Grading Options

As a graduate student instructor of first-year composition, I couldn't find a grading system that worked. Every semester, I'd try out a new one, and always end up with the same problem: a student whose writing represented hard work or significant learning, whose efforts were not rewarded by whatever system I had decided to use.

Over the years, I concluded that this problem was not the fault of any of the individual grading systems. The problem was using the same grading system for each student. Each student has different goals for the writing course; a different attitude toward writing; different constraints on their time, energy, and health; and different strategies as a writer. Forcing all of these differences into one grading system meant that somebody was going to lose, and it didn't feel fair to me to pick a group of students to lose. So, I decided to ask my students to pick their own grading systems.

I've refined the grading options system over the years, making adjustments as I encounter a new institution and new students. But, the core idea has stayed the same: with support and guidance, students can make informed decisions about how they want their work in a writing class to be graded. They can also connect those decisions to their histories as writers and their goals for the writing class and stay focused on those standards throughout the semester.

Research on the grading options system is in process. The document I use with my class is available here; if you have questions about implemeting the system, I am happy to discuss over email (use the contact form).