The limitations of traditional grading

In 2001, during her first semester at GC&SU, Christine Head (who has since graduated) turned in a paper in her English 1101 class. Later that day, Head turned in another paper to her Understanding Visual Culture class. The 1101 paper received an “A,” while her Visual Culture paper received a “C” and was accompanied by a terse letter directing her to the writing center.

That same semester, David Lankford took English 1101 with a different professor. On his first paper, he received a “high 90″ and on his second paper he received an 86. Both papers were void of comments. To Lankford, who is now a senior Spanish major, both papers were similar, and he was left in confusion.

All variables aside, two problems emerge from these examples. One is that the process of grading papers is extremely objective. A student that one professor may see as a prosperous writer, another professor may see as a failing writer in need of help. Second, the simple act of assigning a numerical grade stripped of meaningful feedback is useless and hinders the process of learning.

The concerns surrounding the grading of composition have been simmering in the world of composition theory since the late 1970′s. A more recent article by a formidable composition theorist Peter Elbow, titled “Ranking, Evaluating, and Liking: Sorting Out Three Forms of Judgment,” argued, “There are three distinct problems with ranking; it is inaccurate or unreliable; it gives no substantive feedback; and it is harmful to the atmosphere for teaching and learning.”

“Feedback is helpful and the only thing that we learn from,” said Dr. Ken Saladin, professor of Biology.

“If the student does not receive any feedback, then he or she can’t improve,” said Dr. Lee Ann Caldwell, chair of the History and Geography Department.

Senior history major Robyn Morris said that if she receives a paper with just a grade on it, she would wonder what caused her to get the particular grade. She is left with questions and has not really learned anything.

What Elbow means when he uses the term “ranking” is “the act of summing up one’s judgment of a performance or person into a single holistic number or score.” This working definition is what occurred in the second example given at the beginning of this article, when Lankford received his paper back with an 86. Ranking occurs, for Elbow and other composition theorists, when a single holistic score is achieved with no meaningful feedback given by the teacher. Ranking can endanger the process of learning that occurs through composition.

Several professors at GC&SU agree with Elbow that ranking is problematic. Dr. Rob Viau, professor of English and interdisciplinary studies, said that ranking composition is “dangerous and irresponsible at best.” Saladin agreed with Viau; he said ranking is “at best useless.”

Ranking carries with it more danger than simply being “dangerous,” “irresponsible” or “at best useless.” Elbow suggested that ranking creates a sense of artificial motivation in the student, whereas the grade takes precedent over learning. With artificial motivation, the student is tailoring his or her writing to the whims of a particular teacher; they are “playing by the rules” and possibly hindering the creative process that is composition.

Caldwell identified one of the motivators for the students as receiving a grade; however, she sees this issue as more prevalent among students who are just embarking on their college career.

“Upperclassmen are intrinsically motivated to learn; you don’t have to require them to go to events because they want to go, they want to hear what people have to say,” Caldwell said. “I am not so sure at the earlier years, and I am not sure that is true for some people ever.”

There is a sense of “unavoidable artificial motivation” as Saladin put it, yet Elbow offers a solution that, though it will not eliminate artificial motivation, will possibly cause it to dwindle. He calls for less ranking and more evaluation.

Imagine a scale. On one end is ranking, a holistic score devoid of written comment that forces one student to measure his or herself to the student across the aisle. On the other end of the scale is evaluating, a process where no grades are assigned. (This goes for composition as well as math courses and science courses. For our purposes, we are only concerned with composition.) Instead, students collect written portfolios throughout their collegiate career in lieu of grades. The Evergreen College (like GC&SU, they are a member of COPLAC) in the state of Washington follows this pedagogy.

What would happen if GC&SU eliminated the subjective process of ranking students and moved to a more democratic system of evaluating? And should it?

Viau’s automatic response was that the faculty is too overworked to find time to write evaluations on each student. For Viau, that works out to roughly 70 evaluations of one page per student. That would take a lot more work and, more importantly, time than handing out grading.

“In an ideal world, we would have more time to do written evaluations,” Caldwell said. “I don’t see us, with the numbers we carry, moving to a totally written portfolio.”

Viau also argued that students would feel uncomfortable. The receiving of a grade at the close of a semester has been so firmly inculcated into students that receiving an evaluation would make for an uncomfortable experience.

Caldwell, too, expressed concern with the faculty workload and how evaluations would be perceived in the eyes of the students. Saladin wondered how our students would be competitive in graduate school or in the job market. He said evaluations are subjective. He desires to be able to back up all his decisions on final grades. When a student complains about a grade, Saladin is able to point to his or her paper and highlight the shortcomings that contributed to the final grade. With evaluations, there is no process to which a professor must go through to obtain a final grade.

“I am hesitant to evaluate because it is harder to defend the final grade,” Saladin said.

“I have mixed feelings about (evaluating),” Caldwell said. “I am used to working within the system, and I would like for the system to offer a broader range for students. But until we have a different structural set up to it, I am not sure how we would implement it here. But as a liberal arts college, we may go to something like that.”

One thing that the three professors were in agreement on is that they all feel somewhat uncomfortable with the present grading system. “Subjective grading is a problem, but I don’t know how to fix it,” Saladin said.

Morris stated that she is more for evaluating, but going as far as Evergreen would give her pause. She said she is motivated by grades, and without grades, she asked, “What is the point?”

So where does GC&SU go from here? Ranking is considered troublesome in the eyes of several professors and students, yet moving toward written evaluations like GC&SU’s COPLAC partner The Evergreen College would be too time consuming and could be a potentially unnerving experience for the student body.

“There is no easy answer to the question you are asking,” Caldwell said.

And there should not be. Careful analysis and thought about the grading of composition can help the students and professors find a happy medium in the scale of ranking and evaluating.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Jan 20 2006. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry