A Foot in Each

I have been reading about grades, grading procedures, and standards for the past several months. The consensus from all the reading: we are getting it wrong. Yet the suggestions for repairs are widely varied and far from agreed upon. Even so, I have committed to trying some of the ideas to discover the impact in my classroom.  But that commitment has caused me to feel as though I have one foot in each realm: the traditional and the standards-based.  While these realms can and do work together, the transition I am in right now is causing me to feel torn between the two as I reconcile how they fit.  I want grades to be a reflection of learning (not compliance), but the grade in my classes is interpreted as more than just information about learning.

First, I have eliminated reduced grades for late work. Instead, I am forcing kids to come in during what is typically a free period for most seniors. I do this through our weekly eligibility--and taking away their senior privileges. The method is somewhat effective. Some students have already lost privileges because of low grades in other classes, so these students aren't motivated by this.  However, the vast majority is.  I have shifted my focus on the deadline to the responsibility of completing the work.  And students seem to be responding.  As with everything, there are a few students who don't want to do the work.  Period.  But most do--I think they want to show me what they are capable of, and I know they don't want to continue spending unnecessary time with me.

The second important change I have made is in creating standards-based rubrics for writing assignments.  Writing is part craft and part technical skill.  Merging these two in a rubric is challenging; further, it is difficult to explain the subjective craft of writing at different levels of proficiency.  Simply put, some students already far out-pace their classmates when it comes to craft.  These students are naturally gifted with words, but that doesn't mean that they cannot improve.  I am beginning to think I need a rubric for the varying levels of talent--and that just sounds like a nightmare.  I compare it to a music teacher having a student in class who is a prodigy.  The music teacher can't really use the same set of standards for that student that the teacher would use for others.  But how would that look? I know I would have been upset if I hadn't been given the "high-level" rubric. Additionally, I need to examine the writing of students with writing/reading disabilities differently than other students.  I wouldn't want those students to feel as though they are not good enough if they somehow learn they have a separate rubric.  So the practicality of this is a struggle.

But what I have noticed is that students appreciate the specific feedback the rubric can provide.  They can easily see the area in which they struggled or excelled in that particular assignment.  The students also know ahead of time what the "I can" statements are that are associated with the assignment as well as the levels of proficiency.  I think (I hope) this takes some of the mystery out of the assessment process for them.  I know I often wondered how a professor or teacher arrived at a particular letter grade for a writing assignment.

These two significant changes have highlighted other issues though.  Many of my graded assignments are still very traditional.  They are practice for the technical skills of writing: grammar, usage, mechanics, organization, etc.  If I didn't include these assignments in the overall grade--if I only used summative assessments as is suggested in several sources--the quarterly grades for almost all of my students would have been much lower.  So having a foot in the standards-based world has presented other challenges.

Because our culture expects traditional letter grades, I am trying to figure out how both sides can be satisfied.  Letter grades for seniors can affect scholarship awards and college admissions.  I still don't see how to blend the two--traditional grades and standards-based--for certain populations.  In addition, because several students take my class as a dual-credit option, their letter grades follow them for the foreseeable future on their official college transcript. That is an important issue that would need to be addressed before I can feel completely comfortable with standards-based grading.

Are grades a reflection of learning?

The inspiration for this month’s blog occurred Sunday night at about 10p.m. while I sat on the floor of my daughter’s bedroom—frustrated, sad, angry, and disillusioned.  Why the extreme emotions?  Why as I sat on the floor?  Just…why?

Annika is a pretty good reader.  She isn’t a fast reader, and neither am I, but she is a good reader.  She understands what she reads and can ask some good questions about the material once she is done.  Because she reads well, she has to meet an Accelerated Reader goal that is challenging.  Unfortunately, though, she doesn’t see this as an opportunity or an achievement; she sees it as a task—a job to be completed.  The joy of reading and losing herself in a book has been stripped by the demand to read books that add up to a certain number of points.  Her perspective has been changed by the grade attached to the assignment.

She started reading one of her American Girl books on Sunday afternoon.  A few pages into the book, she stopped, looked up the book on AR, and decided to quit reading then and there even though she had been enjoying the story.  Why?  Because the book wasn’t “worth enough points” in her estimation.  She didn’t see the value in reading a book that she felt didn’t help her reach her goal for the quarter quickly.  While I acknowledge that we all need to determine the value of continuing with a project, why are we quietly encouraging our students to only do a task if there is a reward or grade attached?  Why are we educating them out of learning?

Kids are naturally inquisitive; they want to learn.  But at some point in their educational lives, they lose that natural desire, and I believe they do so because they are more concerned about the grade than they are about the learning.  I have had seniors say, “Just tell me what I need to do to get an A.  I don’t care about anything else.”  Really?

So what do we do as classroom teachers and school leaders?  How do we put the learning back in education?

I believe standards based grading will help, but that alone doesn’t inspire inquisitiveness.  Problem-based learning is another methodology for which I have high hopes.  PBL allows students to demonstrate their learning through projects that they develop based on the objectives needing to be reached or the problem needing to be solved.  But like I discussed in the last blog, the true shift occurs in the whole paradigm of how schools grade and how society wants schools to grade.

The other idea that holds promise for me and could potentially bridge this gap is explained on pages 65 and 66 of Reeves’ book, Elements of Grading.  Here, he explains that assessments of standards can be converted into grades using a three-, four-, or five-point scale.  I especially appreciate his explanation of letter grades:

A=At least four assessments with a final score of 4 and two assessments with a final score of at least 3

B=At least four assessments with a final score of at least 3 and two assessments with a final score of at least 2

                C=At least three assessments with a final score of at least 3 (66).

I can easily see how I can convert this into something useable for essays, particularly if I break down the elements of the essay into separate assessments.  For example, I can assess structure and grammar; organizational techniques; content; and diction/voice separately and convert that to one grade.  This would also, hopefully, help students see which part of the essay needs improvement.  It won’t be perfect, but like a methods professor often told us: “If we had found the perfect method, we would be using it by now.  Until then, we have to keep working at it.”

 

While this concept of converting to standards based grading and blending it with traditional reporting methods isn’t without its pitfalls, it certainly is worthy of experimentation.  I am looking forward to the chance to examine the possibilities with student scores when I “play” with my gradebook this summer.  I want to see how these shifts affect real kids in real situations before I implement them in the classroom.

Grades need to assess learning.  (And a student who doesn’t turn in an assignment isn’t demonstrating learning.) I have become a firm believer in this statement while I acknowledge that making that shift in reality is challenging.  But I know it is essential to move toward a better system for everyone, including Annika.

The Culture of Grades and Changing the Solar System

 

              Our society expects it: when children go to school, they are graded in return for completed assignments.  Our college and university system demands it: the performance of a student is reduced to the numbers of GPA, class rankings, and test scores.  If secondary schools were to change its system of showing assessment of students, society would notice, and the feedback would undoubtedly be all over the media.  So why now?  I think schools are facing tremendous scrutiny from everywhere, so all parts of the system are under examination.  Tradition is no longer a good enough reason to continue our practices, but neither is it acceptable to change without a clear understanding of what our purpose, goals, and expectations are.

                When I begin class in the fall, I explain to the seniors who have elected to take our dual credit/college preparatory English class that, "Every essay you write begins at a C."  Inevitably, the looks on some of the faces range from relieved to terrified.  But let me explain as I try to do with them.

1.  I want the students to focus on the feedback I write on their rough drafts and use that to improve their writing.  That is my primary focus each year: improvement of current skills.  I try to work with each student to make him/her a more focused, organized, technically stronger writer before college.

2.  If I graded each paper comparatively--that is, comparing what one student writes with what another writes--I would "give" A's to the same students who have always received them and C's to the weaker writers.  I don't think that's fair.  I try diligently not to compare students' essays.  I only assess based on what I believe that student is capable of producing.

3.  Now, that last sentence is sticky.  What if that student that I am pushing to do better simply can't?  I have students write several short, less intense essays at the beginning of the year (I call them responses) so I can get a feel for how each student writes.  (And don't tell them, but they basically get points for getting it done according to directions--nothing else.)  I couldn't have done this when I started my career; I simply didn't have the experience or knowledge of student writing that I do now.

4.  Finally, I want the student to focus on improvement--not the grade.  And therein lay the struggle.  Kids, and occasionally their parents, want the grade.  I find that students who are inordinately focused on the grade are typically the students who are at the top of their class with perfect or nearly perfect 4.0 GPA's.  Their focus has been removed from the learning.  

                So, back to that C on the essay...what I explain after I talk about the value of feedback and the overall goal of improvement is that an A signifies excellence, superiority, and perfection.  Writing is nearly always imperfect because it is subjective.  I have to give a letter grade, or at least a percentage which is translated into a letter grade, so I do.  A student who demonstrates several strong elements beyond what I expect of him/her moves up from that C; a student who doesn't meet my expectation of him/her moves down.  In nearly every case of a student who ends up with a grade below a C, he/she admits to not spending much time on the writing, not following directions, or not focusing on my feedback.

                The problem about this approach should be obvious: it is all about me.  It is all based upon what I think.  What I judge a student to be capable of.  What I value as a composition teacher.  Standards based grading may alleviate some of that, but not all.  As someone who has been examining and discussing the new Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts, there is very little about what "good" writing looks like.  The elements included in the standards can certainly be added to the current curriculum, but they don't really help anyone assess more fairly or effectively.  That still comes down to me.

                I work hard to give my students valuable feedback during the writing process.  I can respond during writing, after a rough draft, during revision, and after the final.  By the time I read the final draft, I may have read a piece of writing a minimum of 3 times.  However, there are always those students who don't have anything on paper until the day the rough draft is due.  I don't read those essays nearly as much.  Do they deserve less feedback simply because they don't participate in the process like others?  Is their writing somehow less important?  And what if they don't turn in a rough draft at all?  Should I put a zero in the grade book or should I call that their "choice"?

                And the kicker for me: what about the student who doesn't turn in a final draft on time?  Does he or she deserve to be punished for not following the schedule?  (A schedule that is determined with their input!)  I have a really difficult time justifying the same grade for the student who does what is asked of them when it is asked as the student who does the work a week later than everyone else.  How is that fair to the 30 or 40 students who did the work on time?  Sometimes there are extenuating circumstances, but sometimes there aren't.  I wonder what the other 40 students would say if we asked them this question.

                I understand what the theorists and researchers say, but I also understand what I believe society expects of schools.  I would like every kid to learn the skills and concepts and have that learning reflected in a grade, but I also know that changing the culture of grading is a bit like asking the sun to come up in the west.  So how about it, sun?  If schools can change, so can you!