'I No Longer Grade My Students' Work -- And I Wish I Had Stopped Sooner'

'I've been teaching college English for more than 30 years,' writes Elisabeth Gruner, a professor of English at the University of Richmond. 'Four years ago, I stopped putting grades on written work, and it has transformed my teaching and my students' learning. My only regret is that I didn't do it sooner.'

The practice she's adopted is called 'ungrading,' where students are given formative rather than summative feedback. 'At the end of the semester they submit a portfolio of revised work, along with an essay reflecting on and evaluating their learning,' writes Gruner. 'Like most people who ungrade, I reserve the right to change the grade that students assign themselves in that evaluation. But I rarely do, and when I do, I raise grades almost as often as I lower them.' Here's here reasoning (via The Conversation): I stopped putting grades on written work for three related reasons -- all of which other professors have also cited as concerns. First, I wanted my students to focus on the feedback I provided on their writing. I had a sense, since backed up by research, that when I put a grade on a piece of writing, students focused solely on that. Removing the grade forced students to pay attention to my comments.

Second, I was concerned with equity. For almost 10 years I have been studying inclusive pedagogy, which focuses on ensuring that all students have the resources they need to learn. My studies confirmed my sense that sometimes what I was really grading was a student's background. Students with educational privilege came into my classroom already prepared to write A or B papers, while others often had not had the instruction that would enable them to do so. The 14 weeks they spent in my class could not make up for the years of educational privilege their peers had enjoyed.

Third, and I admit this is selfish: I hate grading. I love teaching, though, and giving students feedback is teaching. I am happy to do it. Freed from the tyranny of determining a grade, I wrote meaningful comments, suggested improvements, asked questions and entered into a dialogue with my students that felt more productive -- that felt, in short, more like an extension of the classroom.

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