"Red Falls Out of Favor As Teacher's Choice"

I've experimented with this. I find that students tend to get upset with the content of my comments in red ink, even if the comments are along the lines of "you need a transition here in order to explain how these two paragraphs can utterly contradict one another," whereas when I use Barney the Dinosaur Purple, comments like "Hey, moron: this doesn't make any sense. How the hell did you get into college, anyway?" are, according to my student evaluations, perceived as "helpful, caring, and instructive."

Actually, I remember first hearing about this in my "Teaching Practicum" class c. 1985 or so. It's not new, though it is silly. I didn't use red ink for awhile, then in the 90s when I was teaching at the University of Illinois at Chicago, I came across an article that spoke of red ink and its effects on students in terms of trauma and shock. I copied that article and let my class critique it. They did, first with laughter, then with reasonable well-thought out arguments, mostly concluding "if red ink is traumatic to you, you need to get out in the world and experience real trauma." Finally regarding the conclusion of the article...

"I don't think changing to purple or green will make a huge difference if the teaching doesn't go along with it," Jones said. "If you're just looking at avoiding the color red, the students might not be as frightened, but they won't be better writers."

There's another "or" here: "or the students will, eventually, come to regard purple ink with the same fear and trembling they currently regard red ink.

To be honest, the real interesting research in recent years has involved how little attention students pay to teachers' comments on their essays, which seems to have little to do with the color of the ink. That's led to more interesting pedagogical challenges and changes than the color of pens in one's pocket protector.

 

I think a Chicago radio personality said it well this morning as I drove to work. "When did telling students they're wrong become a bad idea? Isn't that how we learn?" Why are people so sensitive today? For God's sake, feeling bad about doing something wrong makes you want to not do it again. If you can't handle a little red ink as a student, you're never going to handle criticism as a professional.

 

I can rarely keep track of a pen long enough to determine a particular color.

That students rarely read comments in depth has definitely been my experience. I experimented earlier this semester with leaving the grades off the papers and having the students give themselves a grade after reading the comment (I'd already recorded a grade) and then giving them a chance to rewrite the paper.

I've also tried to dramatically cut down on the number of comments I make (and as a former magazine copy editor, my impulse is to correct every grammar/style flaw) because I've decided having them address the three major intellectual flaws in a paper is more important than having them correct the random non-parallel structure. If there is a repeated style/grammar problem, I'll circle a few on the first two pages and then note it in the end comments as something to be searched out in the rest of the paper. The real challenge is getting students to see revisions as rethinkings, rather than as corrections.

 

Isn't that the truth?!

For me, I tend to grade in green. I actually find that the students pay more attention to the comments when they're in a color other than red. I tried orange once, when I couldn't find another pen. even I couldn't read that.

I'll even grade in regular blue ink sometimes... anything that can be distinguished from the paper's color.

If all I have is red, I'll use red, but I tend not to like it. That said, I never minded receiving one of my papers with red comments.

 

A lot of teachers use random colors. Red can be a bit more eye opening, but not nearly as bad as some say it is.

 

Kids today are wusses. I say we bring back corporal punishment, public humiliation in gym class, good ol' fashioned "give me your milk money or I'll pound you" bullies, red ink, the dunce hat, the inability of a student to sue a school for anything short of sexual abuse, the "my dog at my homework" excuse instead of the "I have ADD" excuse, gold stars stuck to the very public chart so everyone can see who is smart and who is dumb, cursive writing, and accountability.

 

I want to teach sixth grade for one day. I want these students to come in and see this nice, bright, clean classroom with posters and desks, and a big chalk board and be all happy and excited to start their higher eduction...then I want to pull out the paddle and spend the three hours before lunch explaining the physics of speed-holes to them, give a pop quiz after lunch, have them play dodgeball during recess, and "you can peg people" kickball for gym class, then send them home with a the same homework assignments I used to get in sixth grade and tell them they will have to read their answers in front of the entire class tomorrow...then when they've all gone home I plan on quietly laughing to myself while I type up my letter of resignation.

 

Personally, I like green.

 

I think red is a good color for corrections. It makes it stand out more, and gets you to read it (which, for students, isn't always a given). I could really care less, however.

 

Red must also be about the only colour I'm yet to see in a pupil's work, which helps it to stand out. And as has already been mentioned, whatever colour you use pupils will come to recognise it as being the teachers, taking it whatever way they want.

 

Funny story, I actually took an essay exam in red ink, and the professor didn't grade it and made me type it up for him afterwards. Turns out he was colorblind...

 

I am sometimes passive aggressive regarding pen color and grading. If I require an in-class writing assignment or handwritten notes, and a student writes in pink or purple or green, then I borrow my daughters' pens of the same color to grade with. Makes it really hard to see. Lame, I know. The one time I couldn't was with a student from Kenya who wrote in gold pen.