I do not give large grades for journal
assignments. What I tend to do is to read the assignment and make
sure that the students grasped the main points that I targeted for them
and then tally the ideas to give them a score out of 10.
In this particular assignment, I wanted to make sure that they had considered the human perspective of evacuation. I wanted them to put themselves in the place of the citizens of Montserrat, how would they feel if they were forced from their homes for days, weeks, months, even years?Next, I wanted them to discuss some of the volcanic activity on Montserrat and what type of damage was sustained during the ash falls, the pyroclastic flows, etc... If they mentioned things like Old Towne or Plymouth they received additional credit.