I’m moving this over from the list of comments. In this long rant, I respond to a question from Brian. I post it here because it has in it the closest thing I have yet seen, in my opinion, to a good set of rubric descriptors for the interpersonal communication mode. It’s not set in stone (is anything?) but it will be a good reference for me to understand my thinking on this now in October. And thank you, Brian, for blasting away at this. It couldn’t be of greater importance as a blog thread right now, in my opinion. I feel like we are definitely moving through something right now:
Brian, the reason that I called my participation grade bogus was because it is. I use it to manipulate the quick quizzes. If a kid does really well as a human being, but not well on the quizzes, then they get a higher participation grade and it pulls the grade up, which I want. You should see the kid’s human reaction when I do that. It is so nice to genuinely honor their work in class with the A and damn the torpedos with ADMIN labels. If the kid doesn’t show up in the human way in class, but have high comprehension grades, then I torpedo them. This used to be improper until Harrell started reading the ACTFL guidelines more carefully than anyone else.
In my opinion, calling out the kids on their interaction with us in class is the opposite of that they wuss Princeton guy did. We are holding kids accountable for learning. The Princeton guy would rather retire. Who loses in that scenario? Oh, le pauvre professeur qui ne pouvait pas supporter tous les élèves sans la capacité de penser comme il voulait et tout ça à cause des profs au lycée! Oh, il va pleurer et prendre sa retraite, le pauvre connard!
In the above grading scenario, however, the grade is still bogus, having the quality of water and not defensible at all in the eyes of AA’s (asshole administrators whose friend’s daughter in your class got all A’s in middle school but now must be forced to become human in your class and hence the “concern” of the AA).
Now, with this new initiative in aligning with the three modes, the grade is defensible because it aligns with standards. The little robot girl, bless her shortened childhood heart, cannot keep behaving like a robot now. She cannot continue to look everywhere for things that you are doing wrong, so that she can tell her controlling parent about you, who can tell the assistant principal to come after you, so she doesn’t have to feel the burn of becoming more human, of actually interacting artfully with the teacher.
When I tell the class what a 3 (proficiency) means in so many words, then they know that that behavior will get that grade, and it won’t be a watery and somewhat underhanded participation grade with no clear definition, but a real grade connected to standards.
Brian here are your definitions, with mine below them in italics. I don’t know which are best or most useful – we can all write our own. That is a discussion for another day and why Matava, always on point, asked you to define your interpersonal rubric. We can do that later. Again, here are your rubric descriptors for the Interpersonal Mode from that big – hugely important – post of a few days ago:
(https://benslavic.com/blog/2011/10/30/brian-on-standards-based-grading/):
0 – not fully present, unnecessary L1
1 – being fully present
2 – signal confusion (the ‘no comprehension’ response)
3 – respond appropriately to communicated message (reactive response)
4 – initiate conversation (non-reactive, non-forced speech output)
And here are the ones that you provided in this different scale to Anne today:
0 – not attentive, uses English unnecessarily
1 – fully attentive (Ben’s rules about nothing on desk, laps, clear eyes, etc.), and NO unnecessary use of English
2 – signals when he/she does not understand (perfect from the first day to the last for all levels)
3 – able to respond to L2 (NOTE: this does NOT say able to respond IN L2 – again, following Ben’s original ideas, students can always respond with up to 2 words in English. What…they don’t understand? Then that is why level 2 says use the signal…EVERYONE, including language level 1 students, can get to level 3 on this scale, becuase signalling (level 2 on the scale) insures that the teacher never goes out of bounds. Signalling gives them ownership of the pace of the class. From there, level 3 says they ALL can repond. Yes/No answers, Either/Or answers, 2-word English answers, etc.
4 – this is speaking in L2 that is non-forced, non-reactive (i.e. not an elicited response – student spoke up in L2 becuase they wanted to). This does not imply long strings of L2 – may just be a few words.
Here they are tweaked by me, for no other reason than they reflect my own thinking on this right now:
0 – student is not mentally present, uses unnecessary L1, does not communicate to the instructor when confused, does not participate in a way that is good for the group, is largely mentally absent, does not follow the posted Classroom Rules. Applied to the school grading scale, this is an F.
1 – student does not yet fully understand his/her role in class, that learning a language is a reciprocal and participatory activity requiring that the student be consciously involved in the class, trying to understand the language, communicating when he/she doesn’t understand, helping the teacher and the rest of the class in the process. Student does not does signal confusion using the “no-comprehension” response. Follows the Classroom Rules, but minimally. Applied to the school grading scale, this is a D.
2 – student is able to do the above described behaviors, but minimally. Student can and does signal confusion using the “no-comprehension” response. Follows the Classroom RulesApplied to the school grading scale, this is a C.
3 – student is able to do the above described behaviors. Student responds appropriately to communicated messages (reactive response). Student frequently signals confusion using the “no-comprehension” response. THIS IS PROFICIENCY in this communicative mode. Applied to the school grading scale, this is a B.
4 – (Brian I changed the 4 grade most, to avoid any mention of output in an interpersonal grade): – student effortlessly does the above described behaviors. Student responds appropriately to all communicated messages (reactive response). Student always signals confusion using the “no-comprehension” response. THIS IS ABOVE PROFICIENCY in this communicative mode. Applied to the school grading scale, this is an A.
Now, these will certainly change. And we need rubric descriptors for the other two modes of communicationas well. But this is a start for me, anyway.
And I love the way Brian wants to keep this roughly the same thoughout all levels. Because there ARE NO LEVELS in language acquisition, just time exposed to the language. Let’s not forget that point as we move forward in this discussion.
That last question is really at the heart of this thing. I have been waiting for that question, not knowing what it was or how it would fit into the overall discussion, but seeing it now, I get it. Of particular value to me is this sentence from you Brian:
…for the Interpretive Mode, we’ve got simple numbers coming from quick quizzes – can anyone see any simple numbers that could be collected with this Interpersonal scale…?
Yes, of course, the Interpersonal Communication rubric becomes valid, can actually measure something. Let’s re-read what Robert wrote about two weeks ago, which I really consider key:
…what I am finding is that if I start all students at Proficient and get buy-in for playing the game, I need to keep track only of significant deviations from that. The stars will stick in your mind because they are the stars and will get Advanced grades. The students who are quiet will probably evaluate themselves more harshly than you will, so giving them a better grade than they think they earned will not be a problem (besides, discussing the discrepancy gives you an opportunity to tell them you appreciate their quiet participation). That leaves a very small group in each class (usually only 1 or 2) that you need to document. It doesn’t hurt to keep a journal of some sort in which you note behavioral issues each day….
Now I would rather be doing something else than keeping a journal on my kids’ behaviors. That sounds extreme to me. I would rather give the grade because I am the expert. I am the teacher. No mind numbed number cruncher will tell me how to evaluate in this key area. And it’s definitely not a participation grade, it’s where the kid stacks up on a proficiency scale, where the 3 is in my mind about an 80, which should be and is what we will call proficient, if you will, and a 4 is over 90, and a 2 is something like a C and a 1 like a D, as expressed above, and the most important O is where Robert guides us to NAIL the kid who does nothing to help the group. I really really really like the way Robert says that above in the first scale he offered, because it is spot on, and because it is simple and very little work work, right?
Another thing on the above numbers. If we are doing our jobs right, making sure that we are going slowly enough, teaching to the eyes, pointing and pausing effectively, inviting Krashen in, then we are going to have most of our students at proficiency, at B or A. This is good, because teachers who fail kids, those traditional teachers who DO NOT DO THEIR JOBS PROPERLY, failing the kids, for decades now have justified their failures by CLAIMING THAT MOST OF THEIR STUDENTS ARE STUPID and thus shouldn’t continue on to the next level, which we now know is simply not true. that it is the method of instruction that causes the kids to fail and drop out, and not any inherent inability on their parts to learn a language.
Maybe I am oversimplifying things, I tend to do that these days. I just need it to be simple now. I no longer want to think too much about what I am going to do in the classroom, and justify a grade with all sorts of little rubrics and numbers and shit (when the grade probably would be more accurate if I just pulled a number out of my head, honestly). When I plan too much and grade too much, then instead of going into each class fresh and open to what will happen if I just trust life, trust my conversations with my students to just happen, trusting in the pedagogical approach we use (the subtitle of which is “Quit Trying to be a Teaching Star, You Meathead, and let Conversation Emerge in its Own Way, You Fool!”), then I lose the pulse of life in that action of getting stuck in my head. Pretty gnarly rant there but hey it’s Hallow’s Eve.
To return to the long lost point, the rubric you offer fits my plan perfectly, Brian. I dump the participation grade, and fire up the Three Modes descriptors. I like the numbers, they target proficiency, like you said in another comment somewhere, between 2 and 3. I can award grades to kids BASED ON WHAT I SEE IN CLASS and if some administrator questions their validity I will patiently explain what the Three Modes are, or at least what they mean to me, as per:
https://benslavic.com/blog/2011/10/26/what-the-three-modes-mean-to-me/
and I will NEVER ALLOW AN ADMINISTRATOR TO QUESTION MY AUTHORITY IN EVALUATING KIDS. I just won’t let them question me, for the reason that they don’t know what I know about my kids in my own classroom.
I LIKE THE NUMBERS, Brian. Thanks for them. If we can hammer something out on this first one, the other two will be very similar, as per what you said to Anne. And please, feel free to burst my bubble on this possibly too simplistic view of grading (I’m feeling that some people who read how I grade are thinking it’s too simple. Fine, pay me over $200K per year and I’ll show you some serious shit numbers). But, at my current salary and with my colleagues being laid off all over the country, I’m not going to take any shit from anyone on how I evaluate my students.
And, one more thing. Once all of the grading is done, is it not true that many teachers go back in for one last look at the grades before posting them, and, there at the last minute, adjust the grades up or down to reflect if they like the kid or not? Yes or no? We are such hypocrites. Hmmm. A rather ranty night here. Oh well.
Related:
https://benslavic.com/blog/2011/10/26/what-the-three-modes-mean-to-me/