I find myself thinking about grading a lot. The subjectiveness of giving a grade to a personal essay, justifying grades to over-protective parents, not stifling creativity with a catchall rubric. I think the Dornan reading for this week brought up some helpful points for dealing with all of these things. I like the idea of using a portfolio approach, and letting students decide which pieces of writing are getting a grade and which will just go toward participation type points. Once again, we are back to the fact that the more freedom and choice we give to students, the better off we will all be. We will have better, more interesting papers to read, and hopefully our students will enjoy our class and get something more out of it than a final grade on their report card. I can tell you one thing that do not look forward to in my life as a teacher is reading yet another plot synopsis of The Scarlet Letter, or a teeth pullingly boring, to the line analysis of dramatic irony in Oedipus Rex. Thank god for lenses, writer's workshops, and multi-genre, right?
My link of the week:
http://www.rhymezone.com/
This is just a fun little site that could be a warm-up for poetry. I typed in the word purple and it does confirm that there are, in fact, no words in our language that rhyme with purple, but it does appear 16 times in works of Shakespeare. So at least it has that going for it.
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Despite the fact that nothing actually rhymes with purple, Project Pat F and Beanie Sigel (I write their names as if I know about music, but I don't) successfully incorporated this (in a rhythmic, rhyming fashion) into their song, the very appropriately titled "Purple," -about drinking, smoking weed, and shooting cops. How did they accomplish this major feat you might ask? Like this:
'That pur-pur-pur-purple purple drank yeah...
Who got that purple pur-purple pur-purple (yessir)'
and in a stroke of creative genius:
' A pint of the purp have you sittin' on the curb'
Just thought it was funny anyway when this song was the first thing that came to mind when I read the word purple. SAD... Oh wait, Harold and the Purple Crayon. That is a better association, no? :)
I too have a lot of questions about grading, and as I mentioned in our morning class (and in a number of other classes), no one seems to be able to give me any definitive answers. I want to be a fair grader, but I also want to be able to recognize and encourage those students who put in the extra effort or make marked improvement. I also want to be able to reward creativity and passion. How do we do this and be able to justify how we grade to other students (and parents) who can only see favoritism and injustice? When I think about grading, I find myself vacillating between two stances:
1. The grading scale is a scale for a reason-- A's indicate exceptionlal work and ability, C's indicate average work and ability, and F's indicate unacceptable work (or no work at all) and a basic inability or total lack of effort. Not every student is capable of being an A student--if they were, the grading scale would indicate NOTHING.
2. The grading scale exists to perpetuate educational tracking systems and social hierarchies and should be done away with entirely.
How do I reconcile these two extreme stances?
P.S.
"Yerple" and "purple" totally rhyme. Maybe someone should tell Jean.
Yet I believe there is a citation of the "purple nurple" in the works of Kevin Kling.
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