SCHOOL AFFILIATION: Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences
EMAIL: sferr@uw.edu
I wanted to encourage my students to focus more on the writing process and less on the final products. Specifications grading (or “grading contracts,” as they are often called in first-year writing classes) gave me a framework for valuing process and labor over products. This framework also allowed me to decenter myself as sole authority of what constitutes “good writing,” and to instead make it our collective work as a class to define “good writing” in ways that are meaningful and inclusive.
I provide students with a first draft of a sample grading contract during the first week of class. We use the sample to collectively build a contract for our class, negotiating the terms together before voting on a final draft. The contract outlines what work needs to be done to achieve different grades. All work that meets the assignment requirements is accepted and counted as complete. Incomplete work may always be redone. Students choose what grade they want to receive and develop a plan to turn in all of the work necessary for that grade. We check in periodically throughout the quarter to make sure they are still on track to receive their desired grade.
I have had the most success in implementing grading contracts when I use them in the second quarter of courses that are two quarters long. Having an entire quarter to build community and engage in discussions on writing, assessment, and power better prepares students to create a grading contract that is meaningful and fair to them.
Using the Canavs gradebook for this style of grading has been challenging.
Asao Inoue’s Antiracist Writing Assessment Ecologies: Teaching and Assessing Writing for a Socially Just Future and Labor-Based Grading Contracts: Building Equity and Inclusion in the Compassionate Writing Classroom