Yeah, I'm gonna rant. Up at 1AM grading test papers because four plates of Southern buffet cooking still has me awake. Any of you teachers out there have a solution for a student who writes in tiny letters where the lines he draws don't connect? I'll be blind by Thanksgiving if I have to read/interpret this one kid's work on a daily or weekly basis. It's JC, so I have only exams, but I swear this writing is the most frustrating I've ever had to deal with. To top it all off, he wrote in something that looks softer than a #2 pencil, like he turbosharpened a crayon or something (it IS pencil, just really, really light writing) Should I tell him to write bigger/darker or just leave it alone? He's a decent student BTW, so no issues there.
Okay, I'm 15 papers in and he's not alone. For the love of God, we need some penmanship classes up in this mofo- I've seen better writing in photos of prison walls. Start with the "highway lane" parchment-y paper we all know from elementary school. And I should not have to tell anyone at this level to take their exams in blue or black ink on white lined paper. Used to be you could at least count on the girls to write big and legibly, even if they used circles instead of dots for their "i"s and whatnot. Now they write just like the guys. Really hoping this is just one outlier class.
I have (first year) college students write in class on a nearly daily basis. This is at the Catholic liberal arts college where I adjunct. Strangely enough, nearly every student has better handwriting than I do, and unlike them, I actually had penmanship classes in elementary school. Though there are two women who write in pencil so light that I can't see it. Any chance you can let them use a laptop?
I do have them write about once a week, but the essay section of the exams was visibly worse than their usual writing. I probably should ask them if they were nervous. They didn't do poorly at all scorewise as a group, but my eyesight did. My own writing's become worse over the years because I don't have to write much more than my signature any more. Not for tests. Someone would websearch the answers for sure. Besides, I'm pretty sure not every student owns one or has access to one, and that would be a problem.
The ownership thing is a problem of course. What I do during tests, though, is I put the laptop users in a different part of the room and they have their backs to me. If I see anything other than a word processing program... well, it's a time saver because then I don't have to bother grading their exam. But obviously, not everyone has that much space.
I don't. Kinda like a tiny auditorium/amphitheatre, desks bolted to the floor with no room at the back for me to stand and see everyone. I'm not sure my chair would allow it. One of my biggest fears is catching a college cheater. It's one thing in secondary (it happens, they get the zero and that's that), but here, I'd just rather pore over their chicken scratch than deal with the possibility of having my decision questioned by somebody's parent- or lawyer. Too many applicants wanting to not have to decorate bulletin boards and walk kids to the cafeteria anymore.