Blogging Pedagogy - assessment

How to Outsource Your Grading and Look (and Feel) Good Doing It

Beck Wise — Wed, 28 Jan 2015 22:09:43 +0000

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Image Credit:

"Crowdsurfing at the Tocotronic show". Photo: daspunkt.

Or, The Power of Crowdsourcing Assessment.

Like a lot of instructors at UT, I have required presentations in my classes and over the years, these presentations have taken a lot of different forms, from three solid days of argumentative presentations to close out the semester in my first-year writing class, to having students introduce a critical section of the text and lead discussion in my current literature class. One thing that hasn't changed, though, is the way I assess presentations. Which is to say: I don't.

This isn't to say that presentations aren't assessed, though. Whether course grades are determined by the instructor, in the traditional mode, or argued for by students in the Learning Record, I consider it critical that students receive concrete feedback on their various achievements within their presentations -- and further, that this feedback come from more than just the instructor.

Peer review for writing assignments gives students the opportunity to receive criticism and guidance from others in the class as they move through their writing process towards complete drafts, but it's tough to think of an equivalent opportunity for presentations. While you do write and rewrite in preparation, the nature of a classroom speech is essentially one and done. It's rare for students to present more than once in any single time-strapped college course, and there's certainly no way to revise and resubmit! The best a student can hope for is substantive feedback on their presentation that's specific to that class but generic enough to apply to the presentations they'll have to make later in their careers.

However, you can bring in more voices through peer assessment. Whenever I require presentations of my students, I also require that they provide feedback to each of their peers and that they record the grade the speaker has earnt. The grade isn't the important bit, so I won't spend time here on the various ways I've handled those in the past. But receiving written feedback from 20 or so peers on a single piece of work is the single most effective way I've found of letting students self-identify things to work on. Instead of yet another professor insisting that they speak slower, they get 15 classmates noting that the speed of the presentation made it tough to understand: they see the pattern and can act accordingly. In addition, students gain practice listening critically and assessing performance--and they tend to like the idea that their comments and assessments matter.

I can't deal with reams of paper anymore, so instead of handing out paper comment cards or the like, I use Google Forms to administer these presentation assessments, using the computers in my current networked classroom or, in non-digital spaces, having students bring their own devices and having a few paper worksheets on hand for those who don't have or prefer not to use web-capable tech in class. Google Forms--online questionaires whose responses automatically populate a spreadsheet on your Google Drive--have several affordances that make them well-suited to this kind of exercise:

Students can fill them in anonymously, with no sign-in required (or the possibility that their handwriting will be recognised by their peer), but I can still ask them to self-identify alongside their feedback; this lets me monitor the process to ensure that everyone is participating fully and seriously, and helps make sure the process doesn't further prove the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory
You can set up questions with a variety of answer types, from multiple choice (with one or more possible answers) to checkboxes to short open responses to paragraphs to drop-downs. I use short answer questions to collect the presenter's and reviewer's names, multiple choice questions to assess the specific goals of the presentation ("Did the presenter clearly identify important features of their excerpt?" "Yes" - "Sometimes / kind of" - "No"), an open paragraph box for detailed feedback, and a final multiple choice question for the assessed grade. You can also select which questions are compulsory
You can copy and paste the detailed feedback straight from that column in the spreadsheet into another document to be provided to the student--it's quick and painless
You can embed the form into your class website for easy access; if you don't have one, a URL shortener will be your friend

I was tempted, in composing this blog post, to title it 'Many Hands'--but as we all know, many hands can as easily make a big damn mess as they can make light work. And having students offer peer feedback doesn't abnegate your responsibility as an instructor to offer feedback--the document I give students after presentations includes an average two pages of peer feedback plus a paragraph or two of my own comments, of the length I would give even without peer feedback. (This semester I'm also including graphs of the responses to the multiple-choice questions.) This process in no way saves me time--but by automating the process in this way, it adds maybe a minute to the time I spend writing feedback, while ensuring my students get far more information about their performance. That's a trade-off I can get behind.

A Case for Portfolio-Based Assessment

Tekla Hawkins — Sat, 11 Jan 2014 17:33:31 +0000

Author:

Tekla Hawkins

Image Credit:

Bill Watterson

As far as I know I’m the only instructor at UT-Austin using portfolio grading in a Literature course this term; I know for certain that future graduate-student instructors have been told they are not allowed to use portfolio grading in even their self-designed Literature courses going forward. I’ve heard various reasons why instructors aren’t allowed to choose their own assessment methods, but portfolio-based grading makes the most sense for my teaching style and philosophy, and so I’m taking this opportunity to explain just three of the reasons it makes teaching the course easier: reduced class preparation time, easier grading, and more appropriate and equitable assessment.

The reduced teaching preparation for each class may seem counter-intuitive given the portfolio system that I use--the Online Learning Record, developed by Peg Syverson. This system requires the students to make twitter-length observations about their own learning processes throughout the semester, and write self-evaluations at the middle and end of term. The instructor provides feedback on the self-evaluation at the midterm in addition to feedback on all work in the course. The reduction in class preparation time comes from reading the observations on an ongoing basis. I’ve set up our course wiki to notify me of changes, so each day I receive a digest of information that tells me exactly how the class is going. From an instructor’s perspective, this reduces almost all of the guesswork involved in teaching a class, and so is especially useful for teaching a new-to-them course. Instead of preparing for multiple class discussions that might emerge, ten minutes of reading allows me to focus on whatever the students have said they are struggling with or find especially engaging.

Providing good feedback and evaluations for each assignment becomes easier as well; through the introductory portions of the Learning Record, I have some idea of where the students are at the beginning of the term. Through their observations I know what they’re working on and struggling with, and so (again with just a few moments of review) I can provide focused feedback on particular issues for each individual student. Because the Learning Record is written, I don’t have to remember or look through multiple files to remind myself what the issues at hand are. Because the feedback isn’t grade-based, the students feel less pressured and criticized, and in my experience are more likely to do thorough revisions of their written work.

Assessment for the final grades via a portfolio system is more equitable than relying on an A-F assessment. At a foundational level, humanities are not the same as basic maths. It is nearly always impossible and inappropriate to assess reading and writing skills as if they could be judged via scantron, as multiple ongoing arguments have proved. The struggle against universal education and teaching has been ongoing for years, and the detrimental effects of “teaching to the test” are well-known.

And yet, for many classes and schools, a “traditional” ABC version of grading remains standard. There are many reasons for this, but one is considered to be the ease of grading. If you have hundreds of students, you can design tests and reading and writing assignments that can be easily graded via a rubric. Points per section of the rubric = points toward an A. It’s easy enough right up until you are able to get to know your students. Then it gets harder.

Like most students in my program, I was a TA for a large lecture section during my MA. Our E316ks are typically taught by experienced professors to classes of 200-300 students. The several TAs for these classes typically each lead two discussion sections, help design test questions, and grade all of the exams. UT-Austin has about 40,000 undergraduate students, and E316k is a general requirement, so about 4,000 students take the course each year. Inevitably, we have a very diverse student population, and they give us very different responses to instruction. Most teachers are familiar with the struggle of giving a student who has made a tremendous effort and huge progress a really poor grade because they are not performing in the same manner as their peers. Because I teach in digital classrooms, the variety of student experiences and abilities with technology – in addition to literature and rhetoric – is amplified even further. In addition to traditional essays my students use mind maps, wordles, Google Earth, and blogs. Each of these resist a cut and dry assessment, as DH scholars trying to get tenure are repeatedly reminded. Good instructors have many ways of supporting their students despite an A-F assessment system, but it becomes radically more difficult. The Learning Record ensures that each student meets a minimum standard, but can be evaluated on progress and development in multiple areas instead of just one.

Finally, I find the portfolio system most supports my teaching philosophy. My students are very smart. My job is to facilitate their learning; and the longer I teach the more I realize one of my primary goals is to find methods of teaching that celebrate and prioritize learning over knowing. The Learning Record is one of the ways I can ground each class in that methodology while still being transparent about my own authority over the group. Giving and receiving constant feedback builds community and ensures that a student’s performance and production over the a term is collaborative – between each student, myself, and the rest of the classroom. Prioritizing this idea is especially important when working with digital materials, which are designed to foster collaboration.

I frequently hear two objections to this kind of portfolio system; that students can more easily cheat, and that the classes we teach are supposed to be designed to introduce students to the English major, and so different assessment types will be confusing for the students. Regarding cheating, I can only say that my experience has been that it is very difficult to cheat on the Learning Record, and that as far as I know none of my students have tried. And while I think most courses should move away from an A-F assessment, I don’t think students are confused by having one or two courses use alternate grading methods. Below are quotes from Learning Record evaluations from students all over the grade spectrum:

At first, every time something new rolled around, I grew anxious because I was afraid of getting something wrong...throughout the couse, I have grown just to try...I don't let this fear of failure keep me from getting my work done anymore.

"I feel as though I am learning how to learn. This skill is ultimately better than anything any professor could teach me. I could forget [topic...] but it wouldn't be an issue because the learning record and this class have given me the tools to learn it again by myself."

"I started out literally AFRAID of going to class. Now I actually look forward to it and enjoy hearing everyone's insights on the readings. This course has allowed me to take on entirely new perspectives on learning."

I don’t mind being erased from the student’s evaluation; if I’ve helped them think critically about their own thinking, I’ve done my job. The portfolio-based system makes this easier.

Administering What All Students Dread: Reading Quizzes

Regina Mills — Sun, 06 Oct 2013 05:00:00 +0000

Author:

Regina Marie Mills

Image Credit:

Melanie Fejeran

I have spent a lot of time this semester thinking about how to best encourage my students to do the reading, in addition to how to prep them for class discussion of the material. I have decided upon reading quizzes/prep assignments during the first 10 minutes of class. I came to this conclusion after a few student evaluations and some colleagues told me about how successful this technique is for ensuring more students are ready to add to the conversation. Since my discussions have been fruitful and have consistently included a variety of student voices, I don’t intend to stop doing them. However, the best format of this strange genre of formative assessment has eluded me.

Since I teach in a computer classroom, in which all students have access to their own Mac computer, I have been trying to balance using these tools, not because I feel I always have to, but in order to challenge myself and my students to use unfamiliar tools (like Storify) or to learn new things about old tools (like how to add page numbers in the header using Microsoft Word). Thus, I have also experimented with how I might use the computer to administer my reading quizzes. I have tried 3 different ways so far and will elaborate on these methods, with their pros and cons, in addition to throwing out a few other ideas that I may try (or that you could try and give me feedback on!).

1. Blackboard Test Function

What is it? Blackboard is like Canvas or Sakai or any other on-line class management system. The test function allows you to create on-line quizzes and tests (from test banks or with a create-your-own-question function) which allows all aspects of the quiz (the administration and grading) to happen on-line.

Pros: No paper (go green!), no need to move grades from the paper or another system to the grade book. Easy to read the answers, since it avoids the student handwriting issue. Allows you to leave feedback or to give automatic feedback depending on whether or not the answer is right or wrong (ex. you can write in where the student could have found the answer as an automatic feedback response to an incorrect answer). Great for multiple-choice, True/False, and fill-in-the-blank. You can stop students from backtracking and cut them off after a certain amount of time. Answer choices and the questions can be randomized to prevent students from copying each other’s answers.

Cons: Creating the test is time-consuming and has way too many steps. Much faster to make it on Word. You can’t reuse questions or quizzes for different courses (or if you can, it is not clear how). Doesn’t really save you time on grading short-answer questions. Possibility that you will lose connection or have an error that makes the student lose all of their answers and/or the submission. Takes awhile to log-in to computers, so students who come in right when class starts (or worse, late) have much less time to write.

2. Blackboard Discussion Board

What is it? A forum for the class within the Blackboard course management system. The threads and replies are viewable by the entire class and instructors.

Pros: No paper. Submission and grades all happen in one place. Students can copy and paste quotes easier (so they don’t need to waste time re-writing quotes from a text). Allows students to browse each other’s answers later. Great for freewriting. Can still set a time for the forum to close. Professor can respond publicly to each post. Creating the forum is quick and painless and you have some good options to make sure that students can’t edit their posts after submission (to reduce cheating based on skimming others’ answers). Allows more writing space.

Cons: Possibility that you will lose connection or have an error that makes the student lose their submission. Replying to the students’ post is clunky. Grading the posts is not quite as simple as grading through the test/quiz function. Only suitable for short-essay responses, not multiple-choice or other more specific test questions. Takes awhile to log-in to computers, so students who come in right when class starts or late have much less time to write.

3. Quiz on paper

What is it? The class paper-and-pen/cil assessment. You have the choice of allowing students access to only printed materials and notes or letting them use the computer to access texts from the course management system.

Pros: No issue with submissions. Students don’t need to juggle windows so much. Not dependent on typing speed. Students are used to it this way. No time wasted on logging in to computers and getting to the right screen. Tardy students can get started right away (unless they need the computer for the readings). Nice to hand them something physical back.

Cons: Instructor can lose it easier. Need to transfer grades from sheet to gradebook. Requires you to use paper and ink. Student handwriting can be hard to read, as can teacher feedback (disclaimer: I have bad handwriting). Need to be a bit pushy on the time-limit. Harder to prevent cheating in smaller classrooms. Annoying to have to re-write quotes from the text.

My ideas for the future:

1. Partner with someone and co-write an answer to a complex question related to the reading (gets discussion started right away and no excuse to not share, but allows students who didn’t read to lean on the well-prepared student)

2. Use a class wiki and have students respond/comment on questions

3. Have students add comments to a class Google Doc, or create their own Google Doc, which must be shared with intructor or a link posted to the class discussion board/forum

4. Have them turn in homework questions/activities (the danger here is that students might have cheated or copied answers)

These are my reflections on administering the Reading Quiz/Prep Assignment in class. Feel free to use them and definitely leave any comments or suggestions that could help me be a better teacher to my students.

Multimodal Writing: How Do We Assess New Media?

Rachel Mazique — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 00:35:39 +0000

Author:

Rachel Mazique

Image Credit:

"Multimedia Message" by rockcreek on Flickr

"Students should be able to both read critically and write functionally, no matter what the medium" (William Kist).

Last semester, I gave a presentation to a class of new Rhetoric and Writing instructors on my "Disability in Pop Culture" class proposal, experiences, and syllabus. Professor Mark Longaker introduced my class as one that works with disability and new media. Although I hadn’t thought of it that way, I realized that my pedagogy most definitely incorporates not only disability theory but also “new” media: whether within my lesson plans and clips pertaining to rhetoric/disability, in the design of my course—with our PbWorks wiki platform, or with the final major assignment I had students write: a multimodal argument. I was apprehensive about assigning this type of new media writing project, but, fortunately, resources abound. This blog post offers some of those resources I drew from and shares my method for assessing my students’ projects.

I have been working with The Journal of Undergraduate Multimedia Projects for over two years now, in a variety of positions, and this work served as my primary resource. The website includes information on the students’ project assignments and on the course. Professors often share their class websites, which means that this journal becomes a pedagogical resource as well as a publication venue. Professor Tanya Rodrigue’s class website inspired me to create a YouTube channel for my own class—even though my multimodal assignment prompt did not restrict the shape of the project to videos (as you can see from the links on the left of our homepage). From Rodrigue's class Tumblr, I came across a helpful article, “Between Modes: Assessing Student New Media Compositions.” I also drew on assignment descriptions and prompts from Professor Justin Hodgson and Scott Nelson.

The National Council of Teachers of English has a “Position Statement on Multimodal Literacies” including statements such as Kist’s, which begins this blog post. Another quote that I took to heart and found exemplified in a TED talk by a 12-year-old was:

"In digital forms, students, even very young students, are often more literate in the technical aspects of digital production than many of their teachers. Many students are frequently exposed to popular technologies, have the leisure time to experiment with their own production, develop the social connections that encourage peer teaching and learning, and may have access to more advanced technology than is available at school. The 'definitions' of multi-modal composing may be written by educators, but they will most likely have first been pioneered by these young people."

Hence, I strongly encouraged my students to collaborate on these projects, to learn from each other, and I happily learned from them. Working in the Digital Writing and Research Labs also means that I had our Visual Media Specialist, Scott Nelson, for support. He came to one of my classes and led an iMovie workshop; he also addressed copyright flags and takedowns on YouTube. Thanks to all of these resources, I felt much more confident about assigning this multimodal project; I also planned for three weeks of class time so students could work together. This time helped alleviate the concerns of the “low-tech” students who were anxious about this project. All of my students proved to have a tech-savviness that they (in some cases) did not know they had. Most were excited about writing in multiple modes. In short, they all relied upon/developed their digital literacy skills.

Teaching and assessing student work via The Learning Record portfolio system (which I explain more in-depth in previous blogs and lesson plans) allows me to assess work not solely based on the final technological project, but on how well it meets the requirements of the assignment, shows development and research into writing in new digital modes, and effectively presents an argument.

After the revision stage, I commented on student progress by synthesizing the comments of three of their peers on how persuasive the project was and whether the revisions following peer review were substantial. The instructions were as follows:

If you have reviewed this project during peer review, answer both questions below.

If this is your first time viewing the project, only answer the second question.

1. Did your peer substantially revise the project? Or, did your peer attend to your feedback and improve the overall project? What improvements stood out and were effective? What still needs improvement?

2. Were you persuaded by the argument? Describe how the argument persuaded you to think or feel a certain way. Or, does it successfully convince you to do something? How did the elements of rhetoric (logos, ethos, and pathos) work to persuade you? Or, how did a lack of attention to certain rhetorical elements (logos, ethos, and/or pathos) result in an unconvincing argument?

This method proved effective because it allowed me to see common threads in feedback and to elaborate on points where students left off. Following the advice of Madeleine Sorapure in “Between Modes: Assessing Student New Media Compositions,” I evaluated projects not only on how well they met the requirements of the assignment, but also on how well they created rhetorical impact via “productive tension” between modes (from the visual, to the textual, to the auditory). In sum, my evaluations via the Learning Record grading system strove to avoid imposing a method of assessment from print essays and, rather, to connect evaluation to “everything else in the course, from the assignments themselves to the readings, the class activities, and the software we use” (Sorapure 2). In my classes, the course goals for development in research, the writing process, presentation, argumentation, and digital literacy all came together in this final project--allowing students to display their skills and to work through the essential learning dimension of confidence and independence.

Mid-Term Survey on Instructor Performance

Anonymous — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 16:52:41 +0000

Author:

Matthew C. Gertken

Image Credit:

Screenshot of Survey Monkey

Teaching is an art and teachers, like other artists, run the risk of valuing their performance too highly and overlooking their faults and mistakes. But as the true artist must ever abhor complacency, and tirelessly seek new angles on his or her work to spot frailities that can be avoided or improved in future, so the true teacher must resist the allure of self-sufficiency.

Teaching, even when successful, leaves no monument but in the student's mind. After the semester ends, many students we will never see again -- and if we do, rarely will we see them exercising the skills we taught. In short, our work is generally inaccessible to retrospective critique.

The worst vein of pollution I have witnessed in the graduate student experience -- and fortunately only infrequently -- arising perhaps from a combination of little sleep, long study and public irrevelance, is a kind of condescending or (in the worst cases) deprecating attitude some instructors take toward the undergraduates they teach. As if the dearth of post-modern continental theory among the undergrads were some kind of fault, rather than a token of good health and sound mind. The truth, as many of us continually re-learn, is that most of our students are delightful people, with a variety of interests and skills, and often with a fair degree of knowledge in their chosen fields, from whom, if we listen, we may learn.

Student evaluations of teacher performance have fallen under corrosive political debates about the nature of accountability and its role in the education system. Partisanship has made some teachers cynical about teacher evaluations in a society made cynical about teachers by partisanship. And even for those of us -- many of us -- who look forward to student feedback at the end of the semester, at least some anxiety about the outcome of the surveys lurks, born of the remembrance of one or two biting critiques from the past. If only we had known of that one student's gripes earlier, we could have done more to answer them, and perhaps made the class better for everyone.

Because I recently returned to teaching after three years in a different line of work, and this semester tried for the first time teaching Rhetoric and Writing, I doubted my performance perhaps more than usual. The idea of having students participate in a voluntary mid-term survey about my teaching performance struck me as a way to get a sense of students' assessments of my job at a point in the semester when time remained to correct myself if necessary. Anonymity would secure their sincerity. I went to SurveyMonkey and, with no prior experience of the site, quickly wrote up a survey with the following three questions:

1. How specifically could the instructor in RHE306 improve?

2. Is the instructor fair in leading class and grading assignments? Are assignments and the instructor's expectations clear?

3. Is RHE 306 an effective course? Are your writing skills improving? What would you change about the course, if you could re-design it?

Of eighteen students, only seven filled out the survey. The low response probably reflects the fact that the email they received said the survey was informal and optional. And I offered no incentives for taking the survey other than my gratitude, less than a pittance considering that it must be distributed anonymously. Perhaps in future I will make the survey mandatory. Nevertheless the seven responses I received were sufficient to teach me at least two important lessons, which I shall relate.

Most of the responses, whether from students' generosity or politeness, indicated general satisfaction. In response to the second question, several students said that the instructor "is fair," "does a good job," and that "assignments are very clear." To the third question, students said that the course is "effective," "a good challenging college course that makes a student think critically," and that the "workload is not excessive." One said it was becoming "easier to sit down and write papers faster and more clear" -- a positive assessment vitiated, given the purpose of the course, only by its grammar.

The teacher's duty is to smile and move on from these niceties. The purpose of surveys lies not in replenishing a self-esteem withered from excessive exposure to the Pierian Spring. Rather it is to discover our faults that we may amend them. My students' answers to the first question served this purpose. I framed the question in a way that would force a critical response: how specifically could the instructor improve? Each of the seven students concurred generally on the need for greater clarity on assignment expectations. The instructor could improve by "stating specific objectives and requirements of certain assignments," and giving "a clearer explanation of the assignments," and providing "more example essays." Though some of these comments flatly contradicted answers in the second question, the fact that they came first gave them priority -- students must have felt no need to repeat the same criticism in question two.

This survey therefore provided me with a student consensus that I needed to provide clearer explanations, examples and expectations for assignments. Because I already devoted what I considered excessive class time to explaining assignments, "teaching for the test," I felt some annoyance after reading these comments. But upon more mature consideration, a means of resolving the problem occurred to me. It was a low-fi, low-tech solution.

The next day in class I gave a pop quiz about the requirements for the upcoming assignment. Students had received warning from time to time since the beginning of the term that I might give pop quizzes, but to this point no occasion had arisen, as I had thought to spare them. Now I gave a quiz testing their comprehension of the essay soon due. After they took the first quiz, we graded it in class, giving students a chance to ask questions and learn answers from each other. Then I told them this surprise would not count toward their grade, but that the next one would count.

Few performed well on the pop quiz. Exposing their apparent lack of attention to the details of the approaching assignment must have stung them into paying more attention, since the essay results bore a much closer resemblance to the prompt, and similarity in form to each other, than previously. Before the next essay came due, I quizzed them again. Most students performed very well on the quiz -- they had studied the assignment -- and the essay's results corroborated this evidence. Most of the students even seemed to enjoy the quiz this second time -- they seemed to relish what they viewed as earning easy points.

Thus I learned of a danger of my own teaching style -- lack of clarity, and sometimes downright confusion, about the nature of assignments -- and students learned of their responsibility to understand assignments and to ask for clarification if they do not.

I shall quote only one other student's comment in the anonymous survey: "Make the course a little more interesting. I know that's every student's dream, but that's all we can ask for a class that early." This I have attempted to do by introducing more multimedia into lesson plans than previously, though I still resist any drift toward college class as variety show.

First-Year Writing and the Learning Record: At Midterm

Kendall Gerdes — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 02:44:53 +0000

Author:

Kendall Gerdes

Image Credit:

Adapted from Openclipart

It’s just past midterm and my students in first-year rhetoric and writing (RHE 306) have just submitted Learning Record portfolios. I adopted the Learning Record model as developed by UT’s own Peg Syverson, outlined at http://www.learningrecord.org.

I have thoroughly enjoyed giving comments on student writing without having to weigh it carefully on the letter grade scale. Once at the midterm, and once again at the final, students will be asked to write short arguments citing evidence from other parts of their Learning Record portfolios. They may cite interviews they conducted with someone close to them on the topic of their own literacies; they may cite a journal of observations they’ve been keeping throughout the semester on what they learn from class and course work; they may cite comments I’ve given or that they have received in peer review; finally, they may cite their own work, comparing early drafts and revisions, to show evidence of specific improvement.

I asked students to organize the evidence they select in terms of the goal-domains of our course: rhetoric, the writing process, research, presentation and digital literacy. And, I ask them to analyze this evidence in terms of several dimensions of learning (from Syverson’s framework, http://www.learningrecord.org/dimensions.html): skills and strategies, knowledge and understanding, use of prior and emerging knowledge, reflection, and creativity and imagination. I showed my students an exhaustive sample focused on a single course strand and asked them to be much more highly selective than the sample: only choose to include the most persuasive analyses in your work.

On the basis of their evidence and analysis, students must request from me a single grade (not a range), making reference to a set of evaluation criteria that describe student performance in each letter grade range. Students are permitted to mix criteria and ask for plus/minus grades, and I think this gives them a chance to see how their strengths and weaknesses span several grade levels. It points out what they are already good at, what they ought to work on, and what seems to be holding them back. I also ask them to include a plan for improving their performance in the remainder of the semester.

The first blush of grade requests are fascinating. Students have tended not to blow up their self-evaluations; most are honest and modest about their own performance. I encouraged them to think of honesty as an appeal to ethos, designed to get me to trust their judgment. Though some requests offered minimal justifications in terms of the evaluation criteria for the course, most were extremely careful. Even students whose writing has been unsatisfactory, and who have displayed frustration trying to understand my comments, produced insightful reflections on their own performance that illustrate a capacity to write arguments that certainly exceeds the capacity portrayed in earlier papers.

I’m excited to sift through them all and write my responses to students because I believe that the midterm exercise is equipping them with rhetorical skills that will pay dividends on their remaining assignments. I also believe that most students have succeeded at diagnosing their own challenges and articulating both a desire and a plan for improvement. They are learning to think about their course work rhetorically, as arguments toward their final grade. And best of all, they’re learning to think of their grades as directly related to what they learn about rhetoric and writing—not as the subjective result of a soft or harsh teacher, but as the earned product of their own best efforts and estimations.