Wednesday, June 2, 2010

On Inflated Grades (Part One)

It's important for me to preface this post by saying that I don't teach at a Research 1 University, or in any sort of MFA program, but that I instruct at SUNY Brockport, a teaching college where students receive an MA in literature or creative writing. When I first received my tenure-track job, I thought (naively) that both a comprehensive college and a Research 1 university were the same. This was wrong. Where I work teaching and scholarship are of equal importance. At a Research 1 University, primarily only research is valued.

This isn't to say one is worse or better, but that both attract different sorts of students who have different needs. Here most of the time graduate students choose SUNY Brockport for a bump in their salary at either a middle-school, or high school. This is a good thing. The pursuit of more knowledge should be rewarded. No problem there.

I would be doing the same thing.

Most graduate students at SUNY Brockport do not plan on attending an MFA program or becoming a permanent creative writer--their focus is on teaching. Of course, I could cite a number of student in the program who are enrolled in the program for quite the opposite reason. But still. This isn't a critique simply; it is a description.

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Some time ago, at a college similar to that of SUNY Brockport, I taught a graduate creative writing class and told my students on the first day that their grade would be based on their participation and writing. I said I would grade their writing in the following way: I told them each would present two stories or two batches of poem during the course of the semester. If they wrote at least a full eight pages or 4 poems, they would receive an A. I told them that the quality didn't matter in any way. I wouldn't judge them on that, even proofreading. All I was interested was in the generation of material. Everyone was also required to write a critique of every other person's work, and, of course, participate.

Of course, the quality of the pieces ranged from the sloppy to a-draft-away-from-publication. That didn't surprise me--that's the way it is in any workshop. What did surprise me was this: a high number of students came into my office to complain about my grading criterion. As one student told me, he felt "cheated." He stated that he knew someone in the class didn't put as much work into his writing as he did.

My response: So? Why does it matter to you?

"Because, it's unethical," he said. "I put more time into it."

This student told another teacher in the program how I assessed their work. The teacher was visibly upset. "Your grades are inflated," he said.

At so many college, there is a strange collective anxiety about ostensibly inflated grades, that we, as teachers, are not creating classes that are "rigorous" enough. "You see the evidence," they say, "look: the university's median grade is an A-. We should be ashamed of ourselves."

This sort of talk always concerns me: why does giving a high number of A's mean that your class wasn't rigorous? That you didn't give them enough to do? Why does giving a high number of A's mean that you are a "better," "more ethical" teacher?

Why do we never ask the following: that a teacher who gives extremely low grades might be a "worse, less ethical" teacher? That perhaps that teacher isn't making the grading criterion for the class transparent enough? That he isn't considering how he might not be succeeding as a teacher in some respects in helping a student achieve their potential? That perhaps he needs to grade on a curve, a choice that one might consider to be a way of inflating grades?

7 comments:

  1. There are really two schools of thought on grades. One school is that courses are point-based, and students who are able to accrue enough points by completing work or scoring well receive the highest grades. I'd call this mostly "effort-based" grading. The other school is that grades are qualitative and descriptive of a student's product in the course, excepting variables like level of participation, level of engagement, improvement over the term, etc. I don't know what I'd call this. The two approaches seem mutually exclusive, so why compare? It should be an instructor's prerogative.

    Maybe you should consider creating some standardized creative writing exams to give to your students.

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  2. Excellent post, Steve. You raise a number of important questions; however, I am most interested in your final query: "Why do we never ask the following: that a teacher who gives extremely low grades might be a "worse, less ethical" teacher? That perhaps that teacher isn't making the grading criterion for the class transparent enough? That he isn't considering how he might not be succeeding as a teacher in some respects in helping a student achieve their potential? "

    I have long worked with good teachers & bad. The worst of the worst seem to be those who see themselves as gate-keepers. Where I currently teach, I know a prof. (not in my department) who considers it a personal victory when students fail his class. He proudly boasts that he has "the hardest classes on campus" and that his fail rate is one of the highest here. He seems to equate academic rigor with a high fail rate. I find his approach not only distasteful, but also unethical.

    What made these kinds of teachers believe that pedantically difficult courses somehow equal sound pedagogy?

    My pass rate is well within the average at my institution. I believe that my job is not to fail my students; my job is to present them with the material and clearly explain my expectations to them. I think that in a productive classroom, the relationship between both sides of the podium isn't antagonistic. Students shouldn't have to worry whether or not the professor is "out to get them."

    Indeed, I completely concur with your final questions. Teachers who boast of (and show evidence of) very high fail rates are the questionable teachers, not those who are trying to help their students succeed.

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  3. Interesting post. I teach at a community college, and often I have very high failing rates (and no, it's not because I have less than stellar students -- my students have many, many obstacles that are almost impossible to overcome). I don't boast about these failing grades. I get horribly depressed.

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  4. Great post. I have been in both kinds of classes. In a creative writing class, I sometimes don't understand how and A can be a singular achievement each student must meet. In a workshop class, students ability and talent are going to be all over the board. I would be happy with an A, but I wouldn't be upset if the girl who wrote rhyming poems about her cat got an A too if she showed improvement.

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  5. "This sort of talk always concerns me: why does giving a high number of A's mean that your class wasn't rigorous? That you didn't give them enough to do? Why does giving a high number of A's mean that you are a 'better,' 'more ethical' teacher?"

    I think the idea, Steve, is that grades of "A" are meant to be given for work of exceptional quality, and it stands to reason that in any group of 20 or so students, most will do middling work and only a few will produce something that shows a combination of great effort and great talent. There's nothing mean-spirited about having our grades reflect this reality. Students who consistently do A-level work only to find that the person next to them who spent the whole class texting and semi-plagiarizing papers also got an A should feel cheated, for reasons too obvious to be spelled out here. There are also real-world consequences: teachers who can't spell, or proofread, or think, because their instructors couldn't be bothered to give them a real appraisal of their work. If Engineering programs were run the way some English courses seem to be these days, every other bridge would collapse.

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  6. Hi Anonymous--

    Thanks for responding to my blog. I love feisty responses. I want to say a few things in regard to this email tho since I may have contributed to some misunderstandings. Also: I think there's an underlying cynical view about human nature embedded in your comments that I'd like to tease out. I'll write an entire post about it within the next week, because I do feel your anxiety about grades is common.

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  7. Good post. I'll agree with Karen, that as a teacher at a CC, I have a high failure rate. Not because students can't do the work, but because they disappear.
    I also find it curious that Charles believes effort and quality are mutually exclusive. In my comp class, I mix the two. Some work is point based, some evaluative. And the good writers often get bad grades because they don't turn stuff in.
    I like to use points in my creative writing class, because, especially for beginners, it rewards risk taking over doing something safe that they are sure will be good or that I will like.
    Thanks for keeping the discussion provocative, Steve!

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