Grades and the Great Psyche-out

Okay I think I get the real reason we need to grade, and grade tough. Taco Fighter Talk was writing about a phenomenon in his class whereby "A" students were getting the "A" too easily on their written work. Therefore, they slacked. And "D" students were getting the "A" or "B" for their writing, so the "A" students – taking offense – slacked even further. There is more to the story, a happy ending, even. But for my purposes, this out-of-context excerpt is all I want to address.

Grades are feedback for the student. It follows that I should be using grades to motivate my students to take my class seriously, do their work, and respect me as a teacher. Right? I mean, when it comes to grades colleges care, and parents care, and future students' parents care, as do administrators, and "President" Bush. He cares too. But I don't really care that all those people care. I see grades as a system that serves only the privileged students (it helps him/her get into Stanford and Yale) and hurts the underserved students (they get passed from school year to school year irregardless of their ability to achieve).

[Warning: digression]

I might have a student who is whining and complaining about the assignment I have given them (spend your Wednesday afternoons from 1 - 3 making a short film about whatever you want - here are some cool props - have fun). Then amidst their whining they might have the audacity to ask, "What is the minimum I can do to get a good grade?" I tell them: "You can have an A. You don't even have to do the assignment - you see, I don't care. I'll gladly give you the A if that's all you want. In fact, you don't even have to bother wasting my time by coming to my class. It doesn't matter to me if I give you an A - you're the one who will miss out on the experience, who won't have anything to show for your time, who will know that you got an A in spite of being lazy and not doing the work."

Jack's a master as the psyche-out. This is a maneuver that's always great to pull out of your sleeve while playing Pictionary (it's especially effective after everyone has been shit-talking everyone else and is barely sober enough to hold a pencil). When a team doesn't really deserve to win a given round - say it was questionable that they got the answer before the sand ran out of the hourglass - you let them have it. Then in the event that they win the game you simply say, "yeah, well of course you won, we let you win that turn." This has two effects. One, if they've not experienced the psyche-out before, their win will be tarnished, and a tarnished win is no win at all. The second effect is for those who have had the psyche-out pulled on them in the past (every member of my family), they simply refuse to take a benevolent acquiescence when a turn is in dispute. They know it only leads to a tarnished win. And no one wants that.

So, in the tradition of the Murgisteads, I psyche-em-out. And it always has the desired effect. The student will start to sputter, "that's not what I meant, of course I want to come to class." It's at this point that they think that it's not that I want them to come to class, it's that I want them to want to come to class, right? Follow me here?

[End digression]

Anyhow, as strongly conflicted I am about grading I do feel as strongly committed to not assigning grades to the quality of the students' writing. I have to agree with the foundation of the argument by David Narter in Teacher as Machine: The Cost of Objectivity, "Our creative and humanistic goals as English teachers are in direct conflict with pure objectivism." As the audience of the student writing, we are bound to give them feedback and guidance towards improving their writing. This is in conflict with the judgmental tradition grading for quality.

We are forced to admit that grading, in particular quantifying the quality of a piece of student writing, is anything but objective. So why not just refuse to do it? Give them a grade for doing the work. Create a rubric that reflects objective requirements such as number of pages (better yet, words - teach them how to use word count), a cover sheet, typed, or whatever other presentation requirements you feel are important to the assignment. Bibliographies are either right or wrong. The format for a business letter, likewise either has the recipient's address left justified or it doesn't.

If our students' persuasive essays aren't demonstrating that the students have mastered the level of proficiency consistent with the unit's set out objectives, don't move on to the next unit. Give them feedback, assess what isn't working, do more essays, find new ways to teach that skill.

Why must we accept that only the top 10% will have mastered it (that's an A, folks) and that the average student's paper will be worth a C? Students must know how to write effectively to pass their stupid little tests, to placate that stupid little president and his stupid little initiative (I believe he calls it, No Child Left Unmolested, or something to that effect). More crucially, they need to be able to write beyond the seventh grade level when they are about to graduate from twelfth grade. Honestly, I find the acceptable twelfth grade writing deplorable and blame only the educational system that has completely failed these children. And guess what, their teachers pass them on from year to year, lying to them that their work is acceptable. The effect is a weeding them out of competition for quality higher education. They'll go to college, if they go to college, and spend two years learning how to write. They might not even notice how the system failed them because the majority of their peers will all be in the same situation.

How does this resolve the problem that Taco Fighter Talk encountered? That without tough grading (is this tough love?) students won't do their best? Without giving kids who can't write failing grades, they'll simply be handed off to the next year's teachers? Have I contradicted myself? On the one hand, I don't want to grade on quality, but on the other hand, what can force a students hand in doing the difficult work of learning to write if not the threat of bad grades? I will leave these questions for all my smart readers (you know the ones in my imaginary audience) to answer. See the comments link below? Click on it…