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.
