Abby Anderson notes, as I did, that secondary English teachers tend to mark
mainly the mechanics on final drafts. (I said that college teachers do,
too.) Also, she notes, as I did, that teachers who use the process approach
may focus on mechanics on final drafts because other matters were worked on
during earlier drafts. She also caught my implication that perhaps many
teachers do not use the process approach and that focusing on mechanics in
the final drafts is thus inappropriate. I don't know of any way to check
how many writing teachers use the process approach. It would be difficult
to determine, since I have observed that many who claim to use it actually
don't. Two drafts may be better than one draft, but it's not the process
approach.
 
In any case, all of this illustrates the main point of my comment--that
teachers, process approach or not, are not using holistic scoring in their
day-to-day grading of papers. Thus it does not seem reasonable to blame
holistic scoring for any decline in students' ability to use mechanics. If
any decline occurs (which I doubt), the blame must lie elsewhere.
 
Bill McCleary
 
William J. McCleary                     Editor: Composition Chronicle
Associate Prof. of English              Viceroy Publications
Coordinator of Secondary English        3247 Bronson Hill Road
SUNY at Cortland                        Livonia, NY 14487
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