What I need is a few more shades of B

So, I have officially finished the semester, and survived! Grades are in, and no one seems to be panicking about what they got. I realized something about grading this time round - one of my pedagogical principles is to assign a lot of small- to mid-sized things, as I'm opposed to the kind of course where students just have a couple of really big projects (say, a midterm worth 30%, a final worth 50%, and a paper worth 20%); the latter kind of course means that one bad day, one illness, misunderstanding one set of instructions, not quite getting one particular subject, whatever, can really torpedo a whole's semester's grade, and that's always seemed unfair to me.* But I've only just now realized the corollary - that if the course has lots of small assignments that all contribute to the final grade, it's kind of hard to do badly. You have to work to do badly in my classes. I mean, you have to work to do well, also; I do not give a lot of straight As at all. But it's hard to sink yourself in my classes.

Granted, some students manage it. But they're definitely the exception rather than the rule, especially here, where for so many students "doing badly" means getting some variety of B.

I'm still sticking with my lots-of-small-things approach, because I do firmly believe that small, regular steps are much more useful pedagogically, in helping students develop reading, writing, and critical thinking skills, than infrequent cramming sessions. Someone training for a sport can't schedule three 5-hour sessions over the course of a month and expect to improve significantly (or avoid injury!); brief, regular sessions are necessary. Thinking is the same way. (One of my favorite pieces of pedagogical wisdom ever came from a friend of mine, when some of my students were complaining about too much work or the work being too hard or something. She shrugged and said, "If you use new muscles, you're going to get sore.") But it's kind of useful to realize that it's not that I'm just an easy grader (or least, not only that I'm an easy grader!), but that my courses are designed for students not to do badly.

But you know, I also think that you have to work to do really badly in history classes generally. Before all you historians out there run me out of the blogosphere on a virtual rail, let me add that, again, you have to work hard to do well. Not everyone can "do" history just because they can read a history book! And certainly, if you're someone who has issues with reading or writing, yeah, history's going to be a problem for you. But what sets history apart from something like math or chemistry or languages is that - ironically, given its chronological focus - it's not cumulative. If you're taking U.S. History I, and you miss the colonial section, sure, that's a problem in the grand scheme of understanding U.S. history. And it'll probably be a problem for your grade, in that you won't be able to answer exam/paper questions about the colonial stuff. But you can still read about the War of 1812 or the beginnings of the Civil War and understand what's going on. Your understanding may not be as nuanced as it would have been if you'd had the colonial section. But you'll probably do fine. If you don't read the first book assigned in my course, you can pick up with the second and pretty much catch right up.

There are lots of disciplines that aren't like this. If you don't learn the first two weeks of material in Calc I (although I have no idea what they would be), you will not be able to understand what comes after. If you don't learn how to tell the difference between the masculine and feminine genders in the first few weeks of French, you will never understand when to use le or la or how to form the correct adjective. Okay, eventually you can catch up. But it's harder than just picking up the second book in one of my history classes. For instance, I had an advisee who had literally not been on campus a week this semester when he broke his ankle (really badly. Like, shattered. He's got all kinds of pins and crap in there now). He missed the first three weeks of class in a semester in which he was taking one math class and one language class, and man oh man, did he struggle to catch up. It's pretty much killed his whole semester. His history class? Not a problem.

So, these are some thoughts that came to me as I was surveying the sea of Bs and low As in my courses this semester. Yes, I may simply be an easy grader, but honestly, my students, by and large, did what I wanted them to do. What I really wish is that I could make greater distinctions within the Bs - assign a B+/A-, or a B++, or a B/B+, or a B--. Maybe I'll mess with my students' heads and start doing just that. Then again, maybe not.

*Remember that I only teach undergraduates, so graduate courses are another beast entirely, one about which I know nothing from the instructor's point of view.

Comments

[negativecapability]

I've been thinking a lot about this today. For my students B=failure, and since most of the profs in my department implicitly follow this model, it's hard for me not to without engendering a revolt. I assign a lot of B+/A- type grades to papers so that they don't freak out, but then have a really hard time with final grades because, as you note, one can't enter such things on the final grade sheet!

There is a whole different issue for me here in that I feel that, as a graduate student, it is simply not in my interest to be a "difficult grader." (although from readings blogs it seems that this issue never really goes away until one has tenure, it's a real problem when my run on the job market will include comments from only two courses that I have been the sole instructor for). In the end, for me, at least the lots of small assignments approach ensures to me that on some level that B+ to A was earned. And my students this semester were all exceptionally bright, so that helped me feel better, too.

[Nels]

I'm like you. I give lots of small assignments, and I allow revision on just about everything. What really upsets me is that so few get As. I would love a class where every student earns an A, but it's never gonna happen no matter what kind of space I create that allows for revision and learning and building. Of course, notice I say "earn" an A. I create a space where I think they can do it, but they don't seem to want to do it.

[turtlebella]

Well, I got a C+ in Roman history oh these many years ago. But you are right- I had to work at it! Or rather, I just had to not read any of the textbook (I tried, I just thought I might have to kill myself to do so. I have NEVER read such a boring textbook and this is from someone who for her major had to read chemistry and physics textbooks!). I read all the primary stuff and I adored all of it. But I have to say, had there been more assignments (there was a midterm and a final, maybe one other exam. No papers- bummer) I probably would have done better. And I did quite well in a labor history class I took, which had more writing assignments as well an exam. And there wasn't a textbook, that I can recall.

[Jane Dark]

I can certainly see Negative Capability's point. And like you, I also wish I could grade with more pluses or minuses. I think the only grade that really communicates disappointment is a 2.9, because it's technically a B, rather than a B-, but...2.9 packs a punch.

I have an additional concern as well. My grade is supposed to partially reflect how well the student is likely to do at college writing. And I have had a couple of students who busted their butts in my courses (and were rewarded) come back and ask me whether I gave them good grades because I was just being nice.

They'd taken another class together, and the prof/ta's were hemorrhaging red ink on their papers.

I'd never promised them that doing well in my class guaranteed them ace writing grades elsewhere. And they certainly aren't the norm (in coming back to me). But I can't forget them, either. I don't know how to communicate to the students (via their final grade) the distinction between being naturally good at writing and pushing yourself to make massive progress (that, while it is progress, may not equal the mastery of subject demonstrated by other students).

[StyleyGeek]

I hate that so many universities (including mine) expect (or require!) something approaching a bell curve to emerge from the final grades in every course no matter how it is structured or what the subject.

Our intro to linguistics courses are structured similarly to what you describe: they have a lot of small, ongoing assignments that are worth small amounts of the grade. And for any students who do better on the final than they did on their in-term work, AS LONG AS they have completed every piece of assessment, the final is weighted extra high (so that students who finally *get* it at the last minute can do well).

So the result is that we get two big spikes in the grades. One at the high B, low A level (numerically between 75 and 85) and another at the borderline failure level (48--55). The failures are the ones who didn't do most of the work, skipped a whole lot of classes, etc. The high Bs are the ones who did all the work, did the reading and put the hours in.

And every year the uni admin people get antsy about our grade distribution. It frustrates me.

[Anastasia]

i completely agree with you about history courses. same with classics, really. we just gave a "cumulative" final in the class I TA'd but there really wasn't anything genuinely cumulative about it. I mean, some of the questions pertained to the first half of the course, but none of it really built on the rest. Sure, the whole issue of the more nuanced understanding is there, but you could still do fine on that final and know virtually nothing about whole texts that were assigned.

i'm not sure if this posted, but I was going to add that this is less true in archaeology and art history, because you have to learn a vocabulary of technical language and if you don't get that in the beginning, it's going to show on everything you do thereafter.

[Dee]

I also felt that it was not fair to be lumping together many shades of achievement into B+ or A-. With actual assignments, I get around this by using numbers, so that I can recognize the difference between a 90 A- and a 92 A-, but then it's just even more annoying when it comes to the final grades and I have to merge the 89.6 and the 92.4 into the same category.

[meg]

Kathleen Fitzpatrick at Planned Obsolescence says on her syllabi: "An A is yours to earn; a B+ is yours to lose," by which she means that to drop below a B+, you have to go wrong somewhere, but to get higher than that, you have to w-w-work for it. In this haven of grade inflation (as if grade inflation needed a haven), that works reasonably well.

Like Dee, I use numerals for everything (including essays). But I don't agonize over the final assignment of letter grades; I give them the breakdown on the first day of class, and whiners can tell it to the Marines.

[betty]

i agree with what you're saying - and, in my classes, most students made Bs or As too. it's also hard to give two students the same grade when one maybe could have done better (meaning the grade is a slight disappointment) while for the other that score is a fairly major acheivment. i, like others, used numerical grades to help distinguish scores (i was able to email grades directly to students). i also sometimes attached a note to the final exam when i returned it tell the student that i thought their 87 was fabulous or whatever. by doing this i always felt that i was distinguishing between the Bs.

[yankeetransferred]

As the parent of a first-year student in college, I find all of this very interesting-the post and the comments. My driven, hard-working first child is tearing her hair out today over two papers-one for history (Women in Japanese History, to be exact) and English. She is so worried about her grade. I would love for her to read this to see what the profs go through in the grading process. So often, NK, for her and for you, I wish she went to your college-I think you'd both enjoy having her in your class. But oh, the call of New England...it beckons loudly.

[New Kid on the Hallway]

Oh Yankee, I would so LOVE to have OD in class! But if I had the choice, I'd be in New England, too. :-)

[ppb]

This is all very interesting. I used to work graduate school admissions, and grade inflation is so outrageous at the undergraduate level that we really have trouble figuring out who can and cannot do the work, and who is eligible for the bigger scholarships. (The GRE is pretty much useless in our field.) We gave a full scholarship to a student with a 4.0 who ended up failing out. He couldn't handle the work. He went to a top tier school, got all As, and really couldn't write well without lots of help.

Nuances of grades would be very helpful to us. (most helpful would be an end to grade inflation altogether--something I have no expectation of ever occurring). The whole system just seems so broken.

[Ancrene Wiseass]

Ah, grade inflation.

Most of my students who deserve Cs actually get a B/B-, and I'm still considered a tough grader. People have to work their butts off to get an A from me, but they also have to actually go out of the way to get anything below a C+. In part, that's because I also try to assign several different little things in addition to the "big" papers, just as you do.

But too many of my students still think I'm an evil bitch who's out to destroy their GPA and deny them their rightful place in the world.

Maybe the problem is compounded by the all-too-widespread idea that English classes are based around airy-fairy discussions of personal feelings on the one hand and the "universality" of literature on the other? At any rate, it's deeply troubling that a fair number of undergrads think skipping the reading, failing to start papers more than 24 hours before they're due, choosing not to participate usefully in discussion, and refusing to follow their instructors' directions will still allow them to earn an A--even when they're repeatedly told otherwise. Something is very, very wrong with that.

[trillwing]

I would give all As if I could because it tends to mean fewer comments on essays. :)

This past quarter, my TAs and I gave out a lot of Cs and Ds. We haven't seen the evaluations yet, but the department's administrative assistant tells me they were about the worst she'd ever seen. Students especially didn't like it when I dismissed about 60 of them from class for not doing the reading for the day. (It made for a really nice discussion among the remaining 30 students, though.)

So yeah, I'm kind of a hardass, except at the end of the term, when I tend to be nicer because I'm sick and tired of grading and don't want to write as many comments and because I've come to know my students (especially in my seminars) and have a hard time giving them anything lower than a C or C+ on an assignment unless they've totally blown it.

My students are usually surprised by how low their grades are on their first papers in my classes. And it's not only because they all see themselves as A students (which they all were in high school), but also that I'm so damn nice and funny in class. I try to warn them I grade, er, *firmly* on their writing, but they never quite believe me until they see the D+ on the last page of the essay. I don't let them revise and resubmit, but they can come to see me as many times as they wish before they turn in the paper. Needless to say, I have many students come to see me to discuss every paper thereafter.

My problem this fall was that many of my seminar students insisted on writing what I saw as history papers rather than American studies papers, even though we talked about the difference.

Have I mentioned I'm soooo glad I now have a job that will never, ever, EVER require grading? (I share my joy with people in the street.) I will miss the undergrads, but not their essays.

[Rudbeckia Hirta]

What I hate about "pick one of these glyphs from an ordered list to summarize the entire semester worth of work" method of grading is all the different things that C-like grades can mean. Does the student know a little bit about most things without having fully mastered any one of them? Or is the student brilliant but lazy and has a full understanding of what he's chosen to learn balanced out by assignments not turned in and entire units skipped?

I'd much rather that each math course had a Lickert scale for the various course objectives. I'd love the opportunity to differentiate the skilled technicians from the students who actually understand the material. It would make grading DURING the semester a bit more difficult, but I think the students would understand their grades better.