4 ms·

Your grade in an English Literature class basically comes down to what grade the professor decides to assign you regardless of the grading method. There's no ob

Your grade in an English Literature class basically comes down to what grade the professor decides to assign you regardless of the grading method. There's no objective determination for what makes a paper an A paper versus a B paper, and plenty of people have stories about getting a C on a paper they thought deserved an A.

Misdicorl 5y ago
Yes, but you've removed the feedback loop that allows a student to adjust their output to accommodate their grader's wishes.
- lostcolony 5y ago
  Not really; there is a literal feedback loop with the teacher writing comments/critiques, and the student responding to them. What is removed is the ability to say "this is good enough, I am meeting expectations, and am confident in staying the class" vs "I am not able to meet expectations and should instead drop it with a W instead of risking my GPA". That said, I think as a student if I'd had a teacher engage with me this way it would present enough of an opportunity to build trust that I'd be able to get a feeling as to whether they were invested in me improving my work, and use that to determine if I should stay in the class or not.
  - macspoofing 5y ago
    >there is a literal feedback loop with the teacher writing comments/critiques Sure - but words are ambiguous. Does the feedback mean I'm struggling, or is the feedback meant to elevate my already excellent work? Here's any idea, why not give a grade AND feedback. This way I, as a student, know objectively how I did, and what I need to do to get better.
Auracle 5y ago
We had a teacher in high school that was universally accepted as being sexist. I took "Honor's English" (basically "hard" English for more intelligent students) with her in 9th grade. There were 3 of us boys in her class of ~20 or so, and we were all on the high IQ end of the scale and good students. The girls were a mixed bag, including some that definitely shouldn't have been in the "honor's" class. They all got As and Bs. I pulled in the only Cs of my scholastic career. One of the guys got the exact same grade to the second decimal place on 4 papers in a row. My personal highlights were getting told my Polyphemus' cave diorama (boy, what a good use of time!) wasn't colorful enough, along with the time she accused me of plagiarism in front of the class in the middle of my book report because of the vocabulary I used. The sexism was so bad that the daughter of another teacher actually left mid-class to complain to the principal about it. Nothing was done.
- aidenn0 5y ago
  The Honors Algebra II class at the HS my sister went to was the same way but it was girls rather than boys that she treated more harshly. Girls would drop out of the honors track to avoid her class. Math class might provide fewer opportunities for subjectivity to creep in, but it still provides plenty. My sister's homework was "lost" several times, and she was falsely accused by the teacher of skipping class (3 unexcused absences in a quarter was an automatic F). The response by the administration any time complaints were made were "We don't comment on any teacher's methods, but some of our best students come out of her classes." Given that honor students went into her classes, it would be rather troubling if that weren't the case...
astrobe_ 5y ago
Unless I'm mistaken there's no indication in TFA on the topic this person teaches, which is very important in my opinion, because grading a science-related work is indeed very different from grading literature-related stuff. Both teachers and students sometimes forget that grading is not a "judgment", but an evaluation of how much of the knowledge/know-how they are supposed to have by graduation, have been learned. To the point that sometimes you can get a "F for bad behavior". No wonder students are confused when you use different meanings of sanction with the tool.
- plorkyeran 5y ago
  FTA: "Some took my children’s literature class because they thought it would be a fun or easy way to fulfill the requirement."
aidenn0 5y ago
Indeed; I was a somewhat ... ill-behaved student, and it was interesting to see how different teachers reacted to it. It always crept in a bit. One teacher I never got above a C on an assignment, so I swapped papers with someone who never got below a B. The paper with my name on it (which he wrote) got a D+, the paper with his name on t (which I wrote) got an A. The most blatant was when an instructor told me to my face that no matter what work I did, the highest grade I was getting in her class would be a D. The class required a C to fulfill my graduation requirements. This was about a month into a 16 week semester. In retrospect she was probably trying to get me to drop her class, but I didn't consider that at the time (It was my very first semester of college and it hadn't yet occurred to me that dropping a class was an option).
macspoofing 5y ago
Sure - but at least this is on a paper-by-paper basis, so your final mark is at least based on something tangible that you can refer back to. It also means you can instant feedback on how you're doing. Here, we're talking about providing an arbitrary grade at the end. The student has no recourse to argue the grade. The student may even have been blindsided.

Misdicorl 5y ago

Yes, but you've removed the feedback loop that allows a student to adjust their output to accommodate their grader's wishes.

lostcolony 5y ago
Not really; there is a literal feedback loop with the teacher writing comments/critiques, and the student responding to them. What is removed is the ability to say "this is good enough, I am meeting expectations, and am confident in staying the class" vs "I am not able to meet expectations and should instead drop it with a W instead of risking my GPA". That said, I think as a student if I'd had a teacher engage with me this way it would present enough of an opportunity to build trust that I'd be able to get a feeling as to whether they were invested in me improving my work, and use that to determine if I should stay in the class or not.
- macspoofing 5y ago
  >there is a literal feedback loop with the teacher writing comments/critiques Sure - but words are ambiguous. Does the feedback mean I'm struggling, or is the feedback meant to elevate my already excellent work? Here's any idea, why not give a grade AND feedback. This way I, as a student, know objectively how I did, and what I need to do to get better.

Auracle 5y ago

We had a teacher in high school that was universally accepted as being sexist. I took "Honor's English" (basically "hard" English for more intelligent students) with her in 9th grade. There were 3 of us boys in her class of ~20 or so, and we were all on the high IQ end of the scale and good students. The girls were a mixed bag, including some that definitely shouldn't have been in the "honor's" class. They all got As and Bs. I pulled in the only Cs of my scholastic career. One of the guys got the exact same grade to the second decimal place on 4 papers in a row. My personal highlights were getting told my Polyphemus' cave diorama (boy, what a good use of time!) wasn't colorful enough, along with the time she accused me of plagiarism in front of the class in the middle of my book report because of the vocabulary I used. The sexism was so bad that the daughter of another teacher actually left mid-class to complain to the principal about it. Nothing was done.

aidenn0 5y ago
The Honors Algebra II class at the HS my sister went to was the same way but it was girls rather than boys that she treated more harshly. Girls would drop out of the honors track to avoid her class. Math class might provide fewer opportunities for subjectivity to creep in, but it still provides plenty. My sister's homework was "lost" several times, and she was falsely accused by the teacher of skipping class (3 unexcused absences in a quarter was an automatic F). The response by the administration any time complaints were made were "We don't comment on any teacher's methods, but some of our best students come out of her classes." Given that honor students went into her classes, it would be rather troubling if that weren't the case...

astrobe_ 5y ago

Unless I'm mistaken there's no indication in TFA on the topic this person teaches, which is very important in my opinion, because grading a science-related work is indeed very different from grading literature-related stuff. Both teachers and students sometimes forget that grading is not a "judgment", but an evaluation of how much of the knowledge/know-how they are supposed to have by graduation, have been learned. To the point that sometimes you can get a "F for bad behavior". No wonder students are confused when you use different meanings of sanction with the tool.

plorkyeran 5y ago
FTA: "Some took my children’s literature class because they thought it would be a fun or easy way to fulfill the requirement."

aidenn0 5y ago

Indeed; I was a somewhat ... ill-behaved student, and it was interesting to see how different teachers reacted to it. It always crept in a bit. One teacher I never got above a C on an assignment, so I swapped papers with someone who never got below a B. The paper with my name on it (which he wrote) got a D+, the paper with his name on t (which I wrote) got an A. The most blatant was when an instructor told me to my face that no matter what work I did, the highest grade I was getting in her class would be a D. The class required a C to fulfill my graduation requirements. This was about a month into a 16 week semester. In retrospect she was probably trying to get me to drop her class, but I didn't consider that at the time (It was my very first semester of college and it hadn't yet occurred to me that dropping a class was an option).

macspoofing 5y ago

Sure - but at least this is on a paper-by-paper basis, so your final mark is at least based on something tangible that you can refer back to. It also means you can instant feedback on how you're doing. Here, we're talking about providing an arbitrary grade at the end. The student has no recourse to argue the grade. The student may even have been blindsided.