Grading and Ungrading Fall 2020 Updates

I have done a variety of moves the last couple of years moving towards ungrading. I've moved to students grade conferencing, telling me what grade they think their work earns and why based on required elements we've covered in class. I've tried it in all of my classes, composition to upper level English classes. In addition to this I've played around with ungraded low stakes, practice assignments where students get 100 just for turning it in, and these assignments counting as 75% for their grade, ensuring a student can earn at least a C. The last 25% determined by a final paper or project or portfolio.

For the most part these have all gone well. Students struggle at first with the idea of focusing on learning and practice rather than grades but for the most part they seem to like it.

It's rare- like 2-3 students maybe out of 150 in a semester- that students either do not accept the feedback I give or grade their work as an "A" when it's clearly not. I can tell you that I hamster wheel about those more than anything else.

This summer was my best version of all this. I taught technical writing and their only grade was their final portfolio at the end of the class. We worked all summer. They turned in work, they got feedback, they applied it. But their grade was their grade, which they argued for at the end of the semester, based on their portfolio which reflected their revised work from the whole class. 

As much as I loved how this worked, loved the approach to teaching, loved how students came around and embraced it, loved reading their reflections, I did not follow through on this this semester. I was worried that with so much else going on with Covid-19 and politics and all the stresses students would be under that it was a complication that might make things harder for students and that was the opposite of what I designed my classes this fall to do.

So in the spring I am moving, for all my classes, to a 100% of your grade is your final portfolio, where the students present a supported reasoning for their grade. We will do work and assignments and projects all semester that they will share and workshop and receive feedback on but these will be formative only. Their only grade will be that portfolio. 

1. This is where I want to be, so I'm going to stop taking half steps.
2. I think actually with everything going on this will help students because I think it will mitigate. how some feel if they've gotten behind they can't recover.
3. It allows me to spend more time on the teaching and feedback .

For my Shakespeare and Capstone classes I think this will be an easy sell because most of those students will have had me before, so their other classes with me and the stuff above we've done has prepped them for this. For my composition classes it'll take some more work. I plan on asking them at the beginning to reflect on their experience with grades and feedback, how it's made them feel in the past, what they think the point of grades is, and use all that as an opening for talking about my rationale for doing this.

I've made a new page for my class webpage that lays out my rationale, pulls together a lot of disparate thoughts, and tries (and I hope succeeeds) in explaining to the students how and why I'm doing this. I've tried to gesture towards all the really smart people who have done this groundbreaking work for decades. What I'm doing is not new it's just trying to figure out the best way to apply what others have set up.

For what it's worth, even with struggling and trying to figure out what serves students best, I think all this is better, even with not totally ungrading, I think all this is better. It is better not to base your relationships with students in antagonism. It is better to let students have agency over their learning. It is better to teach students how to advocate for themselves and present solid evidence to back themselves up. 

What Scares Me

 I am not easily scared.

I write about horror for most of my scholarly work, and have finally acknowledged that, stopped feeling ashamed by it (thanks weirdo elitist academia), and love the work I do.

I have been scared by only a handful of things in my 44 year old life:

• A Girl Scout sleepover late night VHS viewing of the original A Nightmare on Elm Street
• The first season of American Horror Story
• The Haunting of Hill House 
• The Haunting of Bly Manor

It took me a bit to finish Bly Manor this weekend mainly because I could not watch episodes before bed and even WITH watching something else in the hours before bed I still was careful to shut the bedroom closet, eyed the dark hallway with a sense of unease, and was leery of turning my back to dark corners. Friday, Saturday, Sunday nights, it was all the same feeling, the same unsettling.

I could not have told you exactly what I felt uneasy about or what fear tickled the back of my brain, but it sat there, coiled, dark, unsettling.

Like I said, I don't scare easy but I felt haunted all weekend and it got me thinking about the other rare times I'd felt this way. I felt it when The Haunting of Hill House came out, but I also felt it the first season of American Horror Story, and I started turning over in my mind what these things had in common.

One thing that struck me was that for all of these, by the end of each story, there is nothing scary at all about any of these things. By the end of each the total narrative, the explanation, the history, has been revealed, laid out, and that reveal removes the shadows. 

Season one of American Horror Story ends when Ben (Dylan McDermott), Vivien (Connie Britton), Moira (Frances McCoy), and the other ghosts of the house have created a life for themselves. They decorate the house for Christmas, a perfectly normal scene, even with Tate (Evan Peters) still on the outside, still waiting for Violet (Taissa Farmiga) to forgive him. 

At the end of The Haunting of Hill House, the Crains family retunrs to Hill House to try and save Luke, who is destroyed when he seeks to destroy the house, ensuring no one else is lost to it. But Nell, the sister who was also destroyed by the house when she died by suicide, unable to escape the trauma of her haunting by the house.

In each of these stories the characters are haunted and traumatized by the events of their past, both their individual pasts and the generational pasts of their families and homes. All of these narratives convey this through flashbacks to the past, connecting these traumatic experiences. These flashbacks serve two purposes, they terrify us with the initial event, like the terrifying presence of the Bent-Neck Lady in Hill House, but they also eventually serve to explain the terror, reveal the source.

What makes these narratives terrifying is the idea that we can be haunted, dogged, incapable of escaping the events of our past. The idea that it does not matter where you go, what you overcome, what you accomplish you can never escape these terrors, these horrors, is itself a terror. Yet each narrative reveals a logic, an answer to these horros. In each story the answer is the story itself. AHS, Hill House, Bly Manor, each spends their episodes, their seasons revealing the stories behind the horror. The ghosts, the dead, those left behind and the traumatized, each have their story told and once their story is told they are no longer a horror, or rather they are still recognized as a horror, as a traumatic experience, no one in these stories is erasing or retconning the events of their past. Rather each set of families, characters, is only freed from the haunting effects of their past, their experienced horrors once they have had the chance to tell their stories.

Ben learns the truth about the ghostly inhabitants of the house and it is that and not any of his other actions that enables him to fix his family.

The Crains face the truth of each of their collective horrors, coming together to face the truth, and only once they've done that does Nell save Luke, and in doing so save them all.

Carla Gugino as the literal storyteller reveals the ultimate truth of Bly Manor, and in telling Dani's story tells the story of Viola, and how the ghosts of Bly came to be. Dani's acceptance of Viola's story frees the ghosts, and ensures no more will be created. The Storytellers narrative also frees Henry and Owen.

What each narrative seems to tell us, the lesson, seems to be that revealing and facing the past, learning from the stories of the past, is the only way to move forward. So why are they so scary, so haunting, if at the end we know it ends up okay? The ghosts that haunt these houses are horrifying in different ways. In AHS ghosts were created by dismemberment, death by suicide, self-immolation, and their actions, their forms of death, their trauma, for many of them is written on their bodies, the cause of the terror, the horror, their appearance evokes in others. In Hill House, both Nell and Olivia who died by suicide show evidence of their actions in their haunting, and the ghost of Abigail Dudley cannot leave the grounds she's killed on.  Bly Manor is haunted by ghosts who have forgotten their narratives, their names, their origins, seen in the wiping of their faces, the loss of their identity.

Perhaps these ghosts are terrifying because it is so easy to see how they are haunted by their lives, their actions. For many the cause of their own terror, which now terrorizes others, is written on their body. Their bodies then become the object lesson, and since so many of these ghosts are denied their own voice, their bodies are the only way their story can be told. Once the origin of their trauma has been revealed only THEN are they free, and are the inhabitants free of their haunting.

Even if we suspect that the endings will end up okay, the single episode narratives, the hauntings, the terrors are all still horrifying. We can say we understand that there's nothing under the bed, hiding in the dark doorway, waiting for us to turn out the light to get us, but knowing that and feeling that are different things. I still held my breath as I turned out the lights. I still didn't want the closet door open. I FELT the possible presence, threat, even if I KNEW it was irrational, not real. 

And maybe the reason why we're scared is because we've learned that personal traumas follow us, haunt us, keep us from doing certain things, living our lives. Maybe there is no dismembered ghost waiting to strangle us as soon as we turn off the light, but lights on or not WE are still left with our own personal horrors. We carry our traumas, our experiences with us, in the light and in the dark. The dark is not a comforting escape, it does not provide a respite, there is no hiding. Not all of us wear our own horrors on our skin as warnings or horrific narratives told to others. 

The end of each of these narratives either safely contains their ghosts and traumas or exorcises them. By the end of each the terror and horrors have been revealed and are not a source of fear. AHS shows the beginning of a new life for the family, Hill House finally frees the family members to move on from those events, and Bly Manor ends up freeing the ghosts, Flora, Miles, Henry, and ends up a love story.

It should be comforting that there is a way out of the trauma, a way through these experiences, a map for living a life free from horrors and terrors. But if that was truly true then we wouldn't jump at shadows, check under the bed, or not be able to sleep, right? Shouldn't KNOWING a thing make it easier? Yet somehow it is not. The ghostly shadow is still terrifying. The jumps real. The feelings of unease, of fear, is darker, deeper, and tickles that lizard part of our brain.

Maybe it's because we know that trauma is real, we experience it, it haunts us. It is real and we carry it with us each day.

Happy endings and resolutions on the other hand seem harder to believe in.

How are you still this horrible to students?

I've written here before that I used to be one of those "well-meaning but still doing harm" teachers. I replicated systems I waas taught- I bought in that rigor was rules and compliance. I thought controlling small things, the broken windows approach to teaching, was the way to ensure larger things didn't go off the rails. I believed in hard deadlines and not taking late work. I used to give 0s.

Over the years my pedagogy has radically changed.

My classes have sign in sheets, not to punish students for attendance but so I can email and check in with them every week or two if they've been missing. I tell students why- when I was in undergrad, I had an 8a art history class. I had an A in it on all my tests.  She had a strict attendance policy and she failed me for being one over. I had to repeat the class senior year. It was totally not fair.

I focus now on what the pedagogical reasons for readings, assignments, activities are in my classes.

I design my classes each semester around the students in front of me, what will engage them, what they need.

Students get 100s for turning in work, receive detailed feedback, and write grade reflections for larger assignments where they tell ME what grade they think their work earns.

There is no penalty for late work. Students don't have to justify or explain absences or beg for extensions. 

It's taken me longer than it should have.

I was given a few opportunities to learn and resisted. Cognitive dissonance is real.

But I eventually got here, and try, really hard, to keep learning, doing better. 

Education programs really need to start training teachers in the most recent research about how students learn, equity, and focus more on pedagogy than a checklist of best practices that are decades old. Most education programs and certainly the majority of school systems are still training, and expecting their students to perform, as though they wish for some artificial reconstruction of the "good old days" of teaching (not so much of an emphasis on learning).

Sadly, I've learned that higher education is not much different. Too many professors have no interest in teaching, or learning how to teach. They seem more concerned with holding students to out-dated, inaccurate models of "rigor" and arbitrary rules that "prepare them for the real world" than anything else. These people seem to be totally secure in their positions, happily bragging and ranting on the internet about their lectures, lack of student support, failing students, making fun of students, both their behaviors and assignments, in public spaces.

Their pedagogical style seems designed around punishment, them as the authority that cannot be questioned and students as the peons who should worship at their feet.

These people should not be teachers. They should not be entrusted with people's learning. They do active harm with their policies, and content choices, and approaches.

The last few months have revealed another aspect of horrific teaching. It's not a new issue, but with the massive move to online learning, it's certainly been moved to forefront. There are a vocal number of professors who assume their students are cheating, cannot be trusted, are dishonest, and must be surveiled. They must turn their cameras on, show professors a 360 of their surroundings, record themselves taking tests. 

They do not trust their students to complete their own assignments, listen or participate in class without their camera on, take a test with the time they need, accomodating all the possible thing that might interupt a quiz or test like poor Internet, family responsibilities, or anything else.

There is a vengeful glee that I have noticed in professors who are not concerned with how their students are in a literal world on fire, with protests against systematic injustice, state sanctioned violence, during a global pandemic disproportionately affecting and killing those who are already marginalized but are VERY concerned that we use X software so students can't cheat.

There is everything wrong with this. 

First, how, as a teacher, do you live every day with this negative assumption of your students? If your view of your students is as cheaters, people who are looking for the easy way out, looking to fool you, that colors your entire pedagogy, all the decisions you make in your classes and your teaching.

Second, have any of these professors stopped to ask WHY their students are cheating? Do they not know how to cite? Were they under a time crunch, painted into a corner, and felt they had no choice? What is the professor doing that contributed to this?

Third, design better assignments, unique ones where students choose their own topics, and *poof* suddenly you stop having issues with "cheating."

These professors are actively harming their students.

The professor requiring you to produce a death certificate to be allowed to make up an exam or an assignment is actively harming their students.

The professor not choosing texts or tailoring their content for the students in front of them is actively harming their students.

The professor not granting extensions, or penalizing students for late work, even if we're not in the middle of the worst nine months of our lives, is actively harming their students.

Most of the good teachers or professors I know have horror stories of things they experienced, like me and my art history teacher, and how it informed or changed their practice.

For too long these professors have been able to do this harm for a variety of reasons. Students have not felt comfortable advocating for themselves against this harm, there has been no support when they do, other professors refuse to hold their colleagues accountable, and students often have no choice in taking a certain class or professor.

On Twitter I've seen a lot of students sharing the awful things their professors are doing. I'm also seeing a growing frustration by students on professors who are dumping more work on them because they think they're just sitting home doing nothing, professors who are failing them because of tech glitches or not complying with surveillance software.

These behaviors are unethical and awful in normal times. During all this? I think it's horrific. 

Our students should be at the center of what we do. We should be basing decisions on what is best for them in this moment. 

Students should not feel they have to apologize for sending a professor an email.

Students should not be afraid to ask their professors for help.

Students should not have added stress or anxiety because of anything a professor is doing.

I cannot fix or even begin to address, or in some cases comprehend, what my students are going through and experiencing. I have a steady job, I can pay my bills, I have so far managed to stay healthy, although I've grieved as I've lost people to Covid and struggled with the state of the world. 

But here's what I can do for my students.

My classes do not have due dates, or penalties for late work.

I set aside a week for us to workshop major assignments, time for them to work on it in class, ask questions, get help. I tell them so far as time management that they should aim for turning it in sometime that week so they don't then find themselves behind as we move on. But the line I always repeat is "you are adults and I trust that you will make the decisions you need to." It costs me nothing to do this. I set a deadline, a week before the end of the semester that's a hard deadline for turning any/all missing work, so I can grade it and the students know what their grade is before the final paper/project, but other than that, no deadlines, due dates, restrictions. So students don't have to request extensions, or share personal reasons for needing extra time, or justify their trauma or things they're struggling with. They just get the time. Automatically. I've heard some professors complain about the work this creates, that the burden is put on them. First, having done this for years I can tell you I've never seen this. The nightmare scenario that these professors like to describe- that somehow all 150 of your students will wait until the day before class ends to submit all their work never materializes. It just doesn't happen. In my years of having this policy each semester there is at best in each class a handful of students that take advantage of the extra time. Not a burden, or extra work. And while I totally understand that depending on your status and role at a school your labor conditions are different, and often unequitable, if you are a professor your job is to teach and you need to do that. You need to serve your students.

Students can revise any assignment for a higher grade.

For some classes the grades are 75% practice assignments they write grade reflections so we can calibrate where they think they are versus where I think they are, but they get a 100 for turning it in and the final paper that reflects all the practice is the final 25% and they argue for what grade they think it earns based on our work all semester. In other classes they have major assignments with ungraded formative assignments that practice. In all cases if they do not like their grade, or want to revise to practice or improvetheir skills, they're welcome to, and the higher grade replaces their previous one.

There is no attendance policy. 

I tell them we do most of the work in class, so attending class is important, but I trust them to do what they need. I have students who have child care issues, who have responsibilities at home, who have not felt comfortable attending class after hearing about campus parties in light of Covid. Others have issues with work schedules, or their commute, or struggling with depression or stress or anxiety. Again, it costs me nothing to NOT penalize students for these things.

Policies that penalize students for these situations and issues are inequitable and often ableist. They reward students with advantages and privilege and punish students for conditions beyond their control.

There has been a lot of talk about how *waves* all this provides an opportunity to interogate these systems and build better environments, better approaches. A recognition that our classes do not have to be this way, and we can do better.

In the scheme of things, these are all really small things. They require almost no effort on our part as professors and make sure a big difference to our students.

I cannot do anything about my students having family who are sick, or vulnerable. I cannot do anything about students worried about their job prospects in this new world. I cannot do anything to cure a students' depression, or stress, or anxiety. If anything, the list of things I cannot help with or improve has only grown in the last few months. I can listen if students want to talk, I can be sympathetic, which helps some students just to have someone to talk to, even if I can't DO anything to actually help. I feel more powerless than I have in twenty years of teaching. So with all the things I CANNOT do it really seems like the least I, or any of us can do, is these small moves that can help our students so much. Because I CAN take late work. I CAN make sure my class is not an additional source of stress or anxiety. I CAN tell students I'm happy to see them. I CAN email and check in with them to see if they're okay.

I am not a magical professor. Not all students will take advantage. Not all students will come to class, turn in all their work, love my topic. There are things my policies and approaches can't, won't, fix. These things are not magical fairy dust. They are literally the least I can do to help though. So I will continue to do them, and reflect on ways I can do better. Make my class more accessible, more accomodating.

So here are the small moves folks can do to help:

If you screw up admit it, fix it, move on.

If you can make a change to how your class runs that will benefit your students, make it. Even if you're halfway through your semester, there is no rule that says you can't tell your students that you've realized X and want to change some things to help them so now you're going to do Y.

When students email you apologizing or feeling like they need to make excuses, don't underestimate the power of saying thank you, but you don't need to do this. Of telling them you're happy to help. Of asking HOW you can help.

Be sure to tell students how they can do better, end the class well, catch up. Sometimes students can't see a way out, and just give up. SHOW them there is a way to finish class.

As so many have pointed out though, I don't know how to tell you that you should care about other people. The educational research and evidence shows the harm these types of policies and behaviors do. There is no excuse for continuing them.

If you continue to view teaching as a form of control, as a way to be cruel to students, to belittle them, enhance your own power, then I think you're an awful human being. You are actively harming your students. You are doing lifelong damage to your students, and how they view learning. You should not be trusted with students. You should not be a teacher or a professor. You're in the wrong job.

We can't solve a lot of these issues.

But we can certainly not make things worse, harder, for our students.