What about When the ABCs Fail?

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         Most of the articles I have encountered in my search to improve my knowledge of grading systems have stressed why traditional grades do not work.  So, I looked for an article that suggested a solution and found “A Simple Alternative to Grading” by Glenda Potts. 

        She said she was inspired to research and write the article because she felt that she put more effort into grading her student’s composition papers than they put into writing them.  Potts notes that in recent years educators have looked for other ways to assess students because the letter grades merely rank students instead of fostering learning. 

      Potts says she switched to contract grading—a system where each assignment is accompanied by a description of behaviors and tasks and the corresponding grade for each level of effort.  The idea behind contract grading is that instead of trying to rank quality of writing, the contract will inspire students to perform tasks that will result in learning (31). 

            I really liked this article and the contract system that it suggests.  I was at first skeptical, thinking that if a student turns in ninety percent of assignments they receive an A, even if they are not quality work.  However, what I found useful was that each assignment has minimum criterion; this means that if each student completes every assignment at the satisfactory level they will earn a C and not an A. 

           I also liked that assignments are returned to the students marked “Accepted,” for work that meets standards; “Revise,” for work that needs improved content or clarity; and “Edit,” for work with grammatical or formatting issues.  Finally, students who want an A or a B are required to complete an extra paper or project to separate themselves from the average students.

            I was still a little skeptical about this method, until I read the note that said that the National Council of Teachers of English endorses the contract system over traditional systems.  Also, Potts revealed that she recorded traditional grades for assignments and found that contract grades were overwhelmingly the same as the traditional grades.  The students who would have earned Bs but opted out of the additional assignment and earned Cs were the only exceptions to the accurate grades. 

        Finally, what sold this method to me was the fact that Potts said she spent less time grading and more time helping her students learn and improve their writing skills.

Work Cited:

Potts, Glenda. “A Simple Alternative to Grading.” Inquiry 15.1 (2010): 29-42.
          ERIC. Web. 10 Feb. 2011.

Avoiding the Goose Egg and Motivating Students

     The article I read this week addressed the issues of social promotion and minimum grading practices before college.  Prior to reading this article I had no idea what the term social promotion meant.  During my reading, I discovered that in America, around the 1830s, students were taken out of the one large classroom and divided by age into separate grades.  Until the Cold War, the main point of students attending school was socialization, and students were “socially” promoted into the age appropriate grade despite academic performance (Carifio, Carey 222).  After Russia’s launch of Sputnik, American educational priorities demanded academic achievement, especially in mathematics.  By 1998, President Clinton announced the end of social promotion and the beginning of standards based promotion (222-23).  While I see the reason behind ending social promotion, I do not think it should have been ended without extensive funding to support the children who do fail grades.

            So, what does social promotion have to do with grading practices?  Well, recently funding has been cut from many programs which helped failing students.  Teachers have attempted to replace these programs by offering “alternative” grading practices.  Minimum grading is a policy that prevents assigning a student less than a predetermined percentage (usually fifty to seventy percent).  Zeros aren’t permitted, or ZAP, requires students to make up low or incomplete work until a achieving a passing grade.  Critics have said that these strategies reward lazy students and essentially reinstate social promotion, while promoters of these practices say that they encourage students who have one bad grade to not feel overwhelmed and dropout (225).  I think these programs are superior to social promotion because to succeed a student must at least make an effort after the initial failure.  Also, because these practices take extra effort from the teachers to motivate the students I believe that, as long as they are applied consistently, they are a sufficient substitute to the programs that have lost funding.  Really though it seems that the answer is to provide more funding to help failing students or perhaps pay teachers more if they work after school with failing students.

            These practices are interesting because they could also be applied by a college professor to motivate a student who did not turn in a major assignment.  An incomplete work policy similar to the ZAP program could be worked into a college syllabus.  However, I do not think this is fair to students who turn in their work on time.  The minimum grade practice does not seem transferrable to the college level and in this scenario actually would reward minimal effort.  Another factor to consider is that in America eighteen-year-old college freshmen are adults and therefore responsible for their own academic performance. 

            In general, it seems that designing a college syllabus with minimum grading practices is not plausible.  However, providing the option to drop the lowest of a series of grades is certainly viable in college and offers flexibility for students facing difficult learning, work, or home situations.    

Work Cited:  

Carifio, James, and Theodore Carey. “Do Minimum Grading
             Practices Lower Academic Standards and Produce
             Social Promotions?” Educational Horizons 88.4
            (2010): 219. Academic OneFile. Web. 2 Feb. 2011.