Feedback to my Honors students on their Critical Essays

I've completed grading your Critical Essays and sent each of you an edited copy with comments. I'm pleased to report the quality of your work on the assignment was very good, making the reading enjoyable and earning a grade ranging from 9.0 and 10.0 for every paper. Areas of improvement were almost entirely in the mechanics of writing and not in the quality of critical thinking. My grading philosophy for writing assignments places the highest weight on 1) the quality of thinking and 2) strength of argument (presenting valid evidence with sound logic to support your assertions and conclusions). The stylist and aesthetic quality of the prose, which is somewhat more subjective to evaluate yet is a powerful factor in the impact of ones writing, is given a lower weight; while, the technical fundamentals (spelling, grammar, efficiency of expression, and word usage), although the elements that may be evaluated most objectively, get the lowest weight. Nevertheless, developing strong fundamental writing skills is essential to having the maximum impact on the target audience, so it is very important to work diligently on improving in any weak areas you may have. Thus, most of the red ink on your papers was devoted to the fundamentals. (Some of you apparently didn't run a spell check before submitting. That's the first thing I did after turning on "Track Changes," so I would urge you to beat me to the punch next time out.)