Doubts Are Free. Hope Is Expensive.

   That right up there is a working representation of how I feel about giving out grades and evaluating students. In a lot of ways I feel like grades in the way that they are traditionally structured violate all the teacher/student agreements that we try to set up in our classrooms to make the environment more hospitable and establish the kind of trust and respect there needs to be in order to really work together. Reading Christensen's take on grading particularly takes away some of that fear and pressure that I feel about not wanting be the dictator that I know many teachers, even the most well meaning ones, can sometimes turn into when it comes to grades. I know what my intent is with evaluating work, but the student may at times take criticism as a personal affront and that's something that needs to be addressed because there are plenty of factors that go into those walls that students put up about being judged. 

As a writer, I know that I'm not without my own weaknesses that I could stand to work on. No person is completely without sin. I'm not very good at writing dialogue. I am frequently guilty of not taking the time to proofread. Spelling is something I have to carefully think about, especially if I'm telling someone how to spell a word since my brain wants me to write it out rather than sift through language in my head and recite it. These patterns of error are things I know I need to watch out for and everyone has them and using that as a means of targeting comments and instruction to tackle things one part at a time is a very purposeful way of getting students to more deeply understand what we're asking them to do and externalizing it so that they can eventually internalize it. By having a sheet that they can refer back to throughout the year,  it's not an instant reset every time a new assignment comes up. They have a catalog of errors. Once they master each part they can worry less about the parts they've successfully conquered and move on to more and more intensive challenges. It's great. 

     

     If we remove from the equation this competitive aspect, I think it will also help students to focus more on their own growth than whatever everyone else is doing. It's very tempting for students to become involved with the general state of the class instead of concentrating on what they can be doing to be successful in the class. By not having grades as processes rather than grades as the end game, changes are that students are going to be more receptive to doing the work and putting in their best effort. If they know that they're going to be putting forward a draft that they know they aren't happy with, isn't it more comforting for them to know that this isn't the end of the line? That there's still going to be a chance to interact with others and get the necessary feedback to finish. It's that testing it out with the audience that's really going to put it over the edge and make it the most effective and engaging writing it can be. If students compete with themselves instead of with each other, the results generally are better. They have a greater drive because they aren't constantly comparing themselves to what they see as an unobtainable standard. Students know how to match their own skills. 

  What I think I liked the most about Christensen's last chapter is Peter, her skeptic about the no-grade way of operating. Despite the academic system working in his favor, he changed his mind because the system of commentary, "has helped me deal with people. My skin is thick enough to take a lot of abuse just because I've always had a fairly high opinion of some of the things that I do. i didn't realize a lot of other people don't have that advantage," (Christensen, 275). To a certain extent, this is so me. I know I have the tendency to talk back when I have an opinion about a certain comment, but I also know a good call when I see it. Generally I want someone to like what I've written, but if I don't, it's not the end of the world because I've built up that resilience. In other areas of my life, my skin is not that thick and I do feel fragile. That empathy is important to keep in mind as we grade. I know the little voice in my head is always attempting to do a quick phrasing check to ask, "Am I saying this the right way?" The point is not to tiptoe around students to not offend them, but to address the mistakes made when a student feels wronged.

   Getting back to patterns of errors, I have this friend who's currently going for her master's. We were in homeroom together and had nearly all our classes together as freshmen. That bond has always been really strong, but Rachel has also been for a long time my primary educational guinea pig. She is probably the most anxious person I've ever met and when we would work together on homework sometimes she would just have these meltdowns and cry. I know her writing so well and have coached her through a lot of difficult assignments. I know that I always have to watch out for commas in weird places and I know she's always going to ask me to help her rephrase or find a different word for what she's trying to convey. This week she gave me a paper to look over and once again she asked me not to look at it, "Like an English person," but that's essentially asking me not to be myself. Once you carry a certain level of expertise, it's really hard to pack that away again when it's convenient. I would never ever ever tell her something was bad because I know that she's already doing plenty of that to herself. Instead I give her choices and let her make up her own mind about how to fix the writing. Students come fully supplied with doubts. We give them the gift of encouragement and expect no gifts in return. It's what we do.