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Grading writing assignments
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Grade inflation continues to be of great concern to all of us. We have done our students a disservice by awarding them grades that are not reflective of their abilities or their work. The pressures on us to do this have come from many sources, and it is understandable that we have succumbed. Nevertheless, I believe that we should make renewed efforts to resist these pressures.
The average grade in MC102 should be a C. Most students should receive a C. A few will get B’s. The students who do the very best work on a consistent basis through the semester will receive an A.
That’s the easy part — saying it. How do we do it?
One approach is that we simply raise our standards for what is excellent, good and acceptable work. At the moment, I believe that it has been our tendency to give “acceptable” work an A; something not quite acceptable a B; and something far less than acceptable a C. And then you have to practically not show up to get a D or F.
I propose that we shift our thinking. The “acceptable” work from now on is a C. That is, when a student does what we ask in terms of writing with good grammar, correct spelling, adherence to style rules, and knowledge of the proper form — then that student gets a C. Even when you coach a student in class, the work that results from that coaching will net a grade of C. For the student who does not learn AP style rules, who uses bad grammar, who does not spell words correctly — that student should expect less than a C.
But what then is B-level work? Or even A-level work?
First of all, let me say that we should not expect that students, particularly in MC102, will do B-level work. And we should be genuinely surprised at the student who does A-level work. As I said, we must shift our thinking if we are going to raise our standards.
One way of defining B-level work is to say that it is work that is clearly superior to the work that all other students, particularly the C students as we have just defined them, are doing. The B student is advanced. That student exhibits a level of knowledge and performance that shows a clear understanding of the concepts and skills that we are attempting to teach in MC102. B-students are masters of the information about which they are writing. They are also masters of the form that we are teaching. Their work reveals that they have read newspapers and magazines and they have watched and listened to news broadcasts in the manner that we have urged upon them — critically and with intent. They turn in work that is not just technically superior but work that demonstrates this mastery.
And an A-student? To me, an A is synonymous with excellence. It is not just the student who has mastered the rules, the information and the form, but it is the student who shows spark and creativity. The A-student could probably write a short news story three different ways in one sitting, and they would all be very good. The A-student writes the lead paragraph that sparkles. The A-student develops a story in a logical manner where each part of the story is clearly related to a specific, fact-filled lead paragraph. The A-student has mastery over the language, the facts, and the form and has an understanding to present information in its proper context. The A-student is using all of his or her skill and knowledge in a truly superior and creative manner.
The concepts that I have outlined so far compel us to begin evaluation of our students at a different point from where we might normally begin. Let me put it this way: I think many of us start out by saying that a student has a perfect score unless we can prove otherwise. Consequently, we “take off” five points for a style error or 10 points for an error in grammar, or 30 points for a misspelled name. The assumption is that we are subtracting from 100. I believe that the assumption should be that we should be subtracting from 75 or even 70. We should add points when the student does more than simply do what we have asked him or her to do. That will not happen very often.
Another condition that we should recognize is that, as people who are charged with giving out grades, we must evaluate. And while we give numerical grades, we cannot always quantify every individual judgment that we make. In awarding grades on written assignments, you should make a judgment about the entire piece of writing. Even if every word is spelled correctly, every piece of punctuation in its proper place, every style rule observed, and every dictate of form carried out, the writing still may merit a C. In fact, it probably will merit a C. It’s got to do something more to merit a B or A.
A grade is not an award; it’s an evaluation. A grade says nothing about the character of our students, and it is not predicated on their willingness to work hard. (Certainly hard work and better-than-average grades are often correlated, but a grade is not solely an indication of hard work.) A grade is an evaluation of the work that a student turns in. We must start being more honest with our students in making those evaluations.
Jim Stovall