It sounds silly, but when my students hand in essays, I don't allow staples. They are only allowed to paperclip.
Here's why.
One of the most important aspects of writing to me is the process. No matter the skill level of my students, we spend a lot of time using the writing process to improve writing. I give class time and homework time to use the steps of the writing process. I give mini lessons and model. Thus, I expect to see my students use the writing process to its fullest extent and I assess the results in their writing.
To assess pre-writing, drafting, revision, and editing, I need to take the various drafts and artifacts handed in and compare them. That is hard to do if my students staple everything together. Picture this: You want to closely compare the document at the back of a packet to the one at the front. What must you do? Flip back and forth using your short term memory to remember the differences. After a while, I found myself removing the staples to spread everything out, sometimes even lining sheets up line by line.
Removing staples in an annoying task. Either you are prying the teeth open with your finger nails or a pen tip, or you use that remover tool to bite at it. Then, you have to put the removed staple somewhere so you don't step on it later. Its a hassle. A time wasting hassle. Because it isn't just the time wasted prying that sucker out of the paper, but its time wasted getting out of your grading groove.
I also ask students to put their papers in a certain order when they paperclip them. I like the final draft on top, and then ideally all other work to go backwards. So, pre-writing is at the back with the first draft on top of that, then revised drafts on top of that. But, the kids don't always remember to do that. If they have stapled, then I'm stuck with everything in the order they put it. Paperclips let me reorganize easily. Also, using paperclips, I can have students stick a rubric with their essay, yet I can still remove the rubric and look at the essay and rubric simultaneously. Having a rubric already with the essay also saves me a tiny bit of time per essay.
Furthermore, have you seen how some kids staple? A larger percentage of high school kids than you think cannot staple correctly. They staple too close to the edge or two inches into the document. They use five staples!
Lastly, since I have to staple the rubric on to the back of the essay anyway, there really is no need for the students to staple. This way, we save at least one staple per essay. That's at least a box of staples a year.
To assess pre-writing, drafting, revision, and editing, I need to take the various drafts and artifacts handed in and compare them. That is hard to do if my students staple everything together. Picture this: You want to closely compare the document at the back of a packet to the one at the front. What must you do? Flip back and forth using your short term memory to remember the differences. After a while, I found myself removing the staples to spread everything out, sometimes even lining sheets up line by line.
Removing staples in an annoying task. Either you are prying the teeth open with your finger nails or a pen tip, or you use that remover tool to bite at it. Then, you have to put the removed staple somewhere so you don't step on it later. Its a hassle. A time wasting hassle. Because it isn't just the time wasted prying that sucker out of the paper, but its time wasted getting out of your grading groove.
I also ask students to put their papers in a certain order when they paperclip them. I like the final draft on top, and then ideally all other work to go backwards. So, pre-writing is at the back with the first draft on top of that, then revised drafts on top of that. But, the kids don't always remember to do that. If they have stapled, then I'm stuck with everything in the order they put it. Paperclips let me reorganize easily. Also, using paperclips, I can have students stick a rubric with their essay, yet I can still remove the rubric and look at the essay and rubric simultaneously. Having a rubric already with the essay also saves me a tiny bit of time per essay.
Furthermore, have you seen how some kids staple? A larger percentage of high school kids than you think cannot staple correctly. They staple too close to the edge or two inches into the document. They use five staples!
Lastly, since I have to staple the rubric on to the back of the essay anyway, there really is no need for the students to staple. This way, we save at least one staple per essay. That's at least a box of staples a year.
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