Nuggets of Wisdom from (and for!) a Variety of Pedagogies

Despite the varied range of teaching and evaluating philosophies they present, each of the articles we read seems to hinge on two questions which no instructor can afford to leave unanswered: “How do I help my students become better writers?” and “How do I grade their work?”

Throughout these articles, the authors remind us that grading (especially grading writing) is a subjective process which tends to, at best, provide inconclusive feedback concerning the quality of a given text and, at worst, to stifle both students’ ability and their desire to write. Holding in mind their goal of producing better writers, the authors of these articles question traditional classroom approaches and propose alternative ones which, though also problematic in several ways, seem to offer us some valuable insights as we begin to map out our own teaching strategies.

Inoue’s article on community-based assessment, for instance, offers some wisdom that I believe can be helpful even if one does not (as I don’t) completely buy into the idea that teachers should never/almost never present themselves as the authority figure in their classrooms. Instructors who choose a more traditional system of grading and arranging their syllabi can still create (and even encourage their students to create) grading rubrics which are more “complex and explicit” and, thus, more helpful. The incorporation of multiple revisions and peer reviews as part of a course portfolio could also work well in a differently-structured class, and I think giving students the chance to analyze and challenge their course grades could generate some genuine learning.

Elbow’s “Good Enough Evaluation” can encourage teachers with a wide range of grading methodologies not to despair that fairness is “largely unavailable,” but rather to continually question their own methods of evaluation as they strive to make it as fair as they can. I believe he also offers valid strategies to help move toward fairer grading practices, such as combining norm-based and criterion-based strategies and adopting multidimensional grading systems.

Finally, the article about contract grading (a process which, despite its claim of being “easier and fairer,” seems to me to be surprisingly similar to traditional grading) offers teachers with a variety of grading pedagogies some incentive to focus on processes as well as end results and to separate evaluative feedback from grades. These strategies, as Danielewicz and Elbow point out, can help improve student writing by enabling instructors to be “blunt without being threatening” and to focus on writing more than on grading.