Teaching Prof Comm, technical writing, ungrading

A Tentative Effort Expectations Contract Chart

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A white sign with black text labeling the path as Effort Street (SW17)

Effort by secretlondon123 on Flickr, used under a CC-BY-SA 2.0 license

I’ve spent the day reading (and rereading) on contract grading, including all of these resources:

  • Inoue, Asao B. (2019). Labor-Based Grading Contracts: Building Equity and Inclusion in the Compassionate Writing Classroom. The WAC Clearinghouse and University Press of Colorado. https://wac.colostate.edu/books/perspectives/labor/
  • Stommel, Jesse. (2017, October 26). Why I Don’t Grade. Jesse Stommel. http://www.jessestommel.com/why-i-dont-grade/
  • Stommel, Jesse. (2018, March 11). How to Ungrade. Jesse Stommel. http://www.jessestommel.com/how-to-ungrade/
  • Craig, Sherri. (2021). Your Contract Grading Ain’t It. WPA: Writing Program Administration, 44(3), 145–146.
  • Blum, Susan D. (Ed.). (2020). Ungrading: Why rating students undermines learning (and what to do instead) (First edition). West Virginia University Press.

I stand by the short list of goals that I shared in my last post. If anything, I feel stronger about them. I am set with focusing on Completion meaning that “you do all that is asked of you in the manner and spirit it is asked” (Inoue, 2023, p. 327). Less of a specifications grading system (Nilson, 2015), the system checks to ensure that the basic things that are asked for are there. I’m leaning on the explanations from Inoue’s work here. There’s much more explanation in the book (which is available free from the WAC Clearinghouse), but I particularly liked the three questions he included for assessing the work students did during a week in FYC:

Each labor assignment is complete and counts if it meets in the affirmative the following questions:

  • Is the labor product(s) posted on time and in the correct place?
  • Does the labor product(s) include everything I asked for and meet the minimum word count?
  • Is there a labor tweet/Slack(s) posted as instructed (if applicable)?

(Inoue, 2023, p. 196)

My class will have different framing questions, but the idea will be the same:

  • Did the student turn in the work before the end of the grace period?
  • Does the work include everything listed in the criteria for the activity?
    • Is it the right assignment? (e.g., Is it a memo?)
    • Is it on the right topic? (e.g., Is it a good news memo about employee holidays?)
    • Is it a full draft? (e.g., Does it include memo headings and a memo body?)

I may be addressing some specific issues that arose in the past with my questions 😉 You know, like that one time a student responded to the assignment for a pitch presentation on their proposed report topic with a presentation that argued Lionel Messi is the GOAT. Um, no. That is not a Complete. Nor were the Recommendation Reports that were only outlines. Yes, that was a submission, but not a Complete.

I feel reasonably comfortable that this kind of framing questions will address to check student work to ensure that students are on track and doing what they are supposed to. Further, I see what I’ve come up with as more rigorous than what I was doing in the past. Students have to do all of the work with attention to its expectations to do well in the course. It wasn’t really a goal to increase the rigor, but I’m happy that it has turned out that way.

I’m also going with the essential idea of Inoue’s grade levels, though I am phrasing my system in terms of work completed rather than work that is missing to avoid the deficit focus. Like Inoue’s system, my tentative plan allows students to earn a B by doing everything in a way that meets basic criteria. To earn more than a B, I will follow Inoue again and provide a list of additional tasks that students can complete. Each task earns 1/3 of a grade. For instance, if a student with a B does one task on the list, their grade will increase to a B+. This extra work for grades higher than a B also increases the rigor in the course.

The table below shows the tentative contract for effort in the course. Naturally I will need to add a lot more information. In particular I need to include an explanation of what it means to earn a Complete as well as sketch out all of the tasks that are available for grades above a B. I want to adopt Inoue’s practice of allowing students at any level to improve grades by completing these extra tasks as well (2023, p. 330–331). So a student with a C+ could complete a couple of extra tasks and move up to a B. That gives students more options so that one bad week doesn’t ruin their chances.

Here’s that setup so far:

Grade Level Effort Expectations
A Meets all of the expectations for a B, and earns a Complete on up to three of the following (each raises your grade 1/3 step):

  • Earns a Complete on 100% of the Check-In Surveys and Weekly Activities
  • Substantially revises two Try-Its (?)
  • Writes a Midterm Assessment of your work in the course.
  • Substantially revise the 1st or 2nd major project
  • peer reviews?
  • what else?
B Earn a Complete on the following:

  • Five Major Project Submissions
  • 95% of the Check-In Surveys
  • 95% of the Weekly Activities (including Try-Its & Self-Checks)
C Earn a Complete on the following:

  • Five Major Project Submissions
  • 85% of the Check-In Surveys
  • 85% of the Weekly Activities (including Try-Its & Self-Checks)
D Earn a Complete on the following:

  • Four Major Project Submissions
  • 75% of the Check-In Surveys
  • 75% of the Weekly Activities (including Try-Its & Self-Checks)
F Earn a Complete on the following:

  • Fewer than four of the Major Project Submissions
  • 64% or less of the Check-In Surveys
  • 64% or less of the Weekly Activities (including Try-Its & Self-Checks)
Teaching Prof Comm, technical writing, ungrading

Weighing Student Work

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Gold colored scales of justice sitting on a wooden table

Scales of Justice by Michelle Grewe on Flickr, used under public domain

I’m definitely doing too much thinking about contracts and how to set up the expectations fairly. So much so that I’ve realized that I’m stuck on the very essence of grading. I’m no where near ungrading. I’ve lost all track of where I should be.

Fooling Myself

To start, what are my beliefs about assessment? I would be easier to point to the people whose pedagogy I try to work within: Jesse Stommel, Alfie Kohn, and Susan Blum.

Grades don’t work. They cause students to focus on the wrong things. In my contract, students may still be focused on the wrong thing. They are counting (and obsessing) over writing tasks. I’m fooling myself to think that the counting of Completes is immune from the curse of focusing on the elusive grade.

My great confusion on how to count (or not) the group work should have tipped me off sooner. Trying to figure out what would count as effort in a group is the wrong thing. I’m trying to invent a system where I decide how the quality and quantity of work determines the ultimate grade.

I’m still acting as the arbiter of course knowledge and assessment since I am the judge of Complete or Incomplete. I decide whether the effort that students put in counts. If I were truly faithful to the ideals of ungrading, I would be powerless. Students would determine what and when they have learned.

So what if I scrapped it all? What if I counted only submissions? Did the student turn the task in? Yes? Then it counts toward the expectations.

A Model Contract

So what if I go back to Inoue’s Labor-Based Grading Contracts system? I don’t like it for reasons I’ll get into, but it is a starting place. Here are his contract expectations (p. 127):

Grade Level # of Non-Participation Days # of Late Assignments # of Missed Assignments # of Ignored Assignments
A (4.0) 3 3 1 0
B (3.1) 3 3 1 0
C (2.1) 4 4 2 0
D (1.1) 5 5 3 1
E (0.0) 6 6 4 2

First, let me get my problems with these guidelines out of the way. I don’t like counting attendance, which is what the # of Non-Participation Days essentially does. I believe it’s not only ableist, but also inhumane to students stretched thin with other obligations. The system does have exceptions for excused absences, which could reduce some of the ableism. Still in a time when COVID still exists, I do not want to encourage any system that would ask a potentially sick student to come to class to avoid slipping down the expectations chart. Since my courses are all asynchronous online classes, it’s also irrelevant. There is not such thing as an attendance day to count at all.

I’m not a big fan of punishing students for late assignments either, so that column of the chart is problematic for me too. I believe in a more humane system that trusts students to put in their best effort. If they need an extra day, they should have it. I do recognize that Inoue’s course is highly interactive, and if students do not bring their work to class, they miss getting feedback from others. Peer review is a tough problem to negotiate in a due date system. I may not like this portion of the chart, but I understand why it’s there and critical to the way his classes work.

What counts in this contract model bugs me the most though. This is a deficit model. It counts failures and devalues the idea of failing as a critical part of learning. I’ve read enough of Failing Sideways to know that it’s more valuable (to me anyway) for students to be allowed to fail, to try again, to take risks without being punished.

Toward My Own Contract Model

I need to articulate my own model, and this time, I want something that is more in line with the spirit of ungrading. I haven’t worked out the details yet. Honestly, I haven’t even begun the work of determining what I expect students to do to demonstrate their learning. I do know that I have these goals in mind:

  • I want a positive model that counts things students do rather than things that they don’t. Such a thing should be more Canvas-friendly anyway. As far as I know, Canvas cannot use a system that counts failures.
  • I’m going to have to work in more self-reflection and group reflection. The challenge will be to add that reflection work without over-burdening students. They already have a lot of writing to do in this course.
  • I need that reflection to be authentic, which can be a challenge. In my experience, students are so over reflection. They have been writing reflections on their work their entire academic career. As a result, reflections can look more like an exercise in busywork instead of showing any deep recognition of who and when their writing has changed.
  • I still have to find a way to check student work to ensure that students are on track. I know that I should just trust students to do the work, and not feel compelled to check that they are not turning in blank files (yes, that has happened in the past). I’m just not there though, and I’m relatively sure that anything else would be frowned upon.
  • I‘m going to need a good explanation of the difference between feedback and completing/submitting work. A document can count as a submission and still have extensive feedback on how to improve it.
  • I’m going to have to figure out how to manage the extra work that moves students from a B to an A. I left that part out of Inoue’s system above. He offers several possibilities, including revising projects and creating more in-depth work (p. 132&endash;133). I will surely include revisions, but I need to think that system through.
  • I need to invent a TARDIS because I need to squeeze a lot more time out of this next week. Classes start Monday the 21st.
Teaching Prof Comm, technical writing

Like or Dislike? Assessment for this Fall

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Two self-inking stamps: one stamps a thumbs up with the word Like and the other stamps a thumbs down with the word dislike.

Would it be wrong to grade pass/fail work with these? by tengrrl on Flickr, used under a CC-BY-SA license

I’m focused now on the last big decision for my fall classes: How I will make the assessment system work with all these new assignments. The many collaborative writing tasks and related homework impact the system dramatically. Specifically, I’m trying to determine how (or if) to change my old system now that three of the five documents I count as major projects require collaborative writing.

The old system was pretty straightforward:

  • A: Earn a Complete on All Five Major Project Submissions
  • B: Attempt and submit all five of the Major Project Submissions, and earn a Complete on Four Major Project Submissions
  • C: Attempt and submit all five of the Major Project Submissions, and earn a Complete on Three Major Project Submissions
  • D: Attempt and submit fewer than five of the Major Project Submissions, and earn a Complete on at least two Major Project Submissions
  • F: Attempt and submit fewer than five of the Major Project Submissions; Earn a Complete on fewer than two of the Major Project Submissions

I’m listing only the major projects here. There are, of course, other requirements. You can see the full chart from the Spring in the Short Guide to the course.

Looking at that arrangement, I’m wondering if I need to break out the five documents into two individual projects and three collaborative projects. And if I do break them out, how do I indicate their worth?

The new course template does require that the Usability unit and the Project Management unit are worth more than the other portions of the course. To indicate that in the assessment chart, I am thinking that I may need to list them explicitly. For instance, perhaps the chart needs to indicate that a student cannot earn higher than a D in the course if they skip the collaborative work.

That thought leads me to wondering about how I am going to assess that collaborative work. Will this system based simply on whether the work is complete or not allow a student to put in the least possible effort on the collaborative work but still earn an A because other group members pick up the slack? After that thought, I get all mixed up on if a complete project management document means students learned about project management.

Reading Failing Sideways Queerly

A slightly off-topic aside

My friend Will Banks pointed me to the discussion of narrative assessment in the recent book Failing Sideways: Queer Possibilities for Writing Assessment (2023), which he co-wrote with Stephanie West-Puckett and Nicole I. Caswell. The book arrived yesterday, and I recognized that I didn’t have time to read it through before classes start on the 21st. I found myself skipping around in the book, following index entries and looking up passages I found with Google Books for specific terms. I flipped back and forth, completely ignoring some sections. I really don’t care about the history of the bell curve, for example. I can read that section later (if at all….I seriously don’t care about bell curves).

I did dip into details on queering the writing process, which has never really been the harsh step-by-step progression that textbooks would lead readers to believe. It suddenly occurred to me that I was reading queerly. I wasn’t following the expected linear progression through the book. I was frantically flipping about, skipping from one topic to the next.

Assessing the Major Projects Sideways?

From flipping around in Will’s book, I landed on these thoughts and possibilities, in no particular order. Funnily enough, I ended up with ten:

  • Now I’m questioning my whole system of marking work as Complete or Incomplete, having realized that it’s imposing the “success/failure binary onto the writing and learning experience” (p. 162). Ugh.
  • Stephanie’s “low-stakes self-assessment activities meant to provide quick and dirty data that could inform instructors about students’ writing experiences and orientations, as well as about ways to better meet students’ needs” (p. 92) gave me new-found happiness for the weekly student check-in surveys that I incorporated into my class a year ago. I made up my practice on my own, but apparently I was right on track with my system.
  • I’m always stuck when I work on assessment between what works for programmatic assessment and what works for individual students in a writing class. I always feel like I’m trying to smash the proverbial square pegs in round holes.
  • I also get lost between the curricular expectations for a technical writing program and the actual writing instruction that students need. With a service class like the technical writing course I teach, there are so many outside stakeholders who want the class to do specific things (e.g., teach the memo, prepare students for the workplace, erase all “errors” in their writing). Generally, none of that is what I think makes someone an effective writer who is ready for the workplace.
  • I could use contract-based writing assessment based solely on labor, but given the expectations for the course among other departments and the program itself, doing a lot of work without producing something similar to the five major projects and other materials in the template wouldn’t fly.
  • I want to like labor-based grading, but it raises questions for me.
    • Failing Sideways points to a University of Akron study that “found their students viewed grading contracts as largely irrelevant because these students had come to expect that the amount of work they invested in their courses would automatically be reflected in their course grade (Spidell and Thelin 2006)” (p. 163). /li>
    • I’m also bothered by what feels like an invalid argument that tells students that if they just work hard enough and put in their very best effort, they will be just fine in the course. That stance outright defies the lived experiences of many BIPOC students who know full well that they can work their asses off and still not get the same rewards as their white classmates.
  • Not relevant to assessmnet per se, but Nikki’s discussions with writing center consultants about the space, the value that it holds, and how it expresses those values (p. 134) included some questions that I believe I can combine with Cecilia Shelton’s (2019) Linguistic Landscape Analysis approach for the analysis of usability projects in the middle unit of my course.
  • The discussion of narrative assessments through learning stories is intriguing, but I question whether I can ask students to write narrative assessments of their learning voyage on top of all of the other things that they have to write for the course.
  • Would looping students through questions about their understanding of the large goals of the course reveal adequate information for some kind of assessment? For instance, what if I asked students questions like these: “What counts as technical writing? What counts as effective technical writing? What need one have to be a good technical writer?” Would their answers from the beginning, middle, and end of the course tell me anything about their changing ideas of the field of technical writing as it relates to them and their careers? Note that I am saying “changing ideas” and not “increasing understanding” there.
  • Finally, my most favorite moment in the book was seeing the photo of Stephanie and Will’s 3D model of their research data on p. 196. I immediately flashed back to my description of a CCCC Forum from (gulp) almost forty years ago: HyperYarn: Threading space (1994).

And after all of that, I have ideas but I still haven’t figured out what to do with the contract system for the course. At least I have a whole week before I have to have things ready to go.

Blog

ChatGPT Revises “The Children Are the Future”

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A young child dressed in a red devil costume with orange and yellow flames for Halloween

Devil for Halloween by Matthew Rutledge on Flickr, used under a CC-By 2.0 license

I asked ChatGPT to “Rewrite the song The Children Are the Future from the perspective of someone who is certain that the children are mini-demons.” The results are spectacular satire.

(Title)
Dark Future: Mini-Demons Unleashed

(Verse 1)
Whispers in the dark, beware the young,
Their innocence is just a mask, their wickedness has begun.
They’re lurking in the shadows, with mischief in their eyes,
Mini-demons in disguise, spreading chaos ‘neath the skies.

(Pre-Chorus)
Teach them well in the art of manipulation,
Feed their cravings for power and domination.
Show them how to sow discord and strife,
For in their hearts, darkness thrives.

(Chorus)
Mini-demons, oh, they’re the future,
Unleashing havoc, a twisted suture.
Corrupting all that’s pure and light,
In their hands, malevolence takes flight.

(Verse 2)
Their laughter is a sinister melody,
A symphony of malefic glee.
They twist and turn with every word,
Their devilish charm can’t be unheard.

(Pre-Chorus)
Guide them to deceit, teach them to lie,
Nurture the malevolence deep inside.
Let them revel in their wicked ways,
Innocence lost, darkness stays.

(Chorus)
Mini-demons, oh, they’re the future,
A generation of chaos and rupture.
Watch them dance upon the ashes,
As they paint the world in devilish splashes.

(Bridge)
Gone are the days of hope and trust,
Replaced by the children, cold and unjust.
Their hearts are black, their souls are cold,
A generation of darkness to behold.

(Pre-Chorus)
Shape their minds to crave despair,
A legacy of malevolence they’ll share.
Let them spread their poisonous seeds,
Fuelling humanity’s descent into heed.

(Chorus)
Mini-demons, oh, they’re the future,
Agents of darkness, each a corrupter.
The world shall tremble at their command,
As they grasp it tightly with malevolent hands.

(Outro)
So beware the youth, their innocence a lie,
For in their hearts, darkness will never die.
The future unfolds with wicked delight,
As mini-demons rise, casting eternal night.

Teaching Prof Comm, technical writing

Late Policy & Grace Period Options

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A statue of an angel with an uplifted arm. Its wings are spread wide open. Surrounding tombstones are also visible.

Grace by Jonathan Lin on Flickr, used under a CC-BY-SA license

I seriously hate having to change my late policy. I had more than a few students thank me for it last term. Several even said that they would have had to withdraw without it. That said, I understand that members of a group cannot all work under different ideas of the due dates if they are going to create collaborative documents.

My challenge then is to search for some way to give everyone some freedom without hampering collaborative work. I thought brainstorming the options would help:

  1. Screw it. Use the old system. Let the groups have anarchy.
  2. Also screw it. No grace period. No humanity. Meet the deadline or else.
  3. Use a short grace period on everything. 3 days.
  4. Use 3 day grace periods for tasks like homework, check-ins, etc. Longer grace period for major projects (up to one week?).
  5. Use 3-day grace periods for tasks like homework. Groups set their own independent deadlines for all collaborative work. Provide “suggested” deadlines to help them pace things out.
  6. Give up. Go live under a bridge with the other trolls.

Option 6 is looking like best right now. Okay, not really. I suspect Option 5 is the best way to focus students on Project Management, which is, after all, the focus of the final unit. They are to write proposals, progress reports, and recommendation reports; but the overarching goal is learning project management in the context of composing technical writing.

In some ways, earning a Complete on the writing projects should not be the goal. Working smoothly and effectively as a group should be. I’m having flashbacks to the good old days when I taught Writing and Digital Media. Back then, students had a major project that could be anything from a video documentary to a website. I tried to be aware that the goal was learning about how to compose with digital tools, not perfect productions. I emphasized being brave and taking risks. I regularly reminded the class that if they put in the effort, took risks, and tried, they would do fine in the class.

Obviously I don’t want to set students up to have problems with the grace period, but I could emphasize that the goal is to collaborate well while meeting as many of the writing goals as possible. I’m beginning to see that the deadlines put the emphasis on the wrong things. I’m freaking out over how to have work turned in so that the group can proceed to the next task. If I control all the deadlines and have a lockstep progression that I expect the class to follow, students aren’t practicing or learning anything other than obedience—and I don’t teach courses on obedience.

I hope this still makes sense tomorrow.

Teaching Prof Comm, technical writing

The Tricky Focal Question Solved?

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Wide blue garage door with a yellow sign above that reads Focus for DIY and Gardening

Focus by morebyless on Flickr, used under a CC-BY 2.0 license

Yesterday, I finally settled on the general assignments and their connections among one another. There was still one tricky issue however. I needed to figure out the specific focus sites or documents that students would use for their assignments. I left things by pointing out these three general options:

  • Students focus on their own major/field/discipline/career goals (however it’s defined).
  • Students focus more generally on their college’s area (e.g., Engineering, Science, Agriculture & Life Sciences).
  • Students focus on anything they like (which I fear is too open and could result in analysis of random and likely off-topic sites).

Because the Usability unit in the template asks students to revise User Documentation, whatever I end up with has to include some kind of instructions that students can analyze and rethink.

I was sitting here tonight not even thinking about the assignments. I was finishing up the online Kroger order for pick-up tomorrow, and suddenly I thought, have them choose any website that a Virginia Tech student might use in their academic work. Exclude academic departments, centers, schools, and colleges. Require that the site includes some kind of user documentation among its features.

  • Software company sites like Canvas or MatLab.
  • Resource sites on campus like the Counseling Center.
  • Library sites.
  • Various academic support sites like the registrar’s office or the Services for Students with Disabilities site.
  • General software company sites like Microsoft or Adobe.
  • Textbook websites, whether OER or publisher sites.
  • AI sites like ChatGPT.
  • (Probably not a good idea, but…) Sites like Chegg or CourseHero.
  • Communication software like Zoom or Gmail.
  • Video sites like Kaltura or YouTube.

I think this focus will result in choices that students can relate to regardless of major. It can even be a benefit if the group moves on to choose a resource that a group member has never used. Who better to test online instructions and other resources than someone trying to figure out how to use it for the first time?

Those are all large sites, so I will have to provide some guidance for narrowing the focus to a particular portion of the site. It just might work!

I still have no idea how to solve the thorny grace period problem, but I think the rest of things are coming together.