Red Marks Too Traumatizing When Grading Student's Papers - Its Purple Now

[matcom]

<snip>

When it comes to correcting papers and grading tests, purple is emerging as the new red.

"If you see a whole paper of red, it looks pretty frightening," said Sharon Carlson, a health and physical education teacher at John F. Kennedy Middle School in Northampton. "Purple stands out, but it doesn't look as scary as red."

That's the cue pen makers and office supply superstores say they have gotten from teachers as the $15 billion back-to-school retail season kicks off. They say focus groups and conversations with teachers have led them to conclude that a growing number of the nation's educators are switching to purple, a color they perceive as "friendlier" than red.

As a result, Paper Mate introduced purple to its assortment of blue, red, and green X-Tend pens and increased distribution of existing purple pens this school year. Barry Calpino, Paper Mate's vice president and general manager, estimated that the Bellwood, Ill., company boosted production of purple pens by at least 10 percent. He said purple will now be a standard color in all its new product lines.

Office superstores such as Staples and OfficeMax also are making a splash with purple pens, stocking more of them, adding purple to multicolor packs, and selling all-purple packs. By comparison, Staples did not stock any exclusively purple pen packs last year and it hardly had any purple pens in its stores two years ago, said Robert George, the Framingham chain's senior vice president of general merchandise. Now, he said, sales of purple pens are growing at a faster clip than pen sales overall

http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/articles/2004/08/23/harshness_of_red_marks_has_students_seeing_purple/

[Deja Q]

1. Okay, how about new traffic lights too:

Replace red with purple because it's oooooooooh, too scary.

Replace green for blue because blue is more soothing and less likely to cause people to gun their engines.

Replace yellow with infrared because when people see yellow, they really drive like maniacs to get past it. If they can't see it, they'll drive safely. :-)

[napi21]

2. What world are we preparing these students for?

I guess it's not the same one I live in. Sure, protect those kids for 12 or 16 years. Never make then feel sad, ahamed, embarrassed, or not as good as the next person, and make sure you tell them they're in for a great big shock when they get their first job!!!!

When was the last time your boss coddled your feelings when you screwed up? Sure never happened to me!

Life is harsh sometimes, and the younger you are when you find that out, the better you will be able to deal with it!

[NorthernSpy]

10. oh, brother...

:eyes:

The point of correction is to help the student learn the subject and to improve the quality of his work -- not to train him to accept humiliation as his rightful lot in life. If teachers would rather correct their students kindly and without the perceived stigma of a scarlet-lettered paper, just how is that any skin off your ass?


Mary

[JVS]

3. I had a prof who heard that and made positive comments in red

criticism was in green

[Book Lover]

4. Lame!

Crappy pedagogy, but great marketing, eh?

[lolly]

5. Eh, what's the diff?

I use red, purple, green. A comment is a comment and a grade is a grade, whatever color it's in.

Sounds more like a trend toward acknowledging teachers' individual tastes.

[Lavender Brown]

6. So now kids will learn to dread purple instead

:eyes:

[7th_Sephiroth]

8. they allready do

growing up with barney, and seeing that thing in matcoms sig

[Lavender Brown]

11. Oh THAT's why teachers want purple

to kill off Barney! :D

[Richardo]

7. May I be the first to say: "Oh brother."

The weenieing of America continues...

[BigMcLargehuge]

9. comments in regular old black are even scarier

no immediate visual reference that the teacher thinks you were dropped head-first down a flight of concrete steps as an infant. Just black scrawl...

This is is close... except it's all wrong...

this is way off... even my dog go this one... are you sure you are supposed to be in the class...

What the hell is this answer? There is no "D"... you're just making it up now...

IF I could grade you lower than an F I would

All in loopy handwritten ink...

[Surf Cowboy]

12. Fuck 'em if they can't take a little criticism.

If the kid isn't proficient at expressing himself on paper, make the shit bleed!! This is why kids today couldn't write themselves out of a wet paper sack. We're dumbing everything down all the time, then wondering where W gets all his votes...

[Davis_X_Machina]

13. This is frequently given....

...among the adaptations/modifications in a special education student's IEP.

My pet peeve is students that use red to take tests and quizzes in -- causing me to find a contrasting color to grade one paper out of dozens.

A rich fecal brown makes a certain kind of sense, come to think of it....

[ceile]

14. WTF? n/t