Contexts and Criteria for Evaluating Student Writing 

Of all responsibilities you have as a composition instructor, evaluating student writing occupies most of your time and has furthest reaching material effects. Though you may spend lots of hours preparing for class, conferencing with your students, and actually teaching, chances are you'll spend many more grading. Though we instructors often place the highest value on the content and methods of our classrooms--be they critical pedagogy and Marxist interpretations of Clinton's impeachment trials or traditional grammar drills and a New Critical reading of Paradise Lost, the grades that we assign our students are the only concrete, as well as the most valuable, cultural capital that our teaching creates.

Hindman, Jane. Lore (2001). Articles>Education>Writing>Rhetoric