Why Midterms?

It's the middle of October and with that brings midterms and for professors and instructors midterm grading.
Twitter has been filled with tweets about midterms and midterm grading.  Of course this is probably a function of who I follow and who follows me. However, this talk about midterms has me thinking about the larger purpose of midterms and why my subjects have midterms. So why midterms?

Because I teach both at a university and at college the pedagogical purpose of my midterms is different for both of these institutions. For my college class the midterm serves mainly as an opportunity for students to continue to practice their writing and receive valuable feedback as they enter the second part of the term. What are they still having problems with? Have they mastered subject verb agreements? Is their thesis clear? Because a majority ( approximately 75%) of my college students are ELL learners, this is a very valid and necessary exercise. It also serves a secondary purpose of checking to see if they have done the readings. If they are not keeping up with the readings I need to alter my strategy going into the second part of the term.

For my university course the midterm serves a more all-encompassing purpose. I want to see if they have been keeping up with the readings, yes, but more directly I want to see if they understand how these readings relate to the bigger concepts and themes discussed in class over the first half of the term. It gets the students thinking and preparing for their first essay which is due next week.

The midterm in my university course also serves to reinforce basic MLA citation rules. Yes, I know it is mean to ask students to cite MLA from memory but I want to prepare these students for the advanced research they may do at graduate school or in the work place. It is all too easy to let the computer, or whatever software of our choice do the MLA for us. Usually this software of our choice does the citations incorrectly and then we have to go and manually fix them. If you do not know how to cite properly you will not even know your citations are incorrect. In an age of information overload, knowing where we found information and being able to accurately track it back to the source is key. Citations that lack key informational aspects (page numbers, urls, etc) means that tracing ideas back to source becomes difficult if not impossible.

The midterms for the subjects that I teach therefore work as a sort of vein diagram:

The comprehension and application of assigned reading remains a constant. I am truly interested in if the students are completing the readings and know how to apply it to the larger concepts of the course. However, the basic writing skills varies. For my College English class I expect error-free writing by the time the course is over, this includes proper grammar and structure. Their midterms might not be error-free but I can definitely see progress from the beginning of the year diagnostics. I also expect them to know MLA but I let them use a reference sheet. For my university class this need for error-free writing holds true as well but I expect this basic writing skill to include knowledge of MLA citation style, for this is an English class after all. (I have had this MLA discussion with many peers, should it be necessary? etc. I maintain that the best foundation I ever received in grad school was the mandatory Bibliography course for not only did it instill citation skills but also research skills and a knowledge of book history/culture).

 I see students at both institutions walking around this time of the year looking as though they need a good night's sleep and a nice home cooked meal. Midterms and midterm assignments have kept them up until the wee hours of the night and this is the time of year when September procrastination comes back to haunt you like a Dickens' character (Victorian references are necessary).  I certainly do not want to add to this large burden that my students carry, which is why I feel my midterms are more than fair if the student has indeed kept up and participated over the first seven weeks.

Finally, midterms are as much for me as they are for my students. Midterms allow me to readjust my teaching, to revisit concepts and see where the gaps exist. Midterms allow me to identify students that may need extra assistance and thus I can reach out to them, maybe suggest they visit office hours or even have a small email discussion.

So you  see midterms are not just about you, they are about me too. Sadly sometimes professors, teachers, and instructors forget this.

Good luck to students and instructors writing/grading midterms over the next week!