Those of you who teach three, four, or more writing courses each semester know the joy of hauling papers from the classroom to your office, where you attempt to bring order to awkward syntax and cast light on nascent arguments. This past semester I decided to embrace technology, erase the physical burden, and determine if a more environmentally friendly way of teaching was viable: I went digital.
I refused to accept any paper assignments from my students, and aside from the paper syllabus I was required to hand out at the beginning of the semester, they received no hard copies from me. Except for the rough drafts that I asked students to print out so they could peer-review one another’s work in class, the course was paper-free. As you might imagine, there were advantages and disadvantages to this approach. Here are the strategies and lessons I learned.
Eliminate paper as a working medium, and your desktop shrinks to the size of your computer monitor. It’s like working on a grade-school desk that’s been jammed into a broom closet. Using two monitors allows you to view multiple drafts of an essay as well as a copy of the prompt to check student responses to an assignment. Once you start working with two screens, you will find it difficult to stop. (I regularly find monitors at places like Goodwill for as little as $20.)
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A notebook computer is perfect for daily classroom activities. Each morning I carry a travel mug of coffee and a slim case with everything I need for the day. The notebook provides easy access to discussion notes and attendance records, as well as every piece of work a student has ever turned in.
Voice-recognition software that types whatever you dictate into a microphone is worth trying. When you are commenting on drafts for hours on end, dictation software makes the job easier.
- Create a catchall teaching folder of archived course materials that you will reuse, such as lecture notes, assignments, and group work.
- Keep a semester-specific index with subfolders for each course taught that term. The course folder should contain assignments, a course calendar, syllabi, and so on. Keep distinct section subfolders for student work and for spreadsheets recording grades and attendance. The need for keeping those folders separate will become apparent when I discuss grading and returning work.
- Set up each computer according to its use. For example, the notebook computer I bring to class contains shortcuts to discussion folders, attendance, and grades. In contrast, my home and office computers have shortcuts to student work, providing quick access to papers.
- Organizing your hard drives to make the most-used folders accessible is the key to being efficient. When you have 40 to 80 papers to turn around, every click of the mouse or opening of a subfolder eats up precious seconds.
- Tell your students how and why you do things. You may want to show them a screen shot of how you have organized your hard drive. This cannot be overexplained. Repeat these instructions early and often, and remind students of the policies when they want to know why their papers were not returned.
- Problems can occur when students cannot, or will not, use word-processing software that can be read on a PC. (I use only Windows; judge me if you must.) My solution is a policy of not opening incorrectly named or Windows-incompatible files; neither will I grade them.
- I begin the semester by assigning a short paper whose chief value is to determine which students understand the system and which ones don’t. That way, when the first major project is due, the majority of students know what is expected and how to meet those expectations.
- I use an evaluation chart that lists grading criteria for each paper. Most of the classes I teach require analytic essays, so I’m most commonly looking for argument, evidence, and organization. After reading the paper, I paste the chart into the top of the document and fill it in.
- I list common errors beneath the chart: page length, grammar mistakes, lack of citations. Deleting unneeded notes from the template is much faster than typing them out each time.
- I type in my comments about the paper and record the grade. I place this information at the top of the paper so students can read comments and suggestions first. Additionally, when a student wants to discuss his or her work, having the comments at the top allows me to quickly discern a paper’s weaknesses and strengths. At a glance, you’re ready to discuss a student’s project in the classroom, office, or hallway.
- If your institution uses a course-management system such as Blackboard, returning work to students is relatively easy; if not, you can return student work via e-mail. To avoid violating student-privacy laws, convert all returned work into password-protected PDF’s or Word documents. Of course, some of us are not quite ready to give up the analog grade book. However, if you plan on going digital, redundant data backup is a must. I use Excel for some courses and the grade-recording features of Blackboard Academic for others.
Besides increasing my effectiveness, my effort to go paperless was intended to reduce the environmental impact. For example, each semester I teach four courses, attended by a total of about 88 students. Those students typically generate more than 2,000 sheets of paper and receive just under 1,000 from me.
But here’s the snag: Every assignment that I don’t print out is still likely to be printed out by students. Although many students use laptops or even read assignments on their cellphones (that’s a topic for another article), many others still take handwritten notes and write papers on library computers. One should not assume that every student owns, or can afford, the hardware needed to eliminate paper. However, I have not found peer revision to be as effective when students use laptops. So I require them to bring paper copies to class, since the workshops work best when evaluation is a tactile activity. In short, entirely eliminating paper from the classroom seems both unwieldy and unlikely.
In my first digital semester, classroom paper use was reduced 65 percent. That may be the best I can hope for until the digital divide disappears, every student can afford the technology, and that technology meets all classroom needs.
Although it has its pitfalls, going digital facilitates nimbler teaching. In a world where we are expected to be everywhere at once, having access to all your tools practically anywhere is priceless.
