My favorite line from her beginning chapter is "Rubrics make powerful promises...they seduce us with their appearance of simplicity and objectivity" (3).
And, my favorite line from a middle chapter is: "Our assessments should be based on the same assumptions as our pedagogy" (52).
In other words, if your intention is to be a progressively-minded teacher, why the heck are you using RubiStar rubrics and graphic organizers every day?
Wilson's critical eye and her research into the historical roots of rubrics and standardized writing assessment (it comes from the Army!!) should send ripples through your teacher-sense. I want this book to shake you up and to make you reassess what you think you know about reading and judging your students' writing. I look forward to reading your thoughtful responses.
10 comments:
"Dale recently underwent surgery to repair a tendon strained from twenty years of responding prolifically and thoughtfully to student papers." Pg. 12. Ch. 2.
This passage particularly stood out to me for a
number of reasons, and first, I can't help but relate this to our lives right now. As we pick out papers for our portfolios we are sifting through many things, among them are teacher comments. Looking back at my own papers and the comments professors have made to me gives me all the more drive to be more like "Dale." We have to do more than just write comments, we have to write THOUGHTFUL comments, that will mean something to the writer... to help them, guide them, and teach them how to improve.
"Responding prolifically and thoughtfully to student papers" definitely takes more time and more effort - and that's where rubrics seem so convenient. Rubrics are quick, clean, organized, and measure a students work without needing surgery to repair tendons. I can recall many occasions of receiving a paper back with a rubric attached, numbers circled, certain things highlighted, it really didn't mean anything to me - what did I get? was what I really wanted to know after I scanned all the boxes... The most meaningful feedback I have ever gotten are thoughtful comments. These comments are ones that make me question myself and my work, they turn what I thought to be a great paper, into something that could be much better.
Rubrics are a type of settling. They are flat and complacent, they measure what we do on a surface level. Without them we have to work harder, push students, not just tell a 10th grader they got 3 out of 4 on organization, but why and how they can improve.
I'm not going to pretend I haven't used a rubric before, I have. But this is also how I was graded more often than not in high school and on many occasions in college. I have learned a great deal about rubrics... they are restrictive...and what do they really measure?
Rubrics might seem to make life easier for the teacher... but what do they do for the life of the student?
"[ . . . ] once students have learned the rules, they can break them; or, once students have mastered the five-paragraph essay, they can move on to more sophisticated modes of argument or expository writing; or, once students can tell a chronological story, they can play around with flashbacks and fragmenting the narrative. But my experience with developing writers doesn't bear this line of thinking out, and sounds suspiciously like the thinking that lead a social worker to give my mother-in-law many desperate interventions to use when her infant son didn't seem interested in crawling and went straight to walking" (Wilson 19).
Although this is less about rubrics than the teaching of writing itself, it is a concept that could certainly find itself reflected in a rubric. Rubric says, "Student demonstrates the ability to produce a story with clear, chronologically-ordered events." We'll say, for argument's sake, that that's a four. Student produces an amazing piece of writing, think of Vonnegut's Slaugherhouse Five on a small scale, but, as so many of the other examples Wilson gives (Krystal and others) did, the piece seems to completely miss the mark of the rubric. To be clear, this student has shown an amazing knack for clear transitions between the present and flashbacks, but because the flashbacks are there, it isn't chronologically-ordered.
Another example. The assignment is the dread five-paragraph essay. The rubric specifies that the argument must consist of an introductory paragraph, three paragraphs of support, and a closing paragraph. Five. No more, no less. I get a student that's really engaged in the work, wants to pursue it in college, maybe write a thesis or dissertation on the subject some day. So what does the student do? S/he starts developing a multi-paged masterpiece with entirely more than five paragraphs. S/he has failed to obey the structural demand of the rubric. Am I supposed to mark them OFF for that? Granted, in this situation, the solution is a little more obvious; the student has met the five paragraph guideline and gone above and beyond. Clearly, I assign the paper a 4 in that category.
What really struck me about this paragraph was, as I said, unrelated to rubrics. It is one of the two biggest points that I got out of the reading regarding our teaching of writing in our classrooms. Our students will have different strengths. Our students will have different interests. Our students will have different learning styles. We can't expect them all to fit the same mold. Yes, in order to structure our lessons and our assignments, there need to be guidelines and expectations, but they can't be too rigid. And I guess THAT is where the rubric thing really comes in. Rubrics are too rigid. As Amy mentioned, they don't do ANYTHING for student learning because they just don't provide helpful feedback, and in my opinion, they actually RESTRICT learning by giving students a checklist.
Think about the career commitment essay we all had to write (I think, anyway, I don't mean to exclude Kate or Becky here). Think about how particular those expectations are. Now imagine, in my time at the Writing Center, how many papers I see that are absolutely beautiful manifestos for these utopian classrooms built on an understanding of the key concepts called upon in the rubric... that come back with a 2 on them. The CCE is a perfect example of what Amy was talking about. There aren't comments on CCEs. Just numbers with vague explanations of a one-size-fits-all reason that a paper might not meet those criteria.
I think I may have drifted a little bit from my original line of thinking, but I guess to sum up, we need to remember that developing writers need room to develop. Giving them rubrics puts them in a box. Development in a box will cause them to be shaped by that box for the rest of their lives. Do you really want a rubric shaping who your students are as writers for the rest of their lives?
“Like any other idea in education that can be expressed in a spreadsheet, rubrics have been co-opted for profit; textbooks and canned instruction programs come complete with pre-made assessment rubrics.”
I think one of the biggest problems with education today is that it is treated by many as a business, where children are the products and standardized tests are the quality control measures. And what is the popular business practice? To make money. How do you make money? Put in as little as possible and get out as much as possible. In the meantime, who cares what teachers get paid, what/how kids are actually learning? As long as the test scores and graduation rates are going up we have a successful product, right?
Rubrics just seem to be the new conveyor belt…a way to make grading quick and easy and subjectivity nonexistent. But the last time I checked it was subjectivity that made us human. What good are we doing our students if we stuff their writing into a box (pun intended)? We may be creating good, little worker bees for the future business world, but we’re robbing them of their individuality and creativity.
"...Even though it saved teachers and testing companies time, it damaged classroom practice as it discouraged focus on writing itself and misrepresenting student's writing skills. An assessment method must convince us that it reflects our values about teaching writing before it seduces us with its claim to save time" (28)
This quote reminded me of a time in high school where I had to complete this big senior research paper (I think I wrote it on coral reef pollution or something). It was kind of a big deal, and I remember everyone feeling anxious to get back a grade. I knew that a rubric was going to be involved, and we even went over it together as a class before we completed the assignment. But nothing could have prepared us for what we were about to see on our papers.
When we got the papers back, they were blank, with no comments. We flipped to our rubric and saw the numbers, circles, and bigger number at the bottom that was our grade. I did good on the assignment, but my classmates and myself had no idea why. The only feedback that we got was the commentary that we made for each others papers. "I did good over here, but in this box I could have done better. Oh but check this out I did this pretty good".
I think what I am getting at is that although i was young and probably didn't care at the time, I look back now and think that I wish the teacher would have shown me what i did wrong, and especially what I did right so that I could have gotten better at writing research papers and a better writer in general. Sure we got the papers back from the teacher in record time, but I'm not sure I really got anything back from the teacher at all except for the physical paper. This was an instance where I could have gotten advice that helped my writing. Instead, I got advice on how not to treat my student's writing in my own classroom.
my passage is from page 1
> > I think one of the biggest problems with education today is that it is treated by many as a business, where children are the products and standardized tests are the quality control measures. < <
Definitely, Kate. It's so horrible to think about, but you're SO right.
"By the time it is my turn to put my hands on their paper, the grade is an after-thought. I grade the papers for the administration, for the parents, and for the few kids who are truly motivated by grades. In fact, for the majority of students-the kids who see themselves as B,C,D, or F students-the grades get in the way of their learning. Putting the grades on the paper isn't what I like or value about teaching writing. It's the interaction and learning I enjoy, not the grading"(24).
I chose this quote because I feel that this is what happens in a lot of schools. Kids feel that they could only be a certain letter grade so they only try and apply themselves that much. Wilson says that she grades the papers for the administration, parents, and for some kids who care about their grades. This to me is where I think I am going to really struggle as a teacher. How do you grade for an administration? Do you just go along with the standard..a few kids get A's, most get B's and a few get C's and so on? Or do you grade according to the student? If the student is typically a B/C student but puts forth a huge effort is it wrong to give an A even though the paper may not measure up to the highest scoring person's paper??? Students are diverse, so shouldnt our grading be diverse? Dr. Sweeney who taught Ed Psych last semester said that he was not afraid to give out A's. If he felt that everyone in the class earned an A then he would give everyone an A..he was not afraid of what people might think about him and his grading. He said that we were his students and that he would be the only grader of us. Teachers should be that protective of their students and the grades that they give.
Wilson says its the interaction and learning that she enjoys the most and I think that I do as well. There is nothing better than seeing a kid finally get it. Teaching at Woonsocket with the 6th graders provided moments that were just like that. The kids were very vocal about when the light bulb went off. That is the rewarding part, that is the reason I want to be a teacher.
I can't wait to get back to high school tomorrow!!!! Anyone ever see the movie Never Been Kissed?? Drew Barrymore goes back to high school and wants to be the cool kid in school....I want to be the cool kid in school!!! HAHA have a great week ninja's!!!
"Rubrics are lucrative in addition to being ubiquitous." pg 2
"The problem must be me-I was tempted to take a Valium and think as MEAP instructed me to think, cirlcing a score of 2 with the authority of the State of Michigan behind me. Who was I to contradict the rubric?" page 9
"The products and process of progress we assume to be the inevitable incarnations of human genius are often shaped by powerful and not always benign social and economic forces." page 11
"When our purpose is reading student work is to defend a grade, we do not apply any of our natural responses to text." page 30
"The reductive categories of rubrics don't honor the complexity of what we see in writing and what our students try to accomplish." page 41
"Rubrics build bric walls between teachers and students" Rich Polseno
The quote that I would like to discuss is "The products and process of progress we assume to be the inevitable incarnations of human genius are often shaped by powerful and not always benign social and economic forces."
It will be easy as teachers to simply accept a style or form of evaluation, simply because we are 1: told to use it, 2: suggested to use it, or 3: because it is quick and simple. Our job as "good teachers" (which I know we all will be)is to think past what is perceived as easy or acceptable. We must think past what the other English teachers is the department are doing. We must think past beaurocractic bullshit (can we curse on the blog? Soon to find out.) We have to think past all these things and base our energy and evaluation on the well being of the students.
When Wilson talks about rubrics and graphic organizers and other formal classroom tools, she discusses how there are times when they could be appropriate or useful. I agree with this. The important step of any teacher decision, whether it is which activity to use, which text to compare a text to, which form of evaluation to use, is to be thoughtful in that decision making process.
Based on the student product I am assessing, what is the most appropriate and helpful form of assessment? It is my belief that if a teacher takes the time to be mindful about evaluation, then their decision will be better.
It is important that we do not merely accept, but question and understand instead. That is the meaning that I drew from Wilson's quote and that it the philosophy that I will carry in my coatpocket as a teacher of English.
So I just read everyone's posts about Rethinking Rubrics and I realized that using this exercise in a classroom would be cool for a few reasons.
When I say "this exercise" I mean having students read something for homework and have them return with an excerpt that they thought was powerful or interesting.
This is a great exercise because you can learn a lot about someone based on the quote that they choose. You choose a quote because it does something to you, perhaps you relate to the idea or the message...as a teacher, you could learn something about each student's train of thought or philosophy or thinking process just by hearing their choice and explanation of a quote.
I started thinking about this after reading all of your posts. It was amazing how I felt that Ahsley's quote really reminded of Ashley and how Kellen's quote reminded me of Kellen and so on...
Well that it is all. I just felt like your posts gave me a talkable moment and I wanted to share it with you.
Here's to writing portfolio letters, scrambling to finish unit plans, and starting our high school experiences!
Have fun everyone! You can bet your derrier's that I will be!
"But nothing in the MEAP rubric reflected my excitement about Krystal's paper . . . I wanted to celebrate Krystal's writing"(Wilson, 6-7).
What a powerful statement!! I felt the same way when I read Krystal's poem. On the one hand her poem doesn't display even average ability in grammar, structure, transitions etc., but it showed something that we wish our students could accomplish...Free thought! The ability to write your thoughts in an imaginative, thoughtful, and meaningful manner.
This concept goes beyond rubrics and measurable assessments of writing. This is where Wilson talks about not fact that students as well as teachers write and assess according to a rubric, a set of elements a piece of writing needs to include to be "correct". Yes grammar, syntax, etc is wonderful and important. But is it important to apply to all writings.
I just read a fictional short story that my step daughter wrote. Her spelling was horrible and she had some run on sentences. Does this mean that her story deserves a failing grade?? Or is it that fact that she included a personally written story in her English portfolio book when she wasn't asked to the most important piece.
We encourage our students to show voice and get their thoughts on paper. That to me, and it seems to Wilson as well, the most important piece!
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