The First F
In my second year as a New York City Public school teacher, my student, Sharone, declared that the first F she ever received in her school life she received in my 7th grade English class. “Fenner, I can’t believe you failed me!” Proudly, I smiled and said, “Well, you didn’t do the Reading Logs.” What were these Reading Logs, you ask?
I would assign my students to read independently each night for one hour and then to write a one-page reading log in a paper notebook about what they read. I gave no distinctive instructions beyond that. I would assign this on weekends as well. And because we were encouraged to give robust homework every night, I thought I was doing my part. At the end of a grading period, I would collect my students’ 25 reading log entries and, essentially, grade them for completion. Was this helping students increase their reading skills in any way? Not at all. And here was the kicker about Sharone: She performed at proficiency level or higher on every task that was completed in class, just not on the Reading Logs or other random homework that had no academic merit.
Reflecting on this much later in life, here are some things that I now realize were undermining my grading accuracy, amplifying my biases, and demotivating my students.
The Problem with Non-Academic Grading
I was downgrading student grades by including non-academic components. The Reading Logs assignment was not academic in any way. It was busy work used to add grades to the gradebook, to frighten students into compliance, and to make me feel good about being an educator who could instill those feelings of fear in her students. This falls in line with what we know about grade deflation; it often occurs when non-academic components are woven into the grade calculation. The problem is that not only does it distort the accuracy of a student’s proficiency, but it does a number on their self-perception and ideas of self-worth: It places the permanent stamp of wrongly believing they are incapable of mastery in any number of academic areas. In addition to the Reading Logs, I was including a lot of behaviors in the grades that didn’t directly demonstrate proficiency. To me, participation was based on students raising hands to voluntarily speak in class, looking occupied during group work tasks, not having heads down, NEVER talking when I was talking…. Were these connected to learning? Not necessarily. Sure, in the broad scope of the ways that students learn, some of these skills–if explicitly taught and used for understanding–can be helpful. But not every kid learns in these ways. And, what’s more, in the specific context of my classroom, I absolutely was not making the connection for students between the behaviors and learning. I was basing them on what I thought a “good” student should look like…and honestly: It was like me when I was a student.
The Need to ‘Fill the Gradebook’
I was downgrading grades because I needed something to put in the gradebook. I had the Reading Log assignment and other types of non-academic, “busy work” assignments because I needed something to put in the gradebook. I didn’t know what books they were reading, so I was unable to even assess whether their logs were based on any true text–they could have been writing plots to tv shows for all I knew! While I loved my school and colleagues, I didn’t always receive guidance around what meaningful grading meant, and my graduate teacher program didn’t talk about this either. So, I was making it up as I went (and I have a sneaky feeling that everyone else was, too). As a result, I applied a heavy weight to Reading Logs because I thought that made them meaningful, or at least made their toil meaningful–there was nothing academic about them.
Harmful Narratives: Discipline and Structure for Students of Color
I was influenced by inaccurate narratives about Black and Brown children. If I’m honest: I was also taught that Brown and Black children who are in Title 1 schools somehow need more “structure” and “discipline” than children from other backgrounds and circumstances and that structure and discipline should be not only interpersonal but also live in the grading. Even as a person of color, I internalized the idea that being harsh with students of color would increase their motivation. However, research by educators like Geneva Gay and Thomas Guskey disproves this idea. My assignment of homework seemed to also send the message that no matter what a student’s life circumstances outside of school may have been, they should somehow magically care more about this classwork and get it done; I believed that this would build their character and lead to their academic success. This is the salient trickle-down effect of “grit.” I had to ask myself, “In making life as hard as possible for students and rewarding the ones who are still able to achieve success,was my making their lives harder necessary for their learning?” I cannot be convinced that this is true. There were likely students who were proficient at content and skills but were downgraded because of things that measured basic compliance and not academic competency.
Recovery, Reflection, and Research: Changing Grading Practices
I am lucky: I found ways to recover from downgrading student grades, and Sharone graduated from high school, went to college, and now works to secure voting rights for people across the country (if you cannot tell, I am incredibly impressed by her). What I had realized in my own classroom has been found to be true across hundreds of classrooms in Joe Feldman’s recent whitepaper “Can We Trust the Transcript.” And, thankfully, more and more educators are similarly reflecting, reconsidering, and reshaping their grading practice choices. As we endeavor to make these shifts in our calculations, here are some questions to ponder based on reducing the weight of formative work and excluding homework from the grade.
Moving Forward: Questions to Consider for Equitable Grading
Reducing the Weight of Formative Work
- Do you have a plan to gradually reduce the formative work and increase the summative work weights?
- How will you communicate this to your students?
- How will you help them make the reconnection to learning and not points collection?
Excluding Homework from the Grade
- How will you communicate this shift to your students? How will you address their (likely) worry that this will lower their grade? Are there other equitable grading practices that can be used in conjunction with this one that would help mitigate students’ worry?
- How can you reconnect practice or formative work and learning for students?
- How can you show (anonymized) data of students who complete practice work and their subsequent summative assessment scores to help those same students build intrinsic motivation to complete practice work so they can improve their performance on summative assessments?
Little by little, we can make huge changes that more accurately convey students’ academic progress and proficiency. We got this!
Courtney Fenner is a Facilitator, Coach, and Client Manager at Crescendo Education Group. With 19 years of experience as an educator, she has implemented equitable grading practices in her classrooms, seeing firsthand the positive impact on student skill-building and confidence. She enjoys partnering with educators to make these changes in their own classrooms and working with leaders to implement equitable practices at the school and district level.
