Grading the Memo
Okay. It is finally done. The last student turned in their memo, and it is all graded and returned. Man oh man, what a process! Out of twelve students, Jared and I split the grading responsibility, but I took up more students because Jared traveled to Oregon to attend the Public Interest Environmental Law Conference (PIELC) to pitch the EL-T program to other schools. To accommodate his busy travel schedule, I graded eight students, and Jared took four. We posted our results in a shared drive so we may review each other's work and provide additional comments/feedback. For each student, I redlined their work using track changes in Word, providing edits and reorganization as needed. I made comments on specific rhetoric or content, and I provided general feedback in a comment on each section. Along with the comments and edits, each student received a personalized rubric that detailed which points they lost and an explanation of their final grade.
Out of 12 students, the lowest grade was 38%, while the highest was 88%, with the average settling around 70%. We anticipated this first legal writing assignment would be more challenging than they might encounter in other classes, and indeed, we expected grades to reflect that reality. Hence, we’ve made it our mission to emphasize the importance of edits and feedback in the writing process, providing students with the chance to improve their grades by diligently working on our notes.
Once students got their hands on the rubric and their edited drafts, we opened the floor for rewrites. So far, I've had three meetings with students eager to tackle their feedback! Our first meeting featured a student who completely veered off course, diving into legal waters we haven’t explored yet. I couldn’t shake the feeling that AI might have been her co-writer for that memo. When I brought it up, she insisted that she relied on Google for her content—but wrote it herself. Google employs AI in search results, but I didn’t press the point. Instead, we focused on clarifying where the confusion arose, reassuring her to come to Jared and I rather than Google for her questions.
Next up was a student who misunderstood the purpose of the “discussion” section. We spent a good fifteen minutes untangling that knot, emphasizing that it’s her chance to connect the dots between the facts and the law. After our exchange, she brightened considerably, feeling much more confident about her upcoming rewrite.
Finally, we got to my most enthusiastic student—she was on the ball, editing her paper the very day she received feedback and was eager to chat about her progress. We met over Zoom, and she shared her screen, showcasing her revisions. I offered her some additional advice, diving into broader concepts along with specific queries she had.
We are encouraging EVERY student to edit their papers, even if they received an acceptable grade. By the end of it, our students won’t just be legal environmentalists; they’ll be legends of the language, ready to tackle any memo thrown their way! 🌿✨Below is an example of a redlined paper and a rubric.
