WRIT 2 WP1

Lucas Lau

It is a clear, sunny day at my home. The end of the COVID-19 pandemic was in sight as the
push to get everyone vaccinated has been largely successful. However, most universities still
had their classes online, including UCSB. It was a slow day since I finished most of the
homework I had been given in all my classes. Thus, I decided to message my high school friend
on Discord to spark up a conversation.

Me: Yo, are you busy right now?

Friend: No, not at the moment, what’s up doc?

Me: The sky!

Friend: -_-

Me: I’m kidding.

Not much, I just wanted to ask
Whether during high school
Did you ever feel like you were writing to communicate a point to a reader or did you always feel
like we were simply writing to get a grade and then forget about the assignment?

Friend: I always felt the latter.

Never felt like there was any concrete audience that I was ever able to write to.

Me: Yeah.
Same.
I’ve just been thinking about this sort of topic ever since I listened to a conversation at a
discussion that I attended a couple days ago.

Friend: What was the discussion about?

Me: It was a seminar that had a bunch of academic scholars in the field of writing talk about how
to most effectively run a classroom. They argued primarily over finding the best way for students
to learn more about and develop a passion for writing.
Friend: Sounds interesting.

Me: Yeah, all of the participants had differing opinions.

But I sort of came to the conclusion that the best grading system is one that grades on mostly
completion but also grades a final paper based on content and clarity.

Friend: How’d you get to that conclusion?

Me: It began with this prof who introduced himself as David Bleich from the English department
at Indiana University.

Friend: I see. So it wasn’t like a student seminar.

It was more of a live discussion among professors?

Me: I guess so.

Friend: Hmm

Me: Anyway, David Bleich began with a large argument that basically boils down to the idea that
teachers/profs need to develop and tailor their own criticism of a student’s writing to each
individual student to contextualize the student’s style.
They do this primarily by getting to know the students and how they were raised. (That sounded
much less creepy in my head🤣.)
Both of these are done in order to find a way to get a student to connect their writings to their
own personal goals.
Cuz, if a student is able to do so, they will write with more passion and intent than if they were
writing simply for a grade.

Friend: Makes sense.

Me: Yeah.
Many of the other participants also agreed.
In fact, many of them added onto this idea.

Friend: What did they say?🤔

Me: Another professor named John Antico from Lansing Community College suggested that on
top of a teacher/professor improving their own critiquing abilities, they could implement a system
with the other professors teaching the same class where the main professor walks through the
process of writing the paper with their student.
Then when it's time to submit, the other professors grade the students' work and then the main
professor argues as a “lawyer” of sorts: justifying a better grade for the student when warranted.

Friend: Seems like a good idea? But I think that it would be way too time consuming for most to
be able to do this in practice.

Me: Yeah.
I agree.
I guess it's a “Is it worth the effort?” sort of question for most teachers and whether or not it's
feasible for their schedules to have such a system. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Friend: Very much so.

Me: Moving on, I guess.
Another participant, who introduced herself as Saralee Amsden from the Department of English
at Leigh High School, agreed but then also added another idea of a contract grading system.
The primary aspect of such a system would help the students by allowing them to choose their
own prompts.

Friend: So like the students make a proposal to the teacher/professor for their idea of doing the
assignment and then the teacher approves or rejects? 😕

Me: Yeah, basically.

She argues that this would then allow the students to have more creativity in their projects and
also reinforce the idea that the writing process is mainly independent of supervision from a
teacher or professor in “real life”.

Friend: I see. It makes sense. But I sort of think that it is hard to be fair to all students without a
standardized prompt.

Me: I can see that side of the argument, but I personally think that this sort of system prevents
students from seeing the reality of writing which is done by someone from their own motivation
to communicate an idea.
Prompts sort of artificially create motivation at the cost of forcing students to think in a robotic
sense where they simply create the essay and turn it in without thinking about the implications.

Friend: Yeah, I guess you could be right. Once I turned in an essay, I just forgot about it until I
got my grade back. 😂

Me: Me too. XD. This is exactly what a professor named Eric R. Birdsall from Pennsylvania
State University and another professor named Stephen A. Bernhardt said.
Birdsall mentioned his own experience of using a grading system where he grades the student’s
papers, but doesn’t tell the students what they got.
Instead, he gives them a checklist of ideas on how to improve the paper and then it is the
student’s decision to follow the checklist and revise their essay or ask for their grade and lose
the right to revise.

Friend: That seems like a very frustrating grading system for the student. 🤮

Me: Yeah, I don’t like it much either but I can see where he is coming from. The other professor
sort of agreed but pitched his own idea of a portfolio grading system where students work on
their essay for an extended period of time rather than a timed test format.
Both of them justified their systems by saying that their systems better represent the true writing
process where writers have a large array of resources to help write such as the opinions of
OTHERS.
Friend: Yeah.
The SAT and other standardized tests feel interpretive rather than creative.
Which I don’t like.
Also not being able to consult others for minor grammar errors and losing points cuz of it also
sort of lessens any enjoyment I had left for writing.

Me: For sure. Now, here is where we get to the GOOD part. 😏
At this point in the conversation the last three scholars spoke up to contradict some of the ideas
that the previous ones mentioned.

Friend: 👀

Me: It began with a writer and a graduate student named Stephen Tchudi and Stephen Adkison
respectively.
They spoke together and began by agreeing with the idea of a portfolio final rather than a timed
test final, but they brought in the idea that grading overall is redundant and should not be
included.
They said that the idea of having a contract grading system does allow students to be more free
with their writing, but the students are still limited by the expectation and writing biases of the
teacher.

Friend: So at that point it just becomes pandering to the teacher for a good grade. 🙄

Me: Exactly. So they argued for a completion based grading system.

This would allow the students to take risks in their writing without punishment.
This was seconded by the last prof, named Marcy Bauman from the English department at the
University of Michigan-Dearborn, who argued that the contract grading system instills an
expectation to students that the purpose of writing is to get judged by others and thus make
students feel less enthusiastic about writing.

Friend: I sort of agree. I never really got the whole purpose of learning to write until I already
finished school. I always thought it was just something we were forced to do when in reality the
whole purpose is to COMMUNICATE and justify an idea to your audience.
In regards to the completion grading, I feel like it works all the time in theory but in practice
people, like me, are just gonna BS the assignment instead of working harder.😦

Me: That is exactly what Bleich rebutted.

However, Bauman countered this by bringing up the idea to ALSO incorporate a system of due
dates where a certain percentage of the assignment is expected to be finished.
Moreover, she also said to include a peer review session that would allow students to gain
feedback from their classmates.
Both of which would incline the student to work on the project over a period of time.
This is the sort of grading system that I agree with.
A completion based grading system with periodical due dates. It seems to have the best of both
worlds.

Friend: 👍.This is the sort of grading system that I agree with.

A completion based grading system with periodical due dates. It seems to have the best of both
worlds. It allows the students to get a sense of the true purpose of writing while also having
some sense of accountability.

Me: Yeah I agree. It allows the students to develop a passion for writing by giving them a sense
of reason for learning and developing their writing skills. I think that if I experienced this style of
teaching when I was younger, I would have a less bitter attitude towards writing than I do at the
moment. I just hope more teachers of young children can attempt to implement this sort of
system in their classrooms.

Friend: Yeah. 100%. I feel like I would’ve probably at least viewed writing in a better light if this
were the case. Anyway, I got to go. I really enjoyed this conversation.

Me: See ya! 👋

 Bibliography

1. Bleich, David. (1976). Pedagogical directions in subjective criticism. College English

37.5, 454-467.
2. Amsden, Saralee. (1970). Have you ever tried contracting for grades?. English Journal
59.9, 1279-1282.
3. Adkison, Stephen; Stephen Tchudi. (1997). Grading on merit and achievement: Where
quality meets quantity. In Tchudi, Stephen (Ed.), Alternatives to grading student writing;
Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English [ERIC Document Reproduction
Service, ED 409 577] (pp. 192-209).
4. Antico, John. (1968). An experiment in the cooperative grading of the research paper.
College Composition and Communication 19.5, 145-147.
5. Bauman, Marcy. (1997). What grades do for us, and how to do without them. In Tchudi,
Stephen (Ed.), Alternatives to grading student writing; Urbana, IL: National Council of
Teachers of English [ERIC Document Reproduction Service, ED 409 577] (pp. 162-179).
6. Bernhardt, Stephen A. (1992). Teaching English: Portfolio evaluation. Clearing House
65.6, 333-334.
7. Birdsall, Eric R. (1979). Avoiding whadjaget with no-grade, graded papers. College
Composition and Communication 30.2, 220-222.