Tag: grading

Voice

Denise Krebs2 Comments

Today: I was purging and deleting from my blog post DRAFTS, dozens inadvertently abandoned over the years. I found something, though, that I stopped to read. It was last edited November 13, 2011, but I thought this one still deserves attention. Did we change anything in the form of grading in those last ten years? The importance of student voice has been emphasized more lately, but do grades continue to get in the way of our young people being able to fully use their voices?  The questions at the end are still apt today. Here is the post I wrote then:

November 2011: Another one of those “ah ha” moments occurred this week when I gave a writing assignment– a “This I Believe” essay.

I gave a mini lesson on VOICE–the ability to connect emotionally with the reader, to put one’s special mark on the writing. Papers with great voice will sound like the author really is.

We talked of ways to help their voice come out in this piece: speaking in the first person, telling a specific story that illustrates a belief they have, and keeping the writing in the present–not about dreams they believe will happen in the future.

We listened to lots of examples and got started writing. The only thing I would be grading on this assignment, I explained, was the writing trait of VOICE.

When I read the first drafts, I was amazed at the range of success in writing with voice in this assignment. Some were rich and personal, authentic and fresh. Others were banal and bland.

I know it’s not easy for any of us to open ourselves and share our beliefs, so I didn’t have great expectations for our first attempt. However, what surprised me is, in general, is that the best VOICE papers were by the students who don’t typically get the best grades. Are they more willing to take risks?

The opposite was true for the typically “A” students. Many of those who care most about doing well grade-wise were the ones who played it safe, struggling to express themselves with a personal story so they could convince the reader they really believed anything. Theirs were well-written and organized, with meticulous conventions, but so lacking in VOICE, passion, heart.

Just another reason why my heart breaks when we have to give grades.

Are we snuffing out the creativity of our students who feel a need to get it “right”?

How can we reach students who seem overly-enamored with getting A’s?

Student Evaluations of #GeniusHour

Denise Krebs21 Comments

#Geniushour was last week. Students products are posted here. The following post has their answers to evaluation questions about their work during #geniushour.

NOTE on 12/6/2011 – The last student finally completed the evaluation, so I am updating the stats below with all the student data. I’m also using a new feature I just learned today–“Show Summary of Responses,” a feature on Google forms. Easy!)

Like Tia’s class is doing this week, we actually ended up with about 100 minutes of genius. When asked to evaluate the time frame, more than half the students thought there was not enough time.




Suggestions for making genius hour better…

  • Have more time (echoed by 9 students)
  • More teachers to help with questions to improve our learning experience
  • More of a heads-up so that we can bring what we need
  • More classrooms so that it isn’t so loud and crowded
  • It might have been better if people knew what they were doing before they started and not have just thought of something last minute.
  • It would be better if people didn’t mess around and just got to work and knew what they were doing.
  • How I think that genius hour would be better is that you could bring in new games for us to play so we learn something new every time.
  • Genius hour would be better if it was on a Monday so we have something to look forward to because usually Mondays are long and boring. I think genius hour should be on Mondays, so Mondays aren’t so long for the class.
  • To be able to have groups of maybe 4 or 5 at the most.
  • It could have been more organized; it was sort of chaotic. (echoed by 2 others)
  • Refreshments
  • Drinks
  • Music

Something I learned or a mistake I learned from…

  • When we made the collage out of our pictures that we had edited, some of the collages would change the way our pictures looked. We worked through it helping each other. Plus when we needed a scanner because one person didn’t have any digital pictures, we used the computer camera to take pictures of her hardcopy pictures.
  • I learned how to film a video while we were acting. My group wanted to have someone else film for us, but we figured out how to do it without anyone filming.
  • I learned that being independent is good. Trying new things is awesome. And I think everything went pretty good.
  • Next time I will plan out what I would say in the video.
  • I would have used 3 desks instead of 2, so it would be more sturdy and my project wouldn’t fall off.
  • I would have used thinner wood for the birdhouse.
  • I learned a lot about how the plane did not fly.
  • Next time I would make something better.

What I enjoyed most…

  • That I was able to learn about what I am interested in, not what we have to know and teachers going cram cram cram. I learned some of my writing limits.
  • Not being told exactly what to do. (echoed in similar words by 6 others)
  • I liked that we were able to do whatever we wanted to try to contribute to the world.
  • Getting to work with your friends, trying new things on the computer, having our own independent time to work. Acting out and filming the video.
  • That we had plenty of time to get everything done.
  • It was fun; we created some really cool things. Thought of things that I might never have thought of writing about.
  • What I like most about genius hour is that you can do whatever you like from videotaping to coloring to learning about a new program. You can always learn something new in genius hour.
  • My favorite part was seeing what everyone did.
  • Being with my friend.
  • Making the bird house and filming it for others to see.
  • I enjoyed Genius Hour. I think it taught us that we as 7th and 8th graders can change the world with our genius.

NaNoWriMo YWP – Student Accountability and Benchmarks

Denise Krebs1 Comment
Being a winner is better than any grade!

I hate grading! I wish that I could just learn in partnership with my students. I wish that we could connect and contribute in the global world of authentic learning, and that I would never again have to put a grade in the grade book. That’s my hope for an ideal world, and maybe a transformed educational system.

However, today, I still need to record grades. On some level, I must “grade” students’ participation in the Young Writer’s Program of National Novel Writing Month. Here is what I do for grading.

First of all, if I have a student who is having a hard time getting started or becoming engaged, I have numerous individual conferences with him. Once he gets going, then we are both happy.

Next, I have benchmarks that students meet. Each of these are graded, about one a week.

  1. Their profile on the Virtual Classroom is graded for completeness and engagement. They should have an avatar and answer the questions. What I mean by engagement: Are they making their profile interesting to those who have to read it? Do they go in and revise it after the first day?
  2. An interesting novel excerpt is proofread and posted on their profile novel information. This may be the best-written passage of their novel and is usually 300 words or less.
  3. By about the second or third week, I expect a good, proofread synopsis of their novel. Even if they don’t know the ending, they can still write a good book talk about it, something they might use to add to the back cover someday.

Finally, this year, because each student made a goal that I approved, I will also record a small grade based on whether they reach their goal. Remember, this has to be done lightly and not a major grade because really, you aren’t going to be able to know right away if they copied and re-pasted a couple thousand words into the center at the last minute. I would much rather they have an authentic noveling experience than just fake it to get a grade on an inflated assignment.

That’s about it. I record only four grades in the grade book for the month of November, and almost everyone gets a good grade.

Revising and editing is another topic, which proves a little harder. But that’s not for November.

Image by Sean and Lauren, shared with a CC By 2.0 Attribution License.