Adrienne Jankens
"Good learners, like everyone else, are living, squirming, questioning, perceiving, fearing, loving, and languaging nervous systems, but they are good learners precisely because they believe and do certain things that less effective learners do not believe and do." -Postman and Weingartner (31)
Alternative Grading Workshop Materials
Below are materials for our alternative grading workshop on June 9 (12-2).
The goal of this workshop is to provide theory and practice discussion on alternative grading practices like contracts and portfolios for those composition instructors looking for a change in their evaluation practices.
Participants will be expected to review two articles before the workshop, and to come prepared to discuss the texts as well as their questions and goals for thinking about alternative grading practices.
Before the workshop, please review the following articles:
Bloom, Lynn Z. “Why I (Used to) Hate to Give Grades.”
Elbow, Peter and Jane Danielowicz. “A Unilateral Grading Contract to Improve Learning and Teaching.”
During the workshop, we will review materials on portfolio grading from the following texts (I will give you a hard copy then):
Sommers, Jeffrey. “Bringing Practice in Line with Theory: Using Portfolio Grading in the Composition Classroom.”
Strickland, Kathleen and James Strickland. Engaged in Learning: Teaching English, 6-12. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2002.
Tchudi, Susan J. and Stephen N. Tchudi. The English Language Arts Handbook. 2nd ed. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook, 1999.
White, Edward M. Assigning, Responding, Evaluating: A Writing Teacher’s Guide. 4th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2007.
The workshop plans are as follows:
- Introductions: Why are we each here? What do we hope to gain from the workshop? What are our questions about evaluation and why do we want to think about alternative grading practices for our classes?
- Discussion: Bloom’s “Why I (Used to) Hate to Give Grades”
- Discussion: Elbow and Danielowicz’s “A Unilateral Grading Contract to Improve Teaching and Learning”
- Presentation: Adrienne’s grading contract and implementation
- Presentation: Using portfolios for evaluation–what the experts say
- Discussion: Alternative grading practices in our classrooms: what do we think? What are we thinking about implementing? What are the risks and payoffs? How do we make it work?
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Adrienne Jankens 
excited to talk through this stuff! can’t wait.