My take on Writing Assessment from my grad class- observations from class activities and editing undergraduate papers.
Grading Do grading and assessing writing have mutually-exclusive ends? Certainly after our Saturday "speed grading" session, I question the validity and objectivity, not only of grades, but of the graders themselves. How many of our classmates have axes to grind? Do we truly have consistent assessment procedures -- or at least, standards by which we can all work equally and arrive at similar grades for students?
Despite having a dynamic criteria map, the grading -- especially within my team -- varied. I tended to grade higher, perhaps understanding that my job wasn't to apply my expectations of how *I* should be assessed on students. These students don't have the "tough" teachers that I did, who tempered their own pupils on an anvil, forging them into writers with the hammer of the red pen. Perhaps because it was the only type of instruction I experienced -- or that I truly believed I deserved the criticism -- I came to believe that teaching writing involved being quite hard on students and giving them tough grades to motivate them to work harder. This is the action to which I was spurred when I earned so much as "B." I tried twice as hard to "earn the A," undeterred by my low grade. Do all students evince this attitude when they are similarly trumped by an almighty composition instructor?
Do today's students rather have a sense of entitlement; are they paying money for a service with the expectation of earning a credential with their own perception of "adequate effort" and "decent writing"? How might a modern composition instructor combat the shoe-horning of a teacher into the role of "service provider"? These questions become more important when we, as graduate students, are invited to edit undergraduate writing.
In this endeavor, we are asking the honors students for help to improve our assessment skills. In a sense, the 109 students are "allowing" us to assess and assist them to "improve their writing." We become partners, not instructors, a less potent role, than, say, a teacher. Graduate students may have some license -- though not a complete one -- to pose suggestions, but not the authority to assess in the form that colleges desire -- grades.
And to that end we, as mighty graduate students, wielded our grading "hammers," guided loosely by a criteria map that did not provide -- by nature -- perfect consistency for evaluation. Nor did the map provide a sense of how we should "weight" our intangible "measurements" of the elements we observed in an essay. Does "coherence" mean a pleasant flow, or the proper use of coherence devices? If an essay is 33% coherent (itself a loose approximation) do we multiply 33% by a coherence point allocation and add it to a percentage-scaled version of the next criterion in the map? Or, do we simply read the criteria as a whole and drive home a grade with our "gut"?
One fellow student graded students "easily," by her own admission, perhaps afraid to anger the undergrads or more importantly, hurt their feelings. Perhaps the grad student felt like assigning a lower grade would break the trust granted to us by the undergrads, whose feelings and possible reaction to our scoring were paramount to the exercise. How then could we be fair, if we felt as though a student deserved a "C," but assigning such a grade would be disruptive to their learning process or worse-- our mentor/mentee relationship? Would we then be the "evil" graduate students who already stood on tenuous ground with our 190 compatriots because of our inconsistent commenting on papers?
The grad students who braved the notion of "evil" reacted in part to the fact that the undergrads rejected edits made during online sessions. Driven by feelings of authority, knowledge, or perhaps even superiority, our Professional Writing students virtually attacked the undergraduates with lower grades for "not listening" to comments. Never mind that the undergrads hadn't fully completed their edits. Other graduate students were less malevolently oriented, but assigned lower grades nonetheless, perhaps out of a misplaced sense that it was better to give a fair -- and lower -- grade than to coddle students and lead them to hubris upon graduation, as they promoted their "average" writing to a more critical, real-world audience.
Throughout this process, I felt as though the undergrads were going to be "blindsided," and thus feel angry and betrayed, at the sudden and abruptness of the lower grades. Were the 190 students and the graduate students given a concrete set of criteria? Are dynamic criteria sufficient to make both the graders and "gradees" comfortable with a consistent outcome?
I suggest that dynamic criteria -- when peppered liberally with comments -- are better for improving writing than for assigning a grade. Often, loose subjective criteria can stimulate thought and thus better writing, but not provide an appropriate guide for grading. My grading perception would be largely subjective -- since I know that there are no true ways to grade objectively. In the real world, perhaps, workers are judged on the quality of work -- results count. Effort may prolong tenure in the workplace, but ultimately a worker must produce. Does this sense of production and precision apply to writing -- must we prepare students with the firm hand of the factory manager when we teach writing?
I answer with a qualified "no," understanding that grades are not a "product" -- the process is the product. Scores do motivate some students, and are the sole judgement used by administration. Some students must maintain a specific GPA to keep a scholarship, or even to remain in college. Still others find a sense of pride in getting an "A," and upon realizing during a semester that the highest grade is unattainable, will "shut down" and work at a much lower level to scrape by with a "B." I've had this attitude myself -- I had a solid "B" average in a statistics class with no hope of an "A." I told my professor that I wouldn't be taking the final, because it "wouldn't make an appreciable difference." He offered me an "A" if I aced the final. Sure enough, that idea drove me to a 100% score.
I'm motivated partly by grades; other students find their drive in achieving that "A," but what of the throngs of "lazy" pupils who take advantage of policies and "scrape by" with no intention of working towards improvement. Some of these lackadaisical students work much less than struggling ones who get the same low grades. Should we not grade the apathetic students lower? What of the advanced students who get "A" grades with little effort -- should we grade them more harshly than a student who struggles for a passing grade? Is the "A" for "effort" or "achievement."
Ultimately, I want my students to both learn to write and to improve composition skill, and I will give them every opportunity -- and every minute of free time I can spare, to help them to pursue this endeavor. Might I offer a higher grade undeserved by the average of class grades to motivate a student to work harder and improve? It worked for me.
Conference Presentation Ideas for 4C'sI'm working on a few presentations for 4C's, but ultimately have to choose one with the highest percentage of acceptance. I'm stuck here.
Some options:
1. Developing an online service-learning program; an inside look at the full life-cycle of the human, organizational, and technical challenges of integrating community work into the composition curriculum. I plan to describe my experience -- both good and bad -- and the input of the team of professors and administrators with whom I'll be working. I hope to show success -- and how other schools might model -- or not model -- their programs after the one that I build.
2. Using Improv Comedy techniques in the classroom
Update my CEA presentation to include more relevant composition exercises; show how FYE instructors can introduce these fun exercises to create an open, risk-free environment of sharing and learning.
3. Visual Organizers and Mind Maps in FYC Education
I plan to integrate the constructivist theories of Piaget with traditional visual organizers and mindmaps in a program tailored for beginning college composition (FYE) classes. These techniques appeal to visual learners, students who find organization and information gathering to be overwhelming, and those who have Attention Deficit Disorder and cannot focus. Mindmapping provides an overview and an ongoing elaboration of a problem domain and an evolving blueprint of a constructed document or body of knowledge.
