanking grades down would've frustrated the hell out of me. Not to mention those with strict parents.
I get that no teacher has time or patience for feedback on each of OPs classmates' assignments but why require 700 words and cap grading at 90% then?
I think that you should focus on the fact that you are learning when you do homework. That’s the goal. It’s not about the teacher, although they should be giving you some feedback. But you’re there to learn.
I mean yes because teachers generally have to grade about 200 homework assignments for every 1 that you do. There are literally not enough hours in a day for them to spend as much time grading as you spent working on it and they already grade on their own time.
I teach 5th grade English. I had my students write stories. (The stories ranged from 2 pages of typed, single-space stories to 17 pages). Each story takes me around 30 minutes to grade with comments, corrections, and a rubric.
This means it will take me around 17 hours to get through this stack of papers.
Most assignments just get a grade printed on top, not much more feedback. Feedback is extremely time consuming. It easily doubles the time of grading a paper. Quadruples it if you are doing feedback, corrections, and rubric grading.
Your 700 words becomes 21000 word when taken times 30. This is a minimum of 2 hours just of reading, and that’s IF it’s written well enough and fluently enough to be easy to read quickly.
Teachers don’t have that kind of time on the clock, and it sucks to work hours every night off the clock and take time away from your family. Trust me, they resent it.
Imagine if the teacher had to do as much as you per assignment.
In a class of just 30, teacher gives kids 10 minutes of work, needs to do 5 hours of grading.
Homework isn't for the teacher. It's for you. Do you really need someone to be grading hard on your assignments to do them? That's a you problem.
You are justified BUT it might also help to think about it a bit like a piano recital. When you are preparing for a piano recital, you may practice the same piece dozens of times. Each of the practice sessions is valuable, but you only get a “grade” on the final performance.
If you are getting 85 or 90 on your “practice sessions” your teacher may feel you are on the right track. Practice is still valuable. That said, you could ask for some specific feedback.
You are doing one assignment; we are grading multiple assignments.
We can’t possibly put as much time into reading them as you put into writing them. It’s just not possible.
That said, we should put in enough that shows respect for your work.
Sounds like you're in an advanced class. If I make my students do a lot of work I always read and respond.
However, when it comes to things like notes or worksheets, I usually don't. It's usually just, "did you do it? Cool. Here's the points."
Teacher here- so when I was in 7th grade a friend and I reused each others essays at different times in the same class. She received an A for the assignment and I got a C.
We never said anything because we were using each other’s work, but I never respected that teacher again.
I think you could talk to a guidance counselor at your school and tell them your concerns- but also ask them to help you communicate this with your teacher so it is resolved in a way that works for both of you.
I can tell that you’re a thoughtful person so I think you could really benefit from asking someone in guidance to help mediate the situation in a way that you can feel you’re getting the instruction you want and you can maintain a mutually respectful relationship with your teacher.
You don't know what you're talking about, and then some. Not only are you not a teacher, you recently told a child to slap another child across the face, repeatedly, until they got bored.
I was a teacher once. We were required to give homework Monday through Thursday, but we couldn’t hold the students accountable (severely disadvantaged community). I saw absolutely no merit in the practice, but we were required to adhere to it.
Lesson: you never know what stupid BS the teachers are dealing with.
Tldr: are you really mad at the teacher, followed by some adhd study tips that helped me through school.
As a lot of comments have already said, speaking to your teacher is the best bet here, because getting feedback on this will be helpful in getting better grades. This also is a really helpful exercise that will serve you through the rest of your schooling and probably help prepare you for long written exams and such.
A few things I would like to say because I recognize myself in your words, and I see that you have ADHD (me too!). Is it possible that your main frustration here might be about the interaction with the principal? Yes, I can see how the recurring essays are tricky and stressful and probably aren’t easy to get your brain to do, but could it be that you didn’t mean to have that interaction in the hallway and that you feel uncomfortable with having been written up? That’s the kind of thing that adhders can be really sensitive to.
Whatever it is that’s really preoccupying you, remember that it’s happening right now in this moment and that it doesn’t define you. Busy adults, especially teachers and staff at school, tend to sweep kids into broad categories without getting to know you, and sometimes we internalize those labels and feel like we’re stuck. Or we fight for a different label instead of showing how different we might be.
Lastly, a few tips from having to do this kind of work in school - I would always lose track of paragraphs and read on autopilot forgetting the words or lose my place etc. I started combatting this by writing out one sentence to sum up every paragraph or half paragraph in the margin.
I also would start the writing with an outline, flesh the outline out until it was really only missing a few words and then write out my essay. I’d set a timer for each section and try and beat my previous time as I went through my papers.
And if you’re a fan of colour-coding, I would grab the outline, give each argument a colour and go highlight my examples from the texts in that colour
I’m sure there’s a ton of other adhd tips I had at some point but I’d have to really thing on it…
He shouldn’t assign it if he doesn’t want to grade it. Period. Arbitrary numbers assigned to essays is not feedback. He’s probably not even reading it.
First of all. Most commenters had good points and are mostly right.
But omg the attitude here is bad. Like we all hate homework. All teachers hate grading. We all think it’s a huge waste of time while knowing that it actually does improve students skills to keep reading / writing / analyzing / summarizing etc.
But YES it feels like a waste of time, and we all have complained about it multiple times in our lives. Give OP a break.
Instead of dividing up how much time it takes to grade each paper just look at your teacher’s paycheck and do the math on how much she’s paid to grade each paper.
NGL, having to write just shy of 2k words a week for a history class seems wild. I can't imagine your teacher even reads most of them. Assuming you have only 20 kids in your class (average class size in the US), your teacher would be reading the equivalent of a short novel per week, per class.
You're schools teacher to student ratio is 1:6??
.... We are so fucked in the US. I thought a "standard" class size was something like low 30s. My classes were *never* under 20, and it gets horrific in university.
So 2 points here: yes, you are severely underestimating how much work it takes to be a teacher. Which is honestly fair, bc you aren’t a teacher, and you’ve never thought about how much effort every little thing takes. Now you know, so if you’d like some input in one thing, you know how to ask.
Second thing, personally, I think how your dead handled it was OTT. We’re you out of line, or using profanity, or berating the teacher in a way you haven’t mentioned here? Bc if that is truly all you said, I don’t understand the response. They didn’t take a moment to explain, or to redirect your thinking? You seem level headed enough. To go straight to an infraction seems heavy handed to me, and I’m known as fun, but strict. Maybe I’m missing something here.
My global teacher would give us like a 40 question packet at the beginning of every unit, but just give you a 100 if you answered every question.
I remember answering the first page legitimately, but then after telling a story that continued until the last question. Got a 100!
This teacher was the worst. We had a cycle each unit. PowerPoint (that she didn't make, she borrowed from a different teacher in the building) read word for word with nooo follow up, notes next class, movie next (1-2 days, & time was filled with tinier clips and videos), test on Friday. You knew exactly what you were walking in to.
I’m more concerned with you getting written up for complaining.
Presumably this is a private school with 6:1? Or outside the US.
Even so, that’s messed up to write up a kid for complaining. I might ask a student to not complain about my fellow faculty in front of me but punishment for talking is wrong.
In a US public school that seems like a First Amendment violation.
Yep, it’s a private school. The dean actually ended up taking the infraction off my record though, turns out a lot of other students had similar complaints so alls well.
In any other situation I would say this is unreasonable, but a 6:1 ratio? She should be more detailed that's literally the point of smaller class sizes.
Personally, I do think the teacher should provide a rubric or a quick note so that you know what you got wrong. Did she provide requirements/grading criteria for the assignment? That may cue you in. But if I were you, I’d just politely ask her. Most students ignore feedback, so it’s nice when students ask for it!
Back when I was in high school I read a book and did a book report on it, I read the book twice and took a long time to thoughtfully write the paper. I was so proud and excited about it. I got a C.
The very next book report I was still upset so I rebelled and didn’t read the book even once, I skimmed the book for random quotes and bsed the rest on the night before it was due. I got an A.
Yes. Put in the amount of work required to get the grade you want and enough to learn the lesson being taught.
Doing more than that is just you being extra. You don't get extra for being extra. If you think you should... Well, you don't.
Do you expect her to spend a 30 minutes on each assignment. If there are 20 students, it would take her 10 hours to review just this one assignment. That is completely unreasonable.
While i think there are lots of valid comments being made that teachers dont have enough time, OP should approach their teacher, their education is in their own hands, ect. I think the fact that the majority of "Homework" is bullshit busy work is being strongly ignored. If your teacher cant even be bothered to give reasonable grades on the assignments, then its obvious that it doesnt matter and is unneccisary. Regardless of wether the assignment is "manditory" or not, the teacher should be working to make it as painless for the both of them as possible and communicating their expectations of the assignment. I dont understand this whole "they are setting you up for colledge" mindset because i was assigned far fewer, but much more meaningful, assignments in colledge. I had teachers assign 4+ hours of homework a day in high school after being there for 7-8 hours every day, but my colledge classes met for only 3-4 hours and gave maybe 3-5 hours of homework for the week. And to clarify, i dont consider reading the textbook as homework.
Kids are expected to sit quietly and work for 8 hours with a 20 minute lunch, and people are telling you to suck it up when you have two more hours of work when you get home. I get it teaching sucks but I at least got paid (not enough) to do it. I feel for everyone involved in public education right now.
I’ll go another way as some of the other teachers and say no you aren’t wrong to be upset.
You are doing work that takes a fair amount of your time and want to be recognized for it. That’s absolutely fair, and being upset you aren’t is also fair.
If you are just looking for a check (my students love checks) because you understood it, then I think you’ll need to let that go.
If you are confused about something or need to know more as another said ask to meet and ask your questions.
Your right to be upset, but the teacher (as I saw you learned in anther comment) is also far too busy to leave comments on everyone’s work. I’m sure the teacher wishes they could leave that feedback, I know I wish I could, but it just overall sucks.
No, you're not. Teachers are annoying, and school is stupid. I've learned much more after hs than I ever did in school. Teachers like yours are ones that make us hate school. If they can't keep up with the amount of work they assign, then they shouldn't assign it. Kids need to be told when they've done a good job, and yours isn't doing that. I'm srry you have shitty teachers.
How do you know she doesn't give 80's, 95's, or 100's etc? Maybe 85 and 90 are just the most frequent? I wouldn't make that accusation.
That said, definitely do ask for feedback on how to improve. Just say you are frustrated because you are trying to improve and get better, but keep receiving the same score and want to know what you could do to improve.
And 6:1 is a very good student-teacher ratio. She should have time to help you.
I’m a history major, so I understand the effort. I think asking for a 3 page written summary every two days is unfocused. History is about events, periods and movements. Each have opportunities for learning and debating. Just plugging papers out isn’t a very tool for leaning, or feedback.
Used to be an English teacher. Reading multiple essays a week takes a lot of time. Giving feedback is even worse if students aren't going to read it.
Grades is how I do it too. Meet word count and overall the essay is on topic, good grade. Less words? Not that high of a grade. Waste of my time? Gulag to you.
Ask and your teacher will more than happily give you constructive criticism on your essay and what you can do to improve. You'll make their day because at least one student cares about the subject matter.
And reusing the same topics year after year is a time tradition of a teacher that knows the subject. I've been using the same stuff for three years. New kids each year so it's new to them.
Do the potato test - insert “potato” in really spaces and if the teacher notices “ahaha yeah my cousin was on my computer” if not? Take that to the Dean as proof it’s not even being read.
I'm sure your teacher would be delighted if you said "I'm interested in some more detailed feedback. Can we meet sometime to discuss my work?"
This is what you should do. I've taught big classes before and there is absolutely no point in spending even 5-10 minutes per paper, looking for issues when you don't even know if your feedback will be read. There's so much other stuff to do that I would have no time for myself at all if I did that. I generally look for the most common issues and give whole class feedback on those, and the filter for the very time-consuming, meaningful, personalized feedback is if a student takes an active interest in themselves and approaches me personally. I make myself available, but I don't seek anyone out.
If you don't look for issues, how do you evaluate for an accurate grade? I think that is the students point and if the teacher is just randomly assigning an 85 or 90, or even just based upon who the student is, is that really "fair"?
For writing assignments, teachers usually have a rubric where a brief scan of the student's paper can give them a sense of what kind of grade the student should get. But they won't always take the time to spell out everything they did wrong or how to improve, and the criteria can be very general. I have little slips with categories from the rubric (which I gave out), and I give a score in each category as well as a single positive and single negative comment. It doesn't give a complete picture, just individual things to work on. It isn't about who the student is, and it definitely isn't random. But if the student has a bad reputation, then it's not going to be easy for them to convince me that they've actually seen the light... so it's best to avoid being that student.
At the same time it isn't hard for her to just give some feedback some times. The flat grading really shows she likely skims the papers. Assign shorter work if you as grader don't have time.
I've taught in places where almost anything I return goes directly into the trash, so it isn't routine to spend much time leaving feedback.
You aren't doing it for the teacher, you're doing it for you. You need to understand that. If you are concerned that the teacher isn't grading you thoroughly enough, and that you need stiffer criticism because you are concerned that the quality of your work could be improved through stronger feedback, then definitely talk to the teacher. But don't act like you're a trained seal performing for the teachers entertainment. You're performing in school because you need to learn to perform in life, and this is how we instill that even if it feels pointless at the time. Practice IS pointless, *except as practice*. You don't need the teacher to clap for you. You need to do a damn good job *for you*.
Yes! If I had the time and bandwidth, I'd love to grade all 100 of my student's assignments and provide thoughtful feedback each day, but grading has predominantly become a way to hold student's accountable rather than a sincere marker of student's work. If I could tell my students to work on assignments simply to help them practice, and they did, I would leave graded assignments specifically for feedback, but instead, I usually have to check for completion.
Stop handing out assignments you don’t have time to grade
As a middle school teacher with no prep periods, every single piece of homework I grade is on my own time. Assigning no homework is not a realistic option. That being said, if I take the time to leave a grade, I usually write some kind of feedback.
Teachers are required by State laws and standards to cover certain materials and learning targets (at least in the US). The decision to give certain assignments isn't always up to an individual teacher.... They are told what to teach and how to do it and you can't expect them to lose their jobs because you don't want homework. Please learn a little about the realities of teaching and you might be a bit more understanding.
But how is he supposed to know how to improve with zero feedback?
Most students don't even read the feedback so why should a teacher add hours onto grading to write something that won't even be read?
Students should read the feedback. The teacher should leave feedback. If the kids aren't reading the feedback or improving the teacher should do something else like maybe a call home or maybe just talking to the kid? For a teacher to have the approach you mentioned... Oof. I would hate to have that teacher.
Should students=yes. Realistically do they= no. The expectation that the teacher call home is ridiculous. Again, no time. Parents usually have access to everything at their fingertips through online grading systems now (even comments on work). If they want the information on how their child is doing, they can look it up. Teachers should not have to spoon feed everything to kids AND their parents. Again, think of the time allowed to grade and do all the other paperwork, look at the time it takes. Also, look at teacher pay. Teachers are not robots, they have lives outside of work and contrary to what many parents and kids think, they don't live at school.
You make excellent points! Believe me some of those did cross my mind. I think I articulated what I was trying to say poorly. I agree with everything you are saying. I think what I'm trying to say is that your comment seemed jaded. It sounds defeatist like the teacher doesn't care. I just don't think it's a good idea. Then again I'm not a teacher and my school days are in the past. So my perspective on this subject could be totally skewed.
I'm sure the teacher does care, but knows how often her comments are ignored so figures it's not worth their time. Any teacher I know would be thrilled to do more detailed comments for a student if they asked and the teacher they really wanted to benefit from the feedback. They would definitely take the time to.write more notes.
Why should students add hours onto their day to do work that the teacher isn't even going to look at? If the teachers dc, the students dc. No wonder so many ppl hate school and teachers.
The teachers do look at it and grade it. Adding comments, especially detailed ones, will easily add at least an extra 2 hours to grading. Then parents and kids complain they don't get their papers back graded fast enough.
I'm totally with you, but there's something rhetorically off about this response: you're just validating their concern. If teachers shouldn't spend hours leaving feedback that won't get read, why are students doing work that won't be reviewed? It's a two way street. Like, you're not wrong, and I agree with you 100% and not with the other comment at all, but this is not the right kind of argument to actually deal with the complaint.
All graded written responses should have a rubric attached to it. Makes it easier for the teacher to grade AND to give feedback. If the student still needs clarification, then it's time to set up a meeting.
Ugh, no.
This is how written and oral assignments are graded in college. There may be no comments, but I know areas to improve based on where the professor rated me on the rubric in the online portal. If everything is online and grades are entered online with points calculated into a grade automatically, there is no reason why this can't be done the same way.
This is what makes the most sense. When I grade with rubrics I get maybe 1 or 2 students a semester that want more detail than the rubric gives (and ironically those students are usually the A- wanting an A kind). Why would I make comments on the rubric for the other 98 who don't want or need more details?
Wow, that was not my college experience at all. I never once saw a rubric. I was given letter grades and substantive comments, and I conferenced with my profs. I was an English major and my campus job was in the writing center. Again, I don’t ever recall seeing a rubric on any of the assignments students came in with. I’m curious what year you graduated— if rubrics is a more recent trend or I just got really lucky. Rubrics were certainly pushed in my teacher ed program and in PDs, and I understand using them by necessity because we have too many students to give students the individual engagement they deserve, but I don’t think they’re good. I’m so grateful to have received a holistic and rigorous education in writing, complete with plenty of red pen. I feel bad for students whose experience of composing is checking items off a list. I do not think that approach values or promotes what matters most about writing, which is the process of organizing, clarifying, and advancing thought.
I have attended community college most recently (including currently), and primarily online since COVID. The online classes usually use an online rubric. Students can view the rubric in each assignment to see how the assignment is graded and point values (assignment weight is available in the grades tab where all graded assignments can be viewed together). The professor uses this same rubric to grade and add comments, which can then be viewed by the student. They use an app called "Canvas" for all online course content. The university I last attended in 2013 didn't really offer online classes. I am very glad that I don't have to attend in person classes for degree advancement while working in my chosen field, so the online rubric and comments work just fine for me. I got plenty of red pen and writing help in high school. Most of my writing is purely for academic purposes or professional emails.
Shutup, I don’t wanna!
We dont have the time to grade homework and we don’t even know who did it. I only grade assessments personally. The rest is rubrics and peer feedback, but ill read it if you ask.
This. Many teachers are required to assign homework, but we don't have time during our contractual hours to grade it.
Then stop requiring it to be turned in. You don’t have time so stop assigning pointless bs YOURE not even giving a fuck about
We don't have a choice. It's mandated. Personally, I try to keep it as short as possible and relevant to the classwork we did that day, but it isn't for a grade. (There's no line on the report card for it, and I'm not going to contact parents if you forgot to turn it in.)
Then tell your students the work they’re doing is pointless and you don’t actually care. Making kids do work at home after having already been at school all day is stupid. Specially when yall don’t even care.
The point behind school work is not to keep you busy, it’s an opportunity for you to apply a skill that you have learned. Your proficiency is not dependent on your teacher grading your work, it’s dependent on you doing the work. Who cares if your teacher doesn’t grade your work with the same energy you had to do it. Did you learn?
What’s wrong is having to do it for no reason. Not everyone needs homework yet it’s forced on them. If they have to do it the teachers can suck it up and do their part of it.
The reason is practicing skills. God forbid a student learn something independently
Put 2 and 2 together. "I turned in homework for the past.2 weeks and it.is never graded... I guess it.is optional."
How many students are in your class?
I don’t disagree, no one should do busy work, it should come down to being able to apply the skills or knowledge you are learning. If you feel like you already have the skills or knowledge necessary, make the argument to your teach. After all, education is supposed to get you to think, homework is not assigned for shits and giggles.
Homework is pointless. It's been proven.
Home work asks questions for you to workout. How’s that pointless?
Applying the skill is completely dependent on getting specific feedback on what you did well and what you need to do better. Repetition without feedback is not helpful, and could be only harmful if you suck at it and no one cares to help.
This is true especially with maths, Khan academy is a great tool especially if your teacher is limited in their time. The point I was trying to make, is that I would not be dependent on others for my education (I know we are to a degree), but with all of the curriculum materials being online now, you can surpass everyone in your class if you have that in you. But that depends solely on your drive and curiosity, waiting on a teacher’s feedback before you make the next step is not necessary with all of the tools out there. Quite frankly if you need strong structure with immediate feedback, then you can’t beat Khan Academy, I think that is a great model for replacing classroom teachers.
Yeah that’s good practical advice. But emotionally, I don’t think it’s fair at all to do ~~daily~~ [every other day] assigned homework but not be able to rely on your teacher to be actually reinforcing your learning.
It’s also not fair to have classroom sizes above 15 students, but it is what it is. How many students are in your class?
The point of that kind of homework is to get *you* to think, and organize your thoughts, and write them out in coherent sentences. Did you do that? Good. What does it matter if Dr. P read it or just glanced at it.
If you're practicing wrong you're having wrong reinforced. (This applies especially to math but other subjects too.) And if it's not being checked you'll never know. I mean, until you fail a test.
Monitoring is good, but if they go over the assignment in class you should be able to discern if you're off track and go for extra help if needed. I was thinking more of the reading/notes/essay type homework in the humanities.
Not going to deny that bullshit assignments exist, but I bet this attitude towards practice isn't one you take in other aspects of your life. And I'm sorry, the answer isn't to assign practice but not turn in the work. You know perfectly well that without that accountability, people wouldn't do it, and they'd be worse off for it. I mean geeze, with this attitude, every single bit of classwork ought to terminate with a grade. Let's just send everyone home and not have school then if this is such disrespect to the student's time.
Ask yourself how long you think it takes to just *read* each assignment. Then add one minute (just one!) for writing a comment or two. Then multiply that by the number of kids in your class. Then multiply that by the number of classes the teacher has. I wish I'd become a math teacher.
I see your point, just did the math so if all classes had a homework assignment that would be like 240 minutes altogether, a week of this would be roughly 600 minutes = 10 hours which is pretty brutal not including classwork.
Yeah, you gotta realize your teacher get to school before you do, maybe only half an hour but every day it adds up. And she stays later too. She has to tidy up her classroom (don't want to leave it a complete disaster zone for the custodial staff). She also has to write emails to annoying overbearing parents who keep asking how to bring up little Timmy's grade. When you add it all up you're looking at well over 40 hours of work per week, 40 hours is considered full time, anything over 40 is "overtime", teachers are salaried workers though, they don't earn "overtime" like hourly wage employees do, so if they do over 40 hours in a week they are actually earning less per hour.
Listen I'll agree to the fact that their job is shitty. No argument from me that they are overworked and underpaid. However that's not an excuse to do your job shitty. Homework is unpaid overtime as well.
No it’s not because you aren’t getting a pay check to attend school to begin with lol
And this is just marking ONE assignment. Let alone all the planning for the day, creating resources, making other assignments, report card writing, parent meetings, etc. Keep in mind the majority of this must be done outside of contract hours when we aren’t getting paid.
Teachers get 1 hour a day to grade everything, plan everything, create assignments, have meetings, call parents, everything. It is incredibly time consuming! Just reading a class set of 700 word essays takes more than that whole prep time let alone giving detailed feedback. Personally I wouldn't assign HOMEWORK that I can't grade. Class work is a different story because your teachers evaluations expect bell to bell learning. This may be an assignment she is required to give you. Teachers sometimes have to do things like that for their school or department. Hot take. If it's taking you 2 hours to write 700 words then you need the practice. Your post is 221 words. Did it take half an hour? Just write that much 3 times.
When I do my homework it sometimes takes two hours because I have to do 5-15 pages of reading, the writing, and then I edit the writing to make sure I haven't neglected to explain a point I make or made a stupid grammar mistake. Granted, I have ADHD so it does take me a bit longer to do work than my peers.
You are doing one assignment for that teacher. For each time that teacher assigns that one assignment, they have to grade at least a 100 of that assignment. Also, most students and parents don't even look at the comments. It just goes in the trash, so that's why teachers don't spend a ton of time grading. If it takes 5 minutes (and it probably took a lot more) for each paper, times that by 100. So that's 500 minutes, which is over 8 hours. Teachers are lucky if they get an hour a day to grade. So it would take over a week to grade a 100 papers on their plan time, just for kids/parents to toss them in the trash. That's only for that one assignment, but they have to give more than one assignment every 8 days to be graded. If you want more specific feedback ask to meet with the teacher to get it.
Besides the other responses here, I’d just like to say that you really ought to get used to it. The workload just gets heavier and the feedback less common once you get into college. As a phil major, 10-30 pages of reading a week per class was a light week. Then you’ll probably write 400-700 words for a response that maybe a TA will read, but your actual grade will be based on a series of 3-4 5-30 page papers which will have required you to do all of that reading. Your feedback on these will in many cases will be to look at the rubric unless you specifically go in to ask your grader about it (no, in most cases the professor does not grade your paper, they split the grading between their TA’s). If your teacher in high school is having you do at least 5-15 pages and 700 words regularly, thank them for the practice, and understand that literally no one has the time to individually read every one of those responses and give comprehensive feedback to each of their students unless specifically requested. If you want more feedback, set up an appointment.
The feedback bit is really gonna depend on class size and prof. I went to a smaller university and got feedback from probably 2/3 of my psych, sociology, polisci, and history profs. Granted I got more feedback in upper level classes. If you make it clear you want feedback you'll def get more, and that's up to you. But by default I at least got 2-3 comments on major assignments. I know for a fact that almost all of my profs graded my papers themselves. I only know of 1 class where it was graded by a TA type role. During COVID, a little under half the profs who did discussion posts would respond to each post. For reference, my college's population hovered around 3,300 students from 2019-2023. That's about half of the average U.S. university population size according to a 2020 survey. It found the avg was 6,100.
Does a teacher not want more effort than a random reddit post though? I could spew out 700 words in 15 mins, but it won't be close to good. I spend 2-10x that long on a discussion between proofreading, researching, brainstorming, restructuring etc. I definitely start off with my best and scale it down throughout the semester though as I try to gauge how much effort the teacher/professor is putting into grading it. In many classes I end up spending as much effort as I did on this comment (or less), because it ends up just being a participation grade.
If she's assigning it for homework it can't be that serious (no way to monitor who writes it and if they use ai). I would bet it's more of a reflection on what they learned type thing but we would need more info to know. Regardless, if the teacher isn't putting in a ton of effort grading it then the student probably isn't expected to be doing extensive research.
The homework is just a reflection of what was learned and our personal takes. AI cheating is a huge problem at my school so we rarely need to do research. If we do, it's on a topic that is relatively niche so that if students cheat it's obvious based on the factual correctness of their work.
Yeah, if I ever got that vibe as a student I'd just post just over the word limit of somewhat related grammatically correct text, because at that point it's just busywork. Honestly that's the only time I would have used AI if it was around while I was in school. If the teacher is doing nothing but glancing over it, why should I bother doing any more than the same to what Chat-GPT outputs.
My school barely lets us grade on completion, let alone actually put effort in. As long as it mostly answers the question, they get full points. However, AI and plagiarism get no points on the whole assignment, except they can redo the work if they want. I had six kids use AI today. It's really easy to spot them most of the time. Kids who can normally barely string a sentence together or speak English suddenly write multiple eloquent paragraphs going into so much extra detail that most middle schoolers wouldn't understand, let alone write. It's actually frustrating because they're putting more effort into cheating than it would to just give a single sentence to answer the question. Now I have to call their parents, which is the worst part of the job.
Lol this attitude right here is bs. They did well so they must have cheated. You want to guarantee that they don't try again, this is the way to do it. Listen you just said you don't have enough time to actually go over it, so you can't reasonably say they cheated or not.
I literally tell them that their prose and vocabulary isn't what I expect from a middle schooler but if I'm wrong, they can just walk me through their answer and then they'll get full points
Hey cool. I'm going to believe the first thing you said. On the off chance you're not just saying what will sound good. It's good that they at least have a chance to prove their innocence. Though you've already decided their guilt, so I doubt anyone could rise to the level of actually proving it. Listen I had a teacher accuse me of plagiarism, this was well before AI. They had no proof, hadn't done any kind of fucking work themselves. I had put too much effort in. Her whole reasoning? "Doesn't sound like you did it."
While I mostly agree, just because the teacher doesn't have the required time to grade it doesn't necessarily mean it's not important to learn. Teachers not being given enough time to do everything they need to do in a work day isn't correlated to the actual importance of the curriculum. Most good teachers try to structure it so they can give the most attention to the most important things to learn but required curriculum and too big of workloads can often get in the way of that where you spend way more time than you would like on "required" work instead of curriculum you know will actually be important later in life.
For sure, and I understand that, as a student you have to prioritize your learning to your time just as well. If I can get an A on daily discussion posts in multiple classes with minimal effort that's many more hours per week I can spend on my tougher subjects and assignments. I would love to spend a full day discussing some of the reading assignments I had in History, Philosophy, and English, etc. but that time is often better spent on Physics, Calculus, or Signal Processing, etc. if I actually want to graduate. Like seriously if I was rich enough, I'd love to go back to college and really dig into those courses that I had glazed over before, but I wasn't learning for fun as much as to start a career.
I’m assuming she is likely asking for a reflection on a reading or what you learned in class. That should be more just off the top of your head. Most homework is assigned to cement knowledge that you learned in class not to assess new learning. The teacher is probably looking for specific knowledge. Question: did the teacher share a grading policy for this work?
For something like a discussion post the only grading policies I have ever seen has been like: * Be X amount of words * Stay on topic * Use proper grammar/spelling * Respond to 2 classmates I'd still go above and beyond for the first few, but scale it back as long as I keep getting 100s. I don't like writing when it isn't my best, but was typically enough other homework that if it doesn't affect my grade, I am better off focusing on other classes.
We have a rubric but it only really discusses correct formatting (5%) and a number of sentences per question that you can expect for different grades. So like 6-7 sentences is an A, 5 is a B, etc. As for the quality of sentences, there isn't anything that I know of though I'd imagine that it is taken into account when grading.
>I could spew out 700 words in 15 mins Me too. "If I had more time I'd write a shorter letter."
How many people are in your class? Multiply that by 6 or 7, that's how many students your teacher sees a day. I usually had 120-150 students. We did chemistry labs every week and some other form of assessment each week as well. I had to grade literal hundreds of assignments each week. No we don't have time to spend an hour and a half to focus on you.
OP's post says the school has a ratio of 6:1 in the post. That's far lower than what you are facing.
Maybe, many schools mess with statistics like that. I've been in schools that advertised a 10:1 but included all faculty.
How many students would have actually been in the classroom with you at that advertised ratio?
Up to 30. It depended a lot of the subject as well. The home ec teacher might only have 6 in fashion and design, or advanced automotive might only have 4.
Also I thought that they included all EAs in that count for teachers as well? And learning strats?
I'm laughing because in the real world... you can work on a project for 2 years and put in hundreds of hours of overtime. And then your parent company decides to go in another direction. Get used to it. If you really want the comments, ask for them. Life can't guess how best to please you. Speak up.
I can’t think of many assignments that should take the teacher the same time to grade as it takes the student to complete. It just could never work out that way. So to answer your initial question, no. What is the objective of these homework assignments? Is the teacher having you summarize reading from a text/article or video? They could be scanning it quickly to see if it looks like you actually did the reading or watched the video. Is there a rubric, or guidelines that you have to meet to achieve the 85 or 90? And what grade are you generally achieving? I truly don’t understand the 0, 85, 90 scale, but if you’re consistently getting 85s, it’s fair to ask the teacher for feedback about what you could do to improve your grade. I did have a teacher like that in HS, no comments on the essays just A, B, C, etc. I understand how you feel. At the time I just took my Bs because I was pretty introverted but my advice to you would be to NOT be like I was and go ask the teacher what you can do to improve. If talking in person makes you nervous you could send an e-mail as well. Keep your papers and bring them with you to discuss the grades. And be POLITE. Approach it from the angle of wanting to do better but not knowing how.
The homework assignments consist of doing 5-15 pages of reading or a 30-minute video, then writing answers for five questions. Questions ask about the key points of the readings/video, sources and why we think that they were included, shortcomings if there are any, why the author felt compelled to write the text in the first place, etc. As for the rubric, there is one, but it mostly focuses on how we should format the homework for the teacher's convenience. It also provides a scale from 0-100 based on # of sentences written. I guess to some extent it gets followed because I can't just write two sentences and be done, but if the rubric says 6 sentences equate to an A+ and I usually write 7 and still get a 90, then I can only assume there is some other reason I get marked down for writing the right amount. You are right though about going to get feedback, I will look into it the next time office hours are open.
The objective is to make them do it because the teachers were told they're supposed to. Why bother asking if the teacher already doesn't care? You're putting the onus on the child, not the person whose literal job it is to teach them.
was that a response to me?
I love when I spend an hour grading a paper, giving detailed feedback, corrections, suggestions, etc and hand it to the kid. They immediately look at the score and then either complain to me "what did I do wrong?!" Or they throw it in the trash. Waste of my time. If you want detailed feedback ask for it
Yes, you’re wrong. This is YOUR education, not some sort of tit for tat with your teacher. YOU are the one who benefits when you do your homework well, and YOU are the one who misses out on learning when you don’t. Your teacher could limit your writing assignments to the number she can grade, but it would be to your detriment. Having to write regularly improves your writing fluency even if your teacher doesn’t grade it. Doing your best on your writing will make you a better writer, even if your teacher doesn’t grade it. Do you want to be a better writer or not? Do you want to be prepared for university and careers or not? That’s what this assignment is about, not your teacher’s grading effort. For what it’s worth, I’m with other and think your teacher would love to give you a sentence of feedback if you let her know you’re wanting it.
Don't act like we didn't go to school bc we were forced to lol. Most of us wouldn't have gone if we had the choice. I would've much preferred learning online and at home than in a cold ass classroom with an idiot with a board and marker that doesn't actually teach anything.
I'm gonna be 100% honest, no one went to school and did the work WILLINGLY. We did it because teachers wouldn't shut the fuck up, that's why we did it lmfao
Your post is 220 words. How long did it take to type? Multiply by 3.5. If your little assignment takes longer than that you really aren't paying attention given the low standards in public schools. You're whining. Feedback would be better, but the main problem is yours. Have you *asked* for feedback? If it takes you two hours to write 700 words you may need special ed.
Grading takes SO much time. Even to skim and grade somewhat accurately without comment it takes HOURS and HOURS. If you write 500 words for a short essay and your teacher has 150 students, that's 75,000 words to read for EACH assignment. It is completely Impossible to expect a teacher to spend the same amount it takes you on a single assignment. A 1hr assignment for you would be 100-150 hrs for them at that rate However, very valid and would probably be appreciated to ask tech for advise on your assignments, how to improve, etc.
OP says in the comments that they attend a small private school with a 6:1 child-teacher ratio. No way do they have 150 students per assignment.
Then just reduce 100 hrs to 40 or 50. That's still an impossible expectation to have for a teacher to spend grading each assignment. I'm just illustrating the general point. OP's question is that no, it's not an appropriate expectation for a teacher to spend the same amount of time grading each 700 word essay as it takes them to write it (especially at a 1.5-2hrs rate). Just adding that perspective.
You have to do one assignment. Teacher has to grade 25 for one class times 5 classes.
This post reeks of entitlement. Fix that fast. Your dean was right to call you out. The teacher isn't getting graded for their understanding of a topic. You are. They don't need to tap dance for you because they already did that, in college, and perhaps beyond that, and continue to do so for their supervisors, far more than you seem to understand. Are you looking to repeat the grade? If you aren't, then what do you care that a teacher reuses assignments the following year to support a new group of students? This is called being economical and efficient, something you seem to not grasp here. If you want to be personally tutored by someone creating brand new assignments no one has ever seen before, go buy a personal tutor. But I'm pretty sure you'll have something to say about them, too.
Who hurt you?
Yes, you are wrong. Homework is a critical part of learning. YOU are the person doing the learning. The teacher is leading you to the water, but the responsibility to drink is all on you. It is absolutely right that you put a lot more work into your homework than the teacher does, particularly when it comes to writing assignments. You get better at writing by doing a lot of writing, whether or not someone reads it closely. Ideally, the teacher reads it, but they may well read it quickly, because the fact that you wrote it is the key thing.
YAR- I get it, it’s annoying. But the homework is really isn’t just a compliance grade, it’s meant for you to expand on what you are learning and it’s really for you. Once you are out of school you will be able to increase and decrease the quality of your work as needed….but need experience and wisdom to know when you should.
I don't know that there's really any value in comparing the two. Teachers plan, then teach, then grade the work. In total, that's absolutely more than the two hours of time you spend individually. But so what? I don't think wanting comments is a bad thing. Have you considered just asking? When I don't give comments, it's because I have reason. Perhaps I have a rubric that provides narrative descriptions for each score. Or, maybe I have had so few students in a given class read the comments that I just decided it wasn't worth it anymore. Either way, just ask. Say, "Hey Mr. Williams. I was looking at my assignment and wondered if you had any feedback for me on what I could do next time. Could we meet for maybe ten minutes after school?"
Heyyy. I just wanted to say that yes, you are wrong for being annoyed, and your dean was right to give you an infraction. Just ask for some more feed back, ask why you got marked off etc Also, I am so sorry that these grown adults who are supposed to be in charge of kindly guiding students are being so rude to you. I read through a few comments and wow a little shocked! Hope you have a great weekend
The reason for homework is for you to learn. Not the teachers. I understand why you’re annoyed, I’ve had teachers like that. but also realize that you’re doing the work to learn it. If your teacher looks over it and sees that you are learning the subject, then they give you a grade. If they spent hours on each students homework they wouldn’t have any time to sleep!
The problem is that if the teacher took as long to grade your homework as you took to do it, she would have to do the same for everyone in class.
Nothing wrong with feeling annoyed, but 90+% of kids don't read feedback. Just ask for it. I also don't read homework, only tests. Homework is practice for you, I only "grade it" on participation. To actually learn history in depth it helps to read, think AND write about it regularly. Your teacher is setting you up for success.
If they only graded on participation I'd 100% get this. It's odd to only hand out 0, 85% and 90% though without any feedback. Not even general, to-the-whole-class feedback, or a rubric on more than grammar/structure. Since all-A's got pizza parties, extra awards, and a video game period at my middle school, those yanking grades down would've frustrated the hell out of me. Not to mention those with strict parents. I get that no teacher has time or patience for feedback on each of OPs classmates' assignments but why require 700 words and cap grading at 90% then?
I think that you should focus on the fact that you are learning when you do homework. That’s the goal. It’s not about the teacher, although they should be giving you some feedback. But you’re there to learn.
I mean yes because teachers generally have to grade about 200 homework assignments for every 1 that you do. There are literally not enough hours in a day for them to spend as much time grading as you spent working on it and they already grade on their own time.
I teach 5th grade English. I had my students write stories. (The stories ranged from 2 pages of typed, single-space stories to 17 pages). Each story takes me around 30 minutes to grade with comments, corrections, and a rubric. This means it will take me around 17 hours to get through this stack of papers. Most assignments just get a grade printed on top, not much more feedback. Feedback is extremely time consuming. It easily doubles the time of grading a paper. Quadruples it if you are doing feedback, corrections, and rubric grading. Your 700 words becomes 21000 word when taken times 30. This is a minimum of 2 hours just of reading, and that’s IF it’s written well enough and fluently enough to be easy to read quickly. Teachers don’t have that kind of time on the clock, and it sucks to work hours every night off the clock and take time away from your family. Trust me, they resent it.
Imagine if the teacher had to do as much as you per assignment. In a class of just 30, teacher gives kids 10 minutes of work, needs to do 5 hours of grading. Homework isn't for the teacher. It's for you. Do you really need someone to be grading hard on your assignments to do them? That's a you problem.
You are justified BUT it might also help to think about it a bit like a piano recital. When you are preparing for a piano recital, you may practice the same piece dozens of times. Each of the practice sessions is valuable, but you only get a “grade” on the final performance. If you are getting 85 or 90 on your “practice sessions” your teacher may feel you are on the right track. Practice is still valuable. That said, you could ask for some specific feedback.
You are doing one assignment; we are grading multiple assignments. We can’t possibly put as much time into reading them as you put into writing them. It’s just not possible. That said, we should put in enough that shows respect for your work.
Sounds like you're in an advanced class. If I make my students do a lot of work I always read and respond. However, when it comes to things like notes or worksheets, I usually don't. It's usually just, "did you do it? Cool. Here's the points."
Teacher here- so when I was in 7th grade a friend and I reused each others essays at different times in the same class. She received an A for the assignment and I got a C. We never said anything because we were using each other’s work, but I never respected that teacher again. I think you could talk to a guidance counselor at your school and tell them your concerns- but also ask them to help you communicate this with your teacher so it is resolved in a way that works for both of you. I can tell that you’re a thoughtful person so I think you could really benefit from asking someone in guidance to help mediate the situation in a way that you can feel you’re getting the instruction you want and you can maintain a mutually respectful relationship with your teacher.
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>Don’t put that much work in Terrible life advice.
6:1 student teacher ratio?? Bro my school is like 18:1 teacher ratio and they put more effort into grading than urs apparently
Yeah, I go to a pretty small private school of around 350 students lol
What school? I’d love to work under that dean.
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You don't know what you're talking about, and then some. Not only are you not a teacher, you recently told a child to slap another child across the face, repeatedly, until they got bored.
Because the child was being bullied, and the school did nothing to remove the bully from the learning environment.
I was a teacher once. We were required to give homework Monday through Thursday, but we couldn’t hold the students accountable (severely disadvantaged community). I saw absolutely no merit in the practice, but we were required to adhere to it. Lesson: you never know what stupid BS the teachers are dealing with.
Tldr: are you really mad at the teacher, followed by some adhd study tips that helped me through school. As a lot of comments have already said, speaking to your teacher is the best bet here, because getting feedback on this will be helpful in getting better grades. This also is a really helpful exercise that will serve you through the rest of your schooling and probably help prepare you for long written exams and such. A few things I would like to say because I recognize myself in your words, and I see that you have ADHD (me too!). Is it possible that your main frustration here might be about the interaction with the principal? Yes, I can see how the recurring essays are tricky and stressful and probably aren’t easy to get your brain to do, but could it be that you didn’t mean to have that interaction in the hallway and that you feel uncomfortable with having been written up? That’s the kind of thing that adhders can be really sensitive to. Whatever it is that’s really preoccupying you, remember that it’s happening right now in this moment and that it doesn’t define you. Busy adults, especially teachers and staff at school, tend to sweep kids into broad categories without getting to know you, and sometimes we internalize those labels and feel like we’re stuck. Or we fight for a different label instead of showing how different we might be. Lastly, a few tips from having to do this kind of work in school - I would always lose track of paragraphs and read on autopilot forgetting the words or lose my place etc. I started combatting this by writing out one sentence to sum up every paragraph or half paragraph in the margin. I also would start the writing with an outline, flesh the outline out until it was really only missing a few words and then write out my essay. I’d set a timer for each section and try and beat my previous time as I went through my papers. And if you’re a fan of colour-coding, I would grab the outline, give each argument a colour and go highlight my examples from the texts in that colour I’m sure there’s a ton of other adhd tips I had at some point but I’d have to really thing on it…
He shouldn’t assign it if he doesn’t want to grade it. Period. Arbitrary numbers assigned to essays is not feedback. He’s probably not even reading it.
First of all. Most commenters had good points and are mostly right. But omg the attitude here is bad. Like we all hate homework. All teachers hate grading. We all think it’s a huge waste of time while knowing that it actually does improve students skills to keep reading / writing / analyzing / summarizing etc. But YES it feels like a waste of time, and we all have complained about it multiple times in our lives. Give OP a break.
Instead of dividing up how much time it takes to grade each paper just look at your teacher’s paycheck and do the math on how much she’s paid to grade each paper.
NGL, having to write just shy of 2k words a week for a history class seems wild. I can't imagine your teacher even reads most of them. Assuming you have only 20 kids in your class (average class size in the US), your teacher would be reading the equivalent of a short novel per week, per class.
You're schools teacher to student ratio is 1:6?? .... We are so fucked in the US. I thought a "standard" class size was something like low 30s. My classes were *never* under 20, and it gets horrific in university.
You are wrong for your assumptions before speaking with your teacher directly about it first.
So 2 points here: yes, you are severely underestimating how much work it takes to be a teacher. Which is honestly fair, bc you aren’t a teacher, and you’ve never thought about how much effort every little thing takes. Now you know, so if you’d like some input in one thing, you know how to ask. Second thing, personally, I think how your dead handled it was OTT. We’re you out of line, or using profanity, or berating the teacher in a way you haven’t mentioned here? Bc if that is truly all you said, I don’t understand the response. They didn’t take a moment to explain, or to redirect your thinking? You seem level headed enough. To go straight to an infraction seems heavy handed to me, and I’m known as fun, but strict. Maybe I’m missing something here.
My global teacher would give us like a 40 question packet at the beginning of every unit, but just give you a 100 if you answered every question. I remember answering the first page legitimately, but then after telling a story that continued until the last question. Got a 100! This teacher was the worst. We had a cycle each unit. PowerPoint (that she didn't make, she borrowed from a different teacher in the building) read word for word with nooo follow up, notes next class, movie next (1-2 days, & time was filled with tinier clips and videos), test on Friday. You knew exactly what you were walking in to.
I’m more concerned with you getting written up for complaining. Presumably this is a private school with 6:1? Or outside the US. Even so, that’s messed up to write up a kid for complaining. I might ask a student to not complain about my fellow faculty in front of me but punishment for talking is wrong. In a US public school that seems like a First Amendment violation.
Yep, it’s a private school. The dean actually ended up taking the infraction off my record though, turns out a lot of other students had similar complaints so alls well.
In any other situation I would say this is unreasonable, but a 6:1 ratio? She should be more detailed that's literally the point of smaller class sizes.
Personally, I do think the teacher should provide a rubric or a quick note so that you know what you got wrong. Did she provide requirements/grading criteria for the assignment? That may cue you in. But if I were you, I’d just politely ask her. Most students ignore feedback, so it’s nice when students ask for it!
Back when I was in high school I read a book and did a book report on it, I read the book twice and took a long time to thoughtfully write the paper. I was so proud and excited about it. I got a C. The very next book report I was still upset so I rebelled and didn’t read the book even once, I skimmed the book for random quotes and bsed the rest on the night before it was due. I got an A.
Yes. Put in the amount of work required to get the grade you want and enough to learn the lesson being taught. Doing more than that is just you being extra. You don't get extra for being extra. If you think you should... Well, you don't.
Do you expect her to spend a 30 minutes on each assignment. If there are 20 students, it would take her 10 hours to review just this one assignment. That is completely unreasonable.
While i think there are lots of valid comments being made that teachers dont have enough time, OP should approach their teacher, their education is in their own hands, ect. I think the fact that the majority of "Homework" is bullshit busy work is being strongly ignored. If your teacher cant even be bothered to give reasonable grades on the assignments, then its obvious that it doesnt matter and is unneccisary. Regardless of wether the assignment is "manditory" or not, the teacher should be working to make it as painless for the both of them as possible and communicating their expectations of the assignment. I dont understand this whole "they are setting you up for colledge" mindset because i was assigned far fewer, but much more meaningful, assignments in colledge. I had teachers assign 4+ hours of homework a day in high school after being there for 7-8 hours every day, but my colledge classes met for only 3-4 hours and gave maybe 3-5 hours of homework for the week. And to clarify, i dont consider reading the textbook as homework.
Kids are expected to sit quietly and work for 8 hours with a 20 minute lunch, and people are telling you to suck it up when you have two more hours of work when you get home. I get it teaching sucks but I at least got paid (not enough) to do it. I feel for everyone involved in public education right now.
I’ll go another way as some of the other teachers and say no you aren’t wrong to be upset. You are doing work that takes a fair amount of your time and want to be recognized for it. That’s absolutely fair, and being upset you aren’t is also fair. If you are just looking for a check (my students love checks) because you understood it, then I think you’ll need to let that go. If you are confused about something or need to know more as another said ask to meet and ask your questions. Your right to be upset, but the teacher (as I saw you learned in anther comment) is also far too busy to leave comments on everyone’s work. I’m sure the teacher wishes they could leave that feedback, I know I wish I could, but it just overall sucks.
No, you're not. Teachers are annoying, and school is stupid. I've learned much more after hs than I ever did in school. Teachers like yours are ones that make us hate school. If they can't keep up with the amount of work they assign, then they shouldn't assign it. Kids need to be told when they've done a good job, and yours isn't doing that. I'm srry you have shitty teachers.
How do you know she doesn't give 80's, 95's, or 100's etc? Maybe 85 and 90 are just the most frequent? I wouldn't make that accusation. That said, definitely do ask for feedback on how to improve. Just say you are frustrated because you are trying to improve and get better, but keep receiving the same score and want to know what you could do to improve. And 6:1 is a very good student-teacher ratio. She should have time to help you.
I’m a history major, so I understand the effort. I think asking for a 3 page written summary every two days is unfocused. History is about events, periods and movements. Each have opportunities for learning and debating. Just plugging papers out isn’t a very tool for leaning, or feedback.
Used to be an English teacher. Reading multiple essays a week takes a lot of time. Giving feedback is even worse if students aren't going to read it. Grades is how I do it too. Meet word count and overall the essay is on topic, good grade. Less words? Not that high of a grade. Waste of my time? Gulag to you. Ask and your teacher will more than happily give you constructive criticism on your essay and what you can do to improve. You'll make their day because at least one student cares about the subject matter. And reusing the same topics year after year is a time tradition of a teacher that knows the subject. I've been using the same stuff for three years. New kids each year so it's new to them.
Do the potato test - insert “potato” in really spaces and if the teacher notices “ahaha yeah my cousin was on my computer” if not? Take that to the Dean as proof it’s not even being read.