Reading Analysis- Wolff (Article 51-Curren)

As teachers, we will be faced with the reality of "grading" each and every day. Grades seem to be the most important thing students focus on while in school. Although they may be interested in what they are studying in class, they become extremely concerned about what their final grade is at the end of the semester or year. I found it hard to accept that students are considered "failures" because they can master their major but not other core classes. Granted, I do believe that students need to have a well rounded education, therefore they need to put forth the time and effort to successfully pass the other subjects. But if a student does not do well in other classes, that does not automatically make him a failure. On the other hand, a student who does the bare minimum in his/her classes and slips through to graduation is considered "successful" is not acceptable to me. Although they may have graduated and received the diploma, they may not have taken everything they learned with them after they left the classroom.

Wolff did a good job breaking down grading into 3 separate categories: criticism, evaluation, and ranking. It can be hard to be criticized sometimes. Nobody really likes to hear someone tell them they are wrong. If it's constructive criticism, the student should take this advice for their advantage and learn from it. As a graduate student, I always like when my teachers leave comments on my papers to let me know what I've done well and what I need to improve on. When a teacher just marks something wrong and doesn't leave any comments, I have no way of knowing what I did wrong and how to improve it for my papers in the future.

Evaluation is the next category. Wolff defines it as the measuring of a product or performance against an independent and objective standard of excellence. Throughout our current graduate classes, our teachers have given us a grading rubric before each project or paper. This is very helpful for me because it shows exactly how the teacher will be evaluating me. To know in advance what the teacher expects out of a student can help them perform to the best of their ability. I know when I'm working on a paper I read through the rubric to make sure I have covered every part in order to earn the highest grade possible.

The third category is ranking, which is defined as the grading activity which produces the greatest anxiety and provokes the most opposition. I remember playing sports in high school and it was always a big deal to find out what "string" you were on. In basketball, of course everyone wanted to be on "first string" in order to be able to play the most. This was also a way to be recognized as one of the best players on the team. Wolff made a good point when he said that ranking held some potential problems. In a class of twenty students, the difference between the first and the last may be so small that it taxes the ability of the teacher to distinguish among their performances. I remember in high school, the class that graduated one year ahead of me had three Salutatorians. Everybody found it amazing that 3 people had the same exact GPA at the end of their senior year. This made me wonder what the difference was between the Salutatorians GPA and the Valedictorian GPA?

I enjoyed reading this article by Wolff and appreciated the fact that he broke down grading into three categories. I find it important as a teacher to consider many different factors when grading my students. I know that some scores may be black and white, but I think it is important to consider each student when assessing and evaluating them.