Good Ink For Grading Papers?

[Scriptorium Pens]

Most of the time I just used whatever colors I had my daily carry of 8 pens filled with. As long as it contrasted with the students' ink, it made no difference to me. I love different colors, and let my kids write in any color they chose, as long as it was dark enough for me to read it. That said, I did often use these three for fun:

 

Diamine Oxblood

Noodler’s Dragon’s Napalm (I always kept a bottle on my desk. The kids had no idea what Napalm was.)

De Atramentis Patchouli (It smelled great, and helped make the grading process a bit more enjoyable.)

Unless it was my AP class, most kids didn't care about comments. They only wanted to know how many mistakes they made and what the final grade was.

[aardvarkbark]

Another vote for Diamine Red Dragon. I also use it for holiday card notes.

[chromantic]

Well, I'll pimp Diamine Wild Strawberry, nice and vibrant.

[mke]

> Patchouli

The smell of the 1970s.

[BDarchitect]

I'll add my thoughts from a slightly different but similar purpose. I use red inks to mark up architectural drawings, which these days are all printed with black toner ink on white copier paper ("blueprints" are ancient history). I need my comments to stand out so they can be picked up for correction and I prefer inks that don't bleed or feather on copier paper. I've tried Diamine Red Dragon, Oxblood, and Matador, which other replies have mentioned, as well as Sailor Storia Fire Red, and Platinum Pigmented Rose Red, and while they all have their merits they didn't quite hit the mark for me. I have come to the following three inks as my go-to for corrections and markups:

DeAtramentis Document Red, which has the added benefit of being indelible so it won't come off with water or other chemicals.

Graf von Faber Castell India Red, which I believe is also water resistant.

Pilot Iroshizuku Bishamonten, which I have currently loaded in my correction pen and quite love the color it dries to.

[inkandseeds]

In the past, I used Noodlers Nikita and Diamine Poppy. Now, I mostly use Noodlers Baystate Blue as it stands out more in my opinion and makes it hard for students to miss my comments, corrections, etc.

[CJH111]

I usually use some kind of orange because it still pops on the page, but it looks less intimidating than red. Right now I'm using Iroshizuku Yu-yake.

[essayfaire]

I like Pilot yama-budo as it stands out but isn't quite as dispiriting as red.

[empliau]

I like Pilot yama-budo as it stands out but isn't quite as dispiriting as red.

My sibling! And I love your username.

[essayfaire]

My sibling! And I love your username.

Thanks! I hadn't read your response when I replied to the thread; I was just adding my opinion. Now I feel as if I were a bit redundant.

[Guardy]

I actually pondered before how Rohrer & Klingner Morinda would make a lovely grading ink. It's bright enough to stand out and look like a proper grading ink, and subdued enough to still be pretty and not too aggressive.

 

Whatever you do, please don't use Pelikan brilliant red. Take pity on your poor students.

[empliau]

Thanks! I hadn't read your response when I replied to the thread; I was just adding my opinion. Now I feel as if I were a bit redundant.

Not at all. Yama-budo needs more love around here! Plus I like to know I'm not the only one. I used Pelikan Violet for many years, and then just felt one day like trying something new. Several years later, here I am ...

[henkm]

I add another vote for Diamine Wild Strawberry. Though do take care that water resistance is absent to the point that students can probably sneeze it off the page. (suits me fine, last week my marking pen uncapped itself in my shirt pocket)

[kingcobradude]

Diamine red luster could be good, red with a gold shimmer. Or colorverse felicette is a nice red

[countrydirt]

Well, since school started back for me this past week, I decided to start with Noodler's Operation Overlord Orange. I'll likely fill a pen with Antietem tomorrow to take in this week. I don't have any actual red inks.

[essayfaire]

I've discovered another that is a bit warmer than red, going towards the browns: Diamine Cherry Sunburst. It will be my backup if I ever run out of yama-budo.

[katerchen]

I'm this close (holding up thumb and index finger) to buy a bottle of Monteverde Ruby

 

With that said, these days I do my markups mostly with these:

 

[inkstainedruth]

I'll admit that I don't understand the attitude of "Oh, we can't hurt their little feelings and use red for markup". What are we going to do next? Change the color of stop signs?

Sorry if this is a non-PC statement. But I just spent several hours over at a friend's house. She teaches 7th grade science and health in probably the worst school district in the county. She had her jaw dislocated several years ago from breaking up a fight between two students (apparently the GIRL threw the first punch) and said that another teacher was recently injured in a similar dust-up (the district is now calling them "altercations" because that way the police -- and the state Board of Education --don't get called in...). She has to buy her own supplies because the school district built a new high school and elementary school that the district couldn't afford (and they have laid off some teachers). Her district is the one that gets a lot of the kids that are kicked out of other school districts (especially Pittsburgh Public Schools) and she thinks that they may be laying off classroom aides while increasing the number of students per class (especially special needs students). My friend is lucky if she gets students to learn ANYTHING. My husband and I keep trying to convince her that she should be looking elsewhere for a job (and have been doing so since the incident where she got her jaw dislocated....

And people are wringing their hands because students might get their feelings hurt if a teacher doesn't use pink or orange or green ink to correct spelling mistakes or math errors? Yeesh....

Red ink was used for the SAME reason that stoplights and stopsigns are red. It's VISIBLE.... I gave a bottle of Platinum Mix-free Flame Red away because I thought the color was hideous (but bright) -- the stuff looked like the old Mecurachrome my mom used to paint on my skinned knees when I was little. I gave it to a guy in my pen club who is a math professor, for him to grade tests with.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

.

[silverlifter]

I'll admit that I don't understand the attitude of "Oh, we can't hurt their little feelings and use red for markup". What are we going to do next? Change the color of stop signs?

 

I have been similarly bemused. Red, for my generation at school in the 1960s/70's was used for correction, ie., to indicate that you made an error. It wasn't something that people needed to be cushioned from. In fact, the only way to learn is to have someone point out your mistakes. This was what was quaintly referred to as "teaching".

[stenolearner]

De atramentis Document red is good for dealing with all sorts of paper. It's also waterproof, so nobody can tamper with their grades!