Sophia.org English Composition II -- Grader Experiences

[ashkir]

My first two English Composition II assignments came back. The feedback is way harsher then I expected. For one assignment, I used the same source, and the grader stated every single sentence must have a cite and knocked off 20 points because when describing the article, I was supposed to include the cite in "every single sentence."

She said I used the incorrect word choices and that they are "odd" but not "wrong" and took off 10 points because she literally wrote, "I don't like your choice of wording."

For the Outline portion, the grader is clearly biased against my topic and knocked off over half of it and claimed it was wrong. Also, she knocked off another 15 points for "missing an essay" to go with the Outline. I feel like the English Composition II grader doesn't even check the assignment requirements. 

I lost 5 points on each one for using Calibri and not Times New Roman.

What has been your experience with the grader?

[Lacedonia4]

Wow, that grading sounds excessive and unprofessional. Graders should not use personal bias against a topic, if you feel it was very unfair you can always ask someone else regrade it.

I took this course through SL not sophia. And the grading there seemed nice and fair.

[rachel83az]

Every single sentence? Like... "The sun is a star. (NASA, 2020) The sun sometimes has many sunspots while other times it is blank. (NASA, 2020) One day, we will have a colony on mars. (Elon Musk, 2019)" Really?

[ashkir]

Wow, that grading sounds excessive and unprofessional. Graders should not use personal bias against a topic, if you feel it was very unfair you can always ask someone else regrade it.

I took this course through SL not sophia. And the grading there seemed nice and fair.

I honestly feel like this. I sent their support a message. But, I doubt it'd get anywhere.

Every single sentence? Like... "The sun is a star. (NASA, 2020) The sun sometimes has many sunspots while other times it is blank. (NASA, 2020) One day, we will have a colony on mars. (Elon Musk, 2019)" Really?

That is how I took it. I might as well get Iron Sky and just use lines from every scene and cite it.

[TwinMom]

We've had similar experiences with both English 1 & 2. I have twins so have gotten lots of feedback. We've had comments like: you should have said x not y. When, in fact, they DID say x and not y. One grader would say: great to include the background info and the other would say: remove it-totally unnecessary. In one of the last essays the sentence ended with "deleterious consequences." The next sentence started with "These consequences include" and the remark was: "what consequences?" I feel like sometimes they just don't actually thoroughly read the essay. It's frustrating because you can't talk with the grader and find out what they are looking for. And we have found that we rarely get the same grader twice in a row or ever.
One of my sons did complain because their paper was picked apart like it was a technical writing course- not Engl. 101. He asked to never have that grader again. They wouldn't regrade it because it passed and didn't promise not to have the same grader but, fortunately, he didn't.
Just resubmit if it was a fail. They do have tutoring coaches (if the link is active) so that might help. Good Luck! Mine have one. last. excruciating. paper to go.

[ss20ts]

I have found the grading to be VERY inconsistent and I've had the same person for all of my Touchstones in Eng Comp II. I've been dragging my feet on this class because I dread the grading and am really sick of writing about these goofy articles they give us. Calibri is the default font on MS Word. Even APA 7 has opened up to additional fonts besides Times New Roman. They really need to get their act together when grading the touchstones. I wouldn't recommend Eng Comp II to anyone based on my experience. I've heard from others on here that it's much better on SL.

[eminor7]

I had the same experience too. The grader was really rude and gave conflicting feedback. I sympathize with all of you.

[ARhead]

I've had the same grader throughout Comp II and on a couple of the assignments literally everything she said was critical. On other assignments, everything she said was very positive. I personally would rather have very harsh grading in these introductory course rather than easy grading and then get to the capstone and get blasted for not knowing what the hell I'm doing. That's when it matters.
As an aside, I'd imagine endlessly grading these same assignments would get really sickening after a while, so if they have a bad day here and there it's not surprising.

[rpmranger]

I had one bad grader in Comp I. She was just flat out wrong on her comment and trashed my score for something that wasn't even in my paper. This is not my opinion, she was factually wrong. If this wasn't scored pass fail, I would never have let that go unchecked. In Comp II, I had a great experience. My grader throughout was hard but encouraging. He pushed me to write better. I would gladly take his feedback for any future writing projects. He was extremely helpful.

I do think they should give you the same grader throughout for consistency. Comp II was only one grader for me, which was much more helpful.

[ashkir]

So. I spent over a week working on my next essay. Before I sent it in, I sent it to someone who has a Masters in English and they teach it themselves before I got graded. It came back as a D-. I made all the corrections my friend who has a Masters whom teaches English Compostion at the college level.

Once again, her feedback was "Cite every line". She knocked off TWENTY POINTS for failure to do that. MAking it a D-. If I get one more D from her I'll fail the entire course.

I talked to Sophia, and they completely defended her actions.