By Erica J. Ringelspaugh

It is Sunday at 8:30 p.m., and I am wearing non-teacher clothes. I swing my classroom door closed and amble out to my truck in the teachers’ parking lot, not really even noticing the cold that creeps in the rips at the knees of my jeans, and through the thin material of my long-sleeve tee.

My quarter grades are due in exactly 12 hours.

My freshmen turned in papers on Friday. I diligently read them this weekend, watching for their improvements and where they are still struggling, making notes to myself on a set of index cards. I evaluated the essays using the six traits of writing, pulling out the most important traits to focus on this time, the ones that correspond with the skills sets we worked on in the weeks beforehand: describing potatoes so well other kids could pick them out of a line up, brainstorming lists of sense words, and writing poems about pebbles we picked up off the sidewalk outside my classroom; making sure our essays had an introduction, thesis, support, and conclusion. I read the essays and felt good, the sunshine falling onto my couch and my cat curled up next to me, green rubrics spread across the floor.

Then, this afternoon, I punched scores into the computer, wondering what the heck I was doing. I could have predicted these grades in September, based on stereotypes and writing samples from the first day. If I’m teaching so that all students can learn, why are they not all learning? Or, why is their learning not evident in my grading?

So, for the record, do grades reflect the amount a student has tried, the amount they’ve improved, the amount they know, or the amount of good behavior witnessed in my class? Because I’m confused that the grades don’t reflect this.

I used a rubric. I designed the assessment to match the learning goals. I took careful notes.

And I still don’t know.

I tried to explain this to a colleague, Mitch, when he entered my room at 5:30 Sunday night after posting his own grades. He leaned on the podium, and asked how my weekend was.

“That’s a dangerous question,” I said.

“What do you want your grades to reflect?” he prodded.

“I don’t know. Guess I need to figure that out," I paused, staring at the ceiling, and squeezing my stress ball. “The big assessments, I want to grade what they know and if they can apply the class material. The little day-to-day stuff is mainly ‘you did it’ grades.”

“Okay,” he said, shrugging in agreement.

“But then, how do I measure how they’ve improved,” I countered. “They’ve all improved. Every single student is a better writer now than he or she was in August.”

He smiled, “Then, you’ve done your job.”

“OK,” I dismissed, “but how do I fairly score that? These papers, the A students earned As and the C students earned Cs.”

Mitch’s eyebrows knit.

“Am I really assessing their abilities, or am I just giving them what they’ve always gotten? That’s my question, I guess. In the Revisiting Grading in-service at the beginning of the year, the leader told us that grades should represent what the kids actually know. Not if they turned their assignments in on time. Not if they said please and thank you in class. But what they know. Yet, what I expect them to know in September is different than what I expect them to know in November, and they earn the same grade for knowing different amounts of things. And my grading policy includes effort on small things. ... Am I assessing what I taught them, or am I assessing what they knew before they got to my class? And am I being fair?”

“That’s why grading sucks,” Mitch said, then changed his tone of voice. “Erica, they learned stuff. These are the questions every good teacher struggles with.”

“I want to throw things,” I said.

“If I could decide what I want,” I told Mitch, after a half hour of arguing with myself and him watching me, bemused, “then I could decide on a course of action. I just can’t decide what I want.”

Do grades singularly represent the depth of content each student knows, their ability to write a five-paragraph essay or to pick themes out of "To Kill a Mockingbird"? Is it fair to not include the amount of work and strength of determination each student took to be able to know and understand the content, especially when I’ve observed each moment of their struggle, holding their pens too tightly and fidgeting in their seats? What if a student didn’t know how at the time of the assignment, but has since mastered the concept? My district and my school administration urge that each student learns at his or her own time and in his or her own way. How do I feasibly make my digital grade book correspond to our educational philosophy?

Two and a half hours later, I lever myself into my truck and forget to watch for deer on the way home. My mother would kick me. In the morning, I have to post grades. I don’t really have the option of not posting grades. But, after individually reviewing all of the As through the Fs, the kids now have a letter next to each name, representing what they earned, based on the amount and quality of work they did long-term over the quarter. But the posting will have to wait until the morning. I couldn’t post grades tonight, with all these questions swimming in my head. I only know this much for sure: I still want to throw things.

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Posted May 3, 2006