Dear Ben,
I’m wondering what everyone else in this group is doing about grades. Our district now has Zangle, which has a serious disadvantage in that whatever way you set it up at the beginning of the year is the way it will stay all year. No tweaking, unless you want it to affect the entire year for that class.
This year and last, I went for Standards-Based grading the way I understood it from Scott Benedict. I really liked setting what I thought was important in the heaviest weight: speaking. Then came writing. The next highest couple of weights were listening and reading. After that were structures, vocabulary and culture. At the bottom of the pile (or the top, but in any case, having the least weight), was citizenship. SBG meant that anyone could look at a grade report and see which areas kids excelled in or needed to build up.
I liked doing that a lot, but had to keep remembering to keep grades going into the different categories. I felt that the grades were as fair as they could be and reflected what the kids were really doing.
But it took a lot of effort, and part of me wants to just do points, with the daily and occasional bigger quizzes and speaking assignments. It seems to me that grades are such an imperfect measure, and that we know better grades (success) motivate better than poor grades, so why not make it possible for every kid to get good grades…if they’re there and paying attention.
I talked recently with a colleague who uses standard-based grading in her math and English classes. She does it in this way: she enters the standard, and gives the kids multiple chances to prove mastery of that standard. She records their most recent grade (B for mastered, A for excelled, C for progress, and so on). She gives kids warning when it’s about to be their last chance to prove it. I really like this idea, but am a bit at a loss how to do it in language–because it seems as though one would have to put standards in terms of themes, and I don’t do themes any more. I could see “lists ten foods she likes” or “can read and respond to story on family” but without the themes, I’d be back to what I do–“retold Monkey story,” or “vocabulary/structure/listening quiz on president story.”
Now that I’ve watched the Susie DVD’s, I’m interested in limiting the time I spend on formal assessment and grading even more. In real life, I would prefer not to grade at all. Because I’m in public school, I have to have a system. If I have to have a system, I want to make it as motivating, simple and transparent as possible for all involved.