Swapped Papers

From Sue Schmitt, an English teacher at Antioch Community High School in Antioch, Illinois:

"On the day that my students turn in a major paper, I have a mini-conference with each of them as they hand in the paper. I check to see that the paper has al of the required elements. This takes just a minute or two because I skim the paper. As I spot any problems, I tell the student about what I see that could be done better. I tell the sutdents that their is in on time and I will accept it, but they can swap me a corrected copy the next day if they want to fix the things that I noticed needed correcting. Ninety percent of my students bring in a paper to swap the next day. I love this because they do a rewrite even before I have put a pencil to their papers. When I do grade them, they are easier to correct because the obvious prolems are no longer present. The students are happy because their grade are based on the swapped paper, not hte one that came in the first day."