Teaching Tips: Grading

The answer to that question these days is often, “Not much.”

What’s in a grade? (You’ll have to scroll down.) has some interesting thoughts on grade inflation and the problems with it.

They also have quite a bit on Texas in that article.

Turning all sorts of “Fs” (actually, they’re “Es” in Pittsburgh, presumably because they’re loath to further dishearten students with reality) into a standard 50 is unabashed grade inflation under the dubious guise of giving struggling students another chance. The resulting skewed metric will unduly reward them for subpar work. Dallas tried this F-is-always-a-50 scheme last year and teachers ultimately begged to have it reversed.

Also in Texas, meanwhile, the Higher Education Coordinating Board (which, although it is mainly concerned with Texan tertiary education, controls the secondary GPA question too, as related to Texas college admissions policies) is proposing to exclude from GPA calculations all subjects save English, math, science, social studies and foreign languages. What’s more, only courses that count for college credit (International Baccalaureate, Advanced Placement and dual enrollment) will be awarded extra points in GPA calculations (currently, honors classes are given an extra half point, too). The purpose of these negotiations is to standardize college admission standards across the state. Not surprisingly, the proposal, which will go up for a vote on October 23, has generated quite an uproar. Parents and teachers alike are concerned that students will opt out of electives and rarely show up or participate in required music, physical education, and art classes.

It’s not difficult to see that Texas may be going too far. Limiting which courses qualify for heavier GPA weighting is one thing but not counting music, art and PE at all is another. Teenagers will be teenagers; tell them a class doesn’t count and lower enrollment, attendance, and effort will surely follow. We’ve already sidelined these subjects with standardized testing and NCLB, and budget crunches have led some districts to cut them. Enough. Let’s not diminish them further with perverse incentives. Non-academic pursuits have been shown to lower drop-out rates, especially amongst at-risk teens. And extracurricular activities, often inspired by exposure in these non-academic classes, may be the secret to the (moderate) success of our public education system.

Give grades early and often.

Don’t give just individual grades but also give averages.

I think grades should be averaged and conveyed to the students at least twice a semester. I give them out a minimum of three times. And I often give them out four times.

I like to know where I am and how I am doing on things. I think the students do too.

Tell them how you grade.
You should know how you grade, if you aren’t brand new to the field. (And even then you should know how you are going to grade this semester.)

Students like to know.

If you are a big spelling person, let them know those are major errors.

If you refuse to grade papers that are not formatted correctly, make sure the student know that too.

Look for rubrics online if you need help.

Some good rubrics
Andrew Newman’s is a good place to start, dividing the grade into thirds:
concepts and content
argument and structure
grammar and mechanics

The first page of this pdf has an English composition rubric.

A handout from Troy University’s Writing Center has a discussion as well as a rubric.

UC Davis has a good presentation of what the different grades mean. I don’t really think of that as the rubric. It’s more the guidelines, in my opinion.

The rubric is what lets the student know why they got an A or an F.

Explain the weighting system.
Some people freak out when they make a poor homework grade. I’ve had someone decide to drop because of a 70. But it was out of 3000 possible points that they were missing those extra 30. And it was only 20% of the grade and on the essays, the major portion of the grade, they had an A average. Thankfully they did talk to me before they dropped the course. But sometimes students don’t.

You can tell your students your weighting system (I do), but don’t expect them to remember that abstract discussion on day 1 when it comes time for the papers. So reiterate when the paper is major. “This essay will be 15% of your final grade.” I don’t point out when the work is minor, because then fewer people would do it and I would get frustrated. That’s in the syllabus. They can look it up.

Make sure they know what their grades mean.
The students need to know where in the big picture this grade falls. So when I hand back papers I also say, “This was out of a possible 50 points.” or “This is a homework grade worth 1/30th of your homework average.” or “This is a major paper. It’s ten percent of your grade.” (I make sure they know about the major grades when they are assigned, too.)

The students also need to be reminded if you have an unusual grading scale. Do they have to make a 93 to get an A? Is 90-100 an A, but 70-74 is a D? Let them know it and remind them.

Sometimes, especially when I am teaching multiple sections of the same course, I will put all the grades for a paper on the board.

12 A
18 B
27 C
12 D
5 F
3 0

I think this helps the students who made low grades know that they weren’t in the majority. (So they can’t say, “Well, she’s just a hard grader.”) And it lets the students who do well know that others did too.

Know that sometimes the value won’t matter.
I’ve had good students blow off a 5% grade. “I’ve got an A anyway.” and “My college only gives credit, so as long as I have a B I am okay.”

I don’t like it. But I can’t make their decisions for them.

I have started weighting everything as at least 10% though. It makes it harder to blow off.

One of my students used this word in a paper. As far as I know I had never seen it before. I had to look it up. I came up with a wide range of definitions.

“A slightly vague term, the neoteroi were a group of Latin poets of the 1st century BC who were much influenced by Alexandrian Greek authors such as Callimachus and Theocritus. Their trademark was an emphasis on tight construction, a playful use of genre, punning, and complex allusions.” Wikipedia

“Of recent origin; modern” according to the Free Dictionary.

I also saw it as “an innovation or novelty.”

This last is the way in which the student used it. I give them two extra points if it is a word I didn’t know and is used correctly. It keeps me learning.

Don’t have both your classes turn them in at the same time.

Alas, I didn’t schedule that well.

How does Princeton propose to stop grade inflation? By “putting a limit on the number of “A” grades academic units can reward.”

Let’s think about this.

Most semesters I have about four students per class who make As. That’s out of 25 students to start. I’m a conservative grader and require lots of work in my classes. So someone like me teaching at Princeton would probably get all the As to give away that I could usually use.

But let’s say that one semester I had twelve students who were really working hard, doing all the work, doing it well, getting help before class, and they all ended up with As. Unfortunately, my four As wouldn’t help me there, because I would have eight students who couldn’t get As.

I understand the point. Lots of people give As way too easily. I was required at the school where I taught full time to curve my final grades by eight points because too many people were doing poorly in my classes. So I’ve definitely seen what happens when you have a limit on grades, poor or good.

I think I could see limiting As, if I could hoard them. Say I get six As per semester per class. I usually use four. But then one semester the twelve folks show up and I use up my hoarded As. That’d be okay. What if the twelve come the first semester? Then we’re all hosed.

That’s a recommendation the same paper makes. She says it “obscure[s] the primary meaning of the grade.”

I vote to throw that recommendation out the window. Here’s why:

I have daily grades in class, sometimes 200 points worth. Those daily grades, along with homework and attendance, constitute 25% of the grade. If I don’t count attendance, some students won’t come. Then they’ll miss the daily grades. The daily grades change. Sometimes there are none. Sometimes they’re worth 25 points.

I also grade, in attendance, for arriving late, leaving early, and ringing phones.

I want the students in class because that’s where they find out what they need to know. (And because I have to be there and I think I am giving them something worthwhile.) So I grade for attendance. It’s not a lot, but it is something.

This semester I have a student who thinks he is brilliant. I was agreeing with him for a while. But then he asked to leave because he “already knows this stuff.” I told him he could. He didn’t come back till the paper was due, three weeks later, and it was in the totally wrong format. He made a D. He didn’t come back again till the second paper was due. And he didn’t bring that. So he’s flunking. Brilliant or not, students need to be in class to do the work correctly. And that’s what they’re supposed to do, so I grade them on attendance.

This is the one grade where effort counts. If they show up to every class, they make a better attendance grade than someone who doesn’t. And I have proof I’m counting their effort, without grading primarily for effort. It gives them incentive to come and it helps their grade if they do. But it doesn’t help enough to change their grade, unless they’re on the borderline of a grade.

Okay, the paper had something that didn’t have me cracking up. It said, “Give students a chance to improve their grades by rewriting their papers.”

I teach writing. So they have lots of writing to do. And they are required to rewrite their two biggest papers and their first paper. After that, I allow rewrites.

How do I grade the rewrites? I grade them the same way I graded the original, except I take off double the amount of points if they don’t fix something I marked. If they try to fix it, but it is still wrong, I don’t double the points. Then I average the two grades. I think that is more than fair.

And it gets them seeing what their errors are, so they improve on the things that they tend to miss. In a way, it’s a personalized grammar exercise. They have to fix the grammar errors they made and no one has to work on grammar they understand already.

“Return the first graded assignment or test before the add/drop deadline.”

That was a piece of advice from another paper I had to read for my online class that had me laughing.

My college’s drop day is ten weeks into the sixteen week semester. My students have gotten at least twenty graded assignments by now. And the drop date hasn’t passed yet.

I know such a late drop date is unusual for a college, though, so I guess I shouldn’t have laughed.

I love teaching. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t do it. I’m an adjunct, so I don’t make much money. I certainly don’t make much money compared to the hours I work outside of class for the courses I teach.

I like my students. I like people in general.

All that said, I’ve still had students, and semesters, from hell. So I pad my syllabus. I really do want my students to do all the work on it. I expect them to do it, too. But, if the class doesn’t drive me crazy by being disrespectful and rude or never coming on time, I will drop the lowest of the mid-range paper grades. I won’t drop the hardest two papers, sorry. I won’t drop the easiest papers, either. But I have five mid-level papers and I will drop the lowest of those… that is not a 0.

I want all the work done, all the writing written. But I am willing to admit, no, eager to admit, that sometimes life interferes and what you hoped would be a good paper wasn’t. So, if you’ve written all your papers, you can drop the lowest. But I won’t drop a 0. You didn’t do that paper. You didn’t even try. So you deserve that 0.

I don’t tell the class I’ll drop the paper at the beginning of the class, though. I don’t want people expecting to drop their lowest grade. I’m afraid then they won’t try on one and when they NEED it, they won’t have it.