by GABRIELLE LENSCH PLASTRIK
At the end of my second year of teaching, I was asked to do some research on why so many freshmen were failing English. The results were fairly predictable: most of the kids were either not doing their homework and failing or not coming to class and failing. This led to a discussion among the administrators and teachers about whether or not it was actually okay to enter zeroes into the grade book.
The assistant principal in charge of English claimed that if 100% is the best grade a student can receive, a 50%, the bottom of the letter grade scale, ought to be the worst that a student could do. She said that it was almost impossible to recover from zeroes, but not fifties. This led me to do further research on grading systems.
Somewhere in my research, and I apologize profusely for not having the source for this because I have looked extensively and have not been able to find any information on the original author, I came across a chapter of a book on assessment that suggested the flaw with grades is not the number so much as the system. The author observed that most teachers grade with categories such as “tests and quizzes,” “homework,” “participation,” “in-class work,” etc. We divide our grades by the type of assignment. This was certainly true for me as a teacher. It had been true when I was a student. The author’s argument was that teachers ought to group grades by the skill they assess.
My third year, I implemented this idea with the following grading categories: Ideas and Analysis, Reading Comprehension and Content Knowledge, Organization of Ideas, Creativity and Voice, Discussion Preparation, Participation, Grammar and Mechanics, Progress toward Goals and Improvement, and Timeliness. I took these categories largely from Spandel’s six traits system for assessing writing, which I had been using for my writing rubrics since I learned about the six traits in graduate school.
I explained it to the kids on the first day of class. They were confused. I brought them a sample assignment and showed them how a major paper would have six grades on it. A smaller assignment might only have two or three. I asked them to give it a try for a quarter. After the first progress report, they said that it made sense. They liked that when they looked at their grade print-outs, they would see if they were falling short in ideas or organization, that they could keep track of their improvement in each of these skill categories, and that the system matched the major paper rubric that I use.
One of the most controversial aspects of this system is the timeliness grade. Every assignment has one. The philosophy behind the timeliness grade is that lateness does not represent a student’s inability to excel in English, it represents a student’s inability to excel at turning assignments in on time. At the end of the first quarter, this was the only part of the grading system that the students questioned. Some of them thought that it was unfair that they always did their work on time while others did it one or two days late fairly regularly. They wanted a bigger penalty for those students who were frequently tardy. I explained my philosophy over and over again, but they still felt that timeliness should matter more than it did. This year, I made the penalties for lateness much greater and also explained the policy to parents at back to school night. All of this seems to have helped considerably or my students are just less interested in what their classmates are doing this year.
Overall, I am much happier with this new grading system. It makes parent-teacher conferences much easier because the grades show the analytical break down of what a traditional grade would be. Mostly, though, the system helps the kids learn, and I feel like grades matter more as a learning tool now than as a means of judgment. Kids eventually give up the need to know if they would have gotten an “A,” and they compare themselves with their peers less because the system is more complicated. Grades have become a tool for individual improvement, and that is what they ought to be.
Gabrielle teaches English and Drama at a school for gifted students in Madison, WI.
Hi Gabrielle,
I’m a high school English teacher who traveled a similar path at a similar time. I think the reference you might be missing above could be “Classroom Assessment and Grading That Work” by Robert Marzano. I re-categorized my gradebook by following CA standards – Reading, Writing, Listening, Speaking – and added Student Skills, and a final exam grade. Looking further ahead, I’m thinking I might need to break those categories into more parts. Always a work in progress, but like you, I think this is movement in the right direction. Improved clarity, logic, motivation, focused feedback.
Thanks . . .that source sounds right.
Did your students take a little while to adjust, too?
Thanks for posting,
Gabrielle
That isn’t the source–I looked it up. The source I used was from a college teacher’s perspective, not a k-12 teacher’s. It was also not that recent, but something in the title of the book you cited sounded really familiar to me.
Gabrielle, this is very interesting. I like what you are trying to do. I’ve been thinking about whether and how rubrics are useful. For instance, last year in English my daughter turned in an essay assignment that was, essentially, written to the rubric–make 3 main points, check for grammar and spelling, give a certain amount of background, etc.–all of which she did. And for that work, she got an A+. The thing is, that neither she nor I thought it was A+ work. Her A+ work is so much better than what she turned in, it is a whole different order of magnitude.
Maybe her teacher was just checking for those specific things, not a finished whole. I’ve known teachers who told students that 80% of their grade would be paragraph structure in a given paper.
It’s great that your daughter can go beyond her teacher’s expectations.
My rubric isn’t a checklist, though, and I seldom grade for just a few items. Mine is more of a needs much more help, beginning, developing, beginning to master, and mastering sort of rubric. The categories that an analytical essay is graded by are ideas and analysis, organization of ideas, voice, word choice and sentence fluency, grammar and mechanics, and reading comprehension.
That’s interesting that lots of kids wanted higher penalties against kids who got their work in late…as one of the latter category, sometimes it feels like I did a good job writing the paper, I just didn’t do a good job managing my time–like you said, my ability to get stuff in on time needed work more than my paper writing skill. I guess if kids thought people were being late on purpose to get extra time to write their essay…I’m not sure how common that really is, though.
Do you leave all the grades separate or put down a cumulative one as well?
They could technically figure out the cumulative one, but I do not do that for them and this late in the year, none of them do either. Occasionally they do with the first paper. The system really de-emphasizes the “I need to have an A” mentality.
As a 30+ year teacher and the parent of two boys with ADD, who both got perfect scores on their SAT’s, I know that timeliness can be a problematic area in grading. It doesn’t always reflect degree of effort or actual work done (too much or too little.) I agree that it should be a small part of the overall grade and like the way you describe your system. Often the only way my sons could get past their blocks was to hit that deadline. My oldest struggled at Brown at first but eventually found his system for getting things done and meeting deadlines. It had little to do with intelligence, motivation or ability. It was discouraging for both boys in HS to get bad grades on good work just because they missed a deadline, but they also had to learn that some deadlines simply can’t be missed.
What a great idea. I hate grading and feel like many times a grade does not reflect my students accurately. They can get an A without any long lasting lesson learned and get a D but be able to engage in quality analysis. I am thinking how I could take what you have done and roll into a social science format. Are each of your catagories worth an equal share, or do you move around the percentages of the total grade?
I hope I survive the pink slip plague to try it next year.
Ms. C,
My categories are not all weighted the same way. Ideas and Organization are weighted much more heavily than timeliness and creativity because I spend a lot more class time on analysis. I can send you the exact breakdowns if you want.