Re: Eric and Fred's ideas on grading

["B. Silk" <bsilk@titan.iwu.edu>]

On grading:  If I were Empress of Education (a job currently held by an
Iowan, I believe), at the end of my writing course I would hand the
students a packet of sample essays from the courses of the better teachers
in the university (in the B and C grade range, mostly) and tell them that
this is level of work that will be expected of them from now on.  Then I 
would ask them if they can produce this level of work.  If they say 
"yes," then they would have to tell me (in writing, of course) 
SPECIFICALLY why they think they can produce the same kind of writing (or 
better) they see in the packet and EXACTLY what their process might be in 
doing this.  

I've done something mildly similar to this in class and I've been
fascinated by how many students have a good grasp of the weaknesses in
their own writing processes and the quality of their products.  Of course,
if the students are honest, very few will pass themselves after only 15
weeks or so of intensive writing development.  These students would
recognize that they need more work, as do almost all students I've
encountered.  Even the ones who write "right" often do so intuitively
rather than consciously, which diminishes their ability to be consistent 
or to meet unusual writing challenges.

Certainly our traditional, authority-driven, exclusionary system of
education is revealed in our judgmental process of grading.  It's a system
which discourages a student's intrinsic motivation for learning and which
encourages a "paper chase" concept of education and learning.  It also
discourages self-awareness and self-evaluation while encouraging students
NOT to take responsibility for their own learning.  It's a lot easier to 
blame the teacher for being arbitrary when the student doesn't have to 
perform any self-evaluation.

In our current system we make "good writing" a hoop to jump through--not a
means of encountering the world.  Even though some WAC programs have been
conceived to conceptually as well as materially eliminate the fyc "hoop,"
the concept and facilitation of writing has not changed (at least not for
the better).  In the academic world, writing assignments are still just so
many grade hurdles for the student whether or not the system includes
"writing across the curriculum"--because our colleagues in any discipline
still consider writing a transparent skill or "tool" rather than a
two-part thinking/communicating process. 

But I'm back on my hobby horse again--with a few burrs under the saddle 
from last semester.  Hmmmmm.  Am I the horse or rider?

  --Bobbie Silk


On Tue, 2 Jan 1996, Neal Lerner wrote:

> On Tue, 2 Jan 1996, Lynne Belcher wrote, in part:
> > If there are no grades, how are those hard decisions made 
> > about who is really to move on and who isn't?
> 
> Lynne, I just finished up a semester teaching a writing class in such a 
> program.  The idea is that students are fulfilling various 
> "competencies," several of which are writing related.  In my class, 
> students were to produce a single research paper by semester's end, which 
> I then evaluated in terms of whether the paper met a certain level of 
> achievement.  While I always have some fears that my own standards are 
> products of ideosyncratic judgment or unexamined ideology, I did sit down 
> with a senior colleague beforehand to get a sense of "norms."  If 
> students' papers haven't fulfilled the competency, they keep working on 
> them, resubmitting until they've met the standard.  Perhaps not a perfect 
> system, but one I found much better than the usual carrot and stick.
> 
> 	Neal Lerner (watching the New Year's snow pile up in Boston)
> 	nlerner@acs.bu.edu
>  
> > If peer tutors can be good tutors without being great writers, why 
> > can't writing teachers be good teachers without being great writers?
> > 
> > Lynne Belcher
> > Southern Arkansas University
> >  
> > 
> > 
>