How to Grade Class Papers as a College Teacher Assistant

If you are a college student, you might want to consider becoming a teacher assistant for a professor for a college class. Being a teacher assistant is a lot of fun; you just have to make sure that you have a good relationship with a professor and you like the subject material being taught.

In order to become a teacher assistant, you must first do well academically in a particular. Fro most classes, in order to become a Teacher Assistant you will have needed to have gotten an "A" or "A-" in the class. Usually anything less than that you are ineligible to be a Teacher Assistant for that class. It also doesn't hurt to have developed a relationship with a professor in that class. For example, did you go to that professor's office hours? Did you participate frequently in that class? Did the professor get to learn your name? These are all important things that can help you gain the position of a Teacher Assistant.

If you work hard enough and are lucky enough to get accepted as a Teacher Assistant there are a few tips that you can use to become successful at it. First, you want to make sure to know your expectations from the professor. You should find out whether or not you will be graded by the professor. For some Teacher Assistant (TA) positions, you will be expected to write several papers for that professor in addition to grading class papers. For other professors, you won't receive a grade but you will receive course credit. Usually for those classes you will be expected to grade papers and research class assignments and current events for the professor.

In terms of grading papers, you should find out as much information about how to grade the class papers. Remember, each professor has their own distinct way of grading and no two professors grade the same. I strongly recommend that before you start grading any papers, you should sit down with the professor, perhaps several times in fact, and go over the correct answer for each question. Some tests or essays may have only one correct answer; therefore those will be the easiest to grade. However, whenever partial credit is involved, it gets rather tricky, especially if you have to take into account how many points off you take for a partially correct answer or if the student did not answer the question in its entirely.

Essays, position papers or research papers you may find to actually be easier to grade then some tests. Depending on the class, spelling, punctuation, grammar, and content are the most important factors. Sometimes the professor will want students to have very specific guidelines for papers such as word count, a minimum or maximum page length, a cover page, works cited or reference page, a table or chart included, etc. Depending on your grading rubric that you should have discussed with the professor, you will need to take off a certain amount of points if this information is missing. There really isn't any exact way of grading papers or exams; you just need to develop a feel for it in accordance with what you think the professor would give it.

Finally, you should have some kind of common sense that if you know a student or several students in the class, you give the paper or exam to the professor to grade so that there isn't a conflict of interest because you are friends with that person.