Making the grade, pt. 2

A reminder of my thoughts on grading:

• the audience of a grade is a student 
• the goal of a grade is change

In the last "Making the grade" post, I detailed some problems with numerical grades, at least as they fail to help students understand how to change.

Change is central to "Standards Based Grading." In the rubric, below, you'll see that I use seven columns: Insufficient Work Shown, Not Yet Competent, Not Meeting Goals, Limited Progress toward Goals, In Progress toward Goals, Meeting Goals, and Exceeding Goals. I arrived at these criteria after hearing about them on NPR. I have to admit, though, I don't understand the difference between "insufficient work shown" and "not yet competent." I'm using those because I may find a situation that fits the bill in the course of the semester.

	Insufficient Work Shown	Not Yet Competent	Not Meeting Goals	Limited Progress toward Goals	In Progress toward Goals	Meeting Goals	Exceeding Goals
“I can adjust reading strategies to different genres.”				1 Jan. 15 Jan.	29 Jan.	5 Feb.
“I can perceive argumentative structure.”					1 Jan. 15 Jan.	29 Jan. 5 Feb.
“I can reconstruct rhetorical context.”	1 Jan.			15 Jan.		29 Jan.	5 Feb.
“I can assimilate unfamiliar views and values.”				1 Jan. 15 Jan. 29 Jan.		5 Feb.
“I can read other cultures' codes.”	1 Jan.			15 Jan.		29 Jan.	5 Feb.
“I can read and write complex vocabulary and syntax.”				1 Jan. 15 Jan.	29 Jan.	5 Feb.

This semester I'm teaching "Introduction to Shakespeare," a second-level class at Ohio State. I've taught second-level English classes for several semesters in the past, and I know that many students struggle with difficult texts. I worked backwards from the challenges of difficult texts to design the Journal Sequence, a series of five assignments that would nudge students towards six skills for understanding difficult texts. Those skills became the criteria listed in the left-hand column, above.

My students have five chances to master these skills, such as "perceiving argumentative structure." Therefore I don't assign a grade based on the average of five numerical grades. Instead, I put a date in the relevant box to indicate that, on this day, this student showed this kind of progress towards this standard. Over the course of the semester, my students ought to gradually improve and ultimately meet the goals outlined in the rubric.

Lastly: compare the amount of information available to the student in the rubric, above, compared to the hypothetical grades, below:

Journal 1	86.00%
Journal 2	75.00%
Journal 3	80.00%
Journal 4	83.00%
Journal 5	82.00%
Average/Total	81.20%

I'm confident my students can learn how to change from the former better than the latter.