Final Reflection

Final Reflection

On the first day of 3360 my definition of composition was: “Anything that can be written. For example- a book, a play, a movie, or a soundtrack. I also think it should serve a purpose.” However, coming down to the last week of class I think my definition has changed considerably. Many different issues and themes that we have discussed in class and in assignments have helped shape and mold my new definition of composition. For me, the most important thing I have learned is how valuable rhetoric is in the writing process. In class on January 22nd, we watched the Foundation for a Better Life videos. Watching these examples of rhetoric, in conjunction with the Toulmin Model helped me grasp the understanding of the proper ways to use ethos, pathos and logos. With this new found and refreshing understanding of how to effectively use rhetoric, I was able to compose a successful rhetorical analysis on the Sun Angel tanning bed. By analyzing the Sun Angel website, I saw different ways that rhetoric can be used to appeal to all different audiences; but I also saw a great example of how the internet and technology has changed composition.
During class, we discussed TOPIC, ICON, and Web 2.0. Thinking of technology as a form of composition had never really occurred to me before. The most significant way that technology aids composition is the wide audience it can reach. The internet provides a cheap, easy, and fast way to reach people all over the world. It allows universities to teach on-line classes through MOO and get mass numbers of papers graded through TOPIC, although this system may or may not work fairly or precisely for each student, it still provides a way to reach a large amount of people in a quick and efficient way.
Another important topic that we discussed in class was about why people hate English. Having never really thought about this issue before, it was intriguing to me to see the list that we, as a class, compiled. After giving it some thought, I came to a personal conclusion on this matter. Although the list of reasons we complied in class was relevant and valid, I think that the majority of the issue lies within two separate problems: the grading system and laziness. Because English is so subjective and imprecise, it is hard to label a body of work that is full of many different components, with a single letter or number grade. From the articles that I researched for the final paper, specifically an article entitled “Why I (used to) Hate to Give Grades” by Lynn Bloom, as well as articles from class presentations, it really struck me how student composition can be affected by grading.
As for the second issue, I also think that laziness is a reason why students hate English/Composition/Language Arts classes. This problem, I think, is largely due to the increase in technology and availability of technology. Despite the fact that it is unlikely to teach without technology in the 21st century, it can also hinder the learning process. Rather than going to the library, reading books, or working out problems, students can simply “Google” solutions and find an immediate answer or solution to their problems. Rather than finding printed information, analyzing it and collecting their own hypotheses for a problem, it is just simply easier and faster to find out what other people think on the internet and go along with it. The fast-paced and hectic lifestyle that children and students lead these days makes the internet a speedy tool for doing homework and writing papers.
Finally, I found the Cannibalism article “Born Cannibal” by James Miles, very interesting. I wasn’t sure when reading this article how it had anything to do with composition directly, but now at the end of the course if it easy to see how composition sets us apart as humans, and makes me wonder how we could ever get from cannibalism to Humanism.
I think that what’s most important now, as a future teacher, is getting an understanding of an effective way to teach composition in the 21st century. Although I don’t think the use of technology can be avoided, and most likely usage will increase if anything, I think as future teachers we need to find a way to help students enjoy composition, feel comfortable with the grading process and use technology as a resource, not the sole source. Hopefully I will be able to use some of the knowledge I have gained in this course in my future classroom.

Grading in the Composition Classroom: Teachers vs. Students

“Although I have always-well, usually- looked forward to reading papers, and can even tolerate reading exams, the calculus of giving grades had become, over time, preferable only to doing my income tax”. -Lynn Bloom (1997)

The grading system has been existent in schools and universities around the world for centuries. Although the first instance of a numerical grade or a letter grade cannot be exactly dated, Jay Mathews, a writer for The Washington Post, reports, “The first letter grade ever given in the United States, according to historical records, was a B received by a Harvard University undergraduate in 1883.” Distributing a numerical value or letter grade to a hardworking, and sometimes not so hardworking, student’s paper is a requirement that ultimately no teacher or professor can avoid. I think it is a safe assumption to claim that the majority of Americans have had some type of encounter with a grading system. I have had the pleasure, and sometimes the displeasure, of being a student for the last sixteen years of my life and have had the opportunity of coming daily, face to face, with the issues and conundrums of the grading scale. More specifically, in my experience as a high school student and now as an “almost college graduate”, I have found that the majority of problems I have encountered with grades have surfaced most profoundly in English composition courses.

I would like to consider myself a fairly intelligent person and capable of writing a well-thought out essay on a given topic, but sometimes it seems like no matter how hard I try, I cannot seem to make the grade that I think I deserve. After these instances, I always ask myself the same questions: What could I have done better? Does this teacher just hate me? How am I supposed to become a better writer? With all of these questions surrounding my current and future composition processes, getting “the grade” seems always come back to being my central focal point. It wasn’t until I came across an article called “Why I (used to) Hate to Give Grades”, by Lynn Z. Bloom, that I really starting to think about how the grading system effects students academic performance. The grading system, both letter and numerical, poses a variety of different conflicts in the composition process that hinders a student’s abilities to learn and grow to their full potential as a writer.

It is important for one to get a clear understanding of what grading technically is and the reason for it, both school and teacher specified. For the purposes of this paper I will use the definition of grading provided by Lynn Bloom: “the letters, numbers, percents and all other forms of tallies- the characters that appear in a grade book, on a paper, or a transcript. When I say grading- I mean exactly that. I am not confusing grading with other ways of responding to student writing- such as extensive comments, oral or written” (Bloom, pg. 361). Letter grades are usually given in an A through F format, while numerical grades are given on a scale from zero to one hundred. Both of these grading scales can be found in elementary, secondary and college level composition courses throughout America. The purpose of grading can vary from individual teachers and some schools even set a standard for grading. Mathews reports that some educators say, “Letter grades are too simplistic and vary too much from system to system, school to school and even classroom to classroom.”

An article called “Grades and Report Cards”, written by Sandra Myers, suggests several different purposes of giving grades: “Grading can be used to certify and measure mastery of subjects and specific skills; to indicate the effort students put forth; to compare students in terms of their competence, progress and effort; and to identify students’ learning strengths and weaknesses” (pg. 1). Barbara Davis, author of “Grading Practices”, adds to this list by contributing the purposes of “stimulating and encouraging good work by students, to communicate the teacher’s judgment of the student’s progress, to improve the capacity of students to identify good work- in order, to improve their own self-evaluation or discrimination skills with respect to work submitted” (pg. 1). Although many of these purposes seem standard and fairly common sense, I think that these very reasons for grading are the reasons that directly and negatively influence the way a student writes.

James Lang’s article “Failing to Motivate” takes a step in evaluating the purpose of “stimulating and encouraging good work by students.” Lang, a tenured professor and in charge of an Introduction to Literature course, recognizes the idea that while grades do in fact motivate some students, many students are still discouraged by them and thus students will “disengage further from the class” (pg. 2). Lang reflects back on his own college experience as an English major and admits that he expected high grades in courses that relied on writing. He acknowledges that his grades did improve with each paper he wrote, but he never achieved the grades he was hoping for in his major. Despite Lang’s own personal improvement in writing, the issue of grading as a motivational tool brings about a whole different problem in itself. Lang writes, “I was so incensed about the grades that I disengaged completely from the course. I was a trained seal jumping through hoops. I wanted my fish, and I was willing to jump through whatever hoops that the teacher set up. But I learned nothing and remember nothing from the course” (pg. 2).

Disengagement from a course is something that every teacher should fear. When a student disengages from a course, the learning process has stopped and the very thing students are supposed to be doing- learning- is null and void. Student disengagement ultimately leads to undermining good teaching. An article in the Washington Post called “Why Easy Grading is Good for Your Career” by Jay Matthews, describes a story of a New Jersey High School teacher named Peter Hibbard who flunked fifty-five percent of the students in his class. Hibbard’s excuse for this was that many of his students neglected their assignments, didn’t show up for tests, and never came to class. When Hibbard was told by the school principle that the failing rate was unacceptable, he claimed that “The pressure to give grades instead of actually teaching increased.” He explains that a colleague once told him, “If students showed up, they got a C. If they did some work, they got a B. If they did fair or better on tests, they got an A.” Furthering this, Lynn Bloom suggests that at this point students will say, “Just tell me what you want, and I’ll give it to you in order to get a good grade.” Bloom claims that when disengagement occurs, students “give up both passion and concern” (pg. 364).

The concept of passion and concern for student composition are Standard English composition classroom elements that teachers stress over and over again. However, the elements cannot when a student is disengaged from the course and becomes their teachers’ puppet master. Bloom argues, “If the students tailor their writing to contours of the teacher’s views how can they engage in critical thinking and though-minded independent learning, we claim to encourage” (pg. 364). Blooms’ point is very powerful and brings to light an all- to -common practice between students and teachers in the composition classroom. As a student myself, I am constantly surrounded by fellow classmates who ask about my previous composition teachers and what they except in their assigned writings. This trend is undermining not only good teaching, but also objective, analytical thinking on the student’s behalf. It seems like a lose-lose situation, however the grade will still be given and will, as always, “automatically signal who is more equal than all the rest put together” (Bloom, pg. 364). James Lang concludes his original idea of “motivation by grades” by explaining, “the only way you could effectively use grades as a motivating tool would be to ensure that any such effort corresponded with a student’s personality and life situation, as many factors that are out of our control” (pg. 3).

Another purpose in which grades are aimed to serve is to “certify mastery of subjects and specific skills” (Myers, pg.1). However, this very purpose projects a huge problem- grades are not precise. A grade is one number or letter that is put on a work aims to simplify a complex variety of components, “the process of grading attempts to put a precise label on an imprecise assessment of a host of disparate components: subject, substance, organization, style, accuracy, ethos, grammar, and sources” (Bloom, pg. 362). It seems almost impossible that a large component of work can be broken down into small parts and then receive one, big, specific grade. This once again leaves the student asking: What does the teacher want from me? The goal of identifying the mastering of subjects and specific skills is also hard to gauge when a curve is implemented. Sandra Myers discusses the grading curve in her article and explains, “Grading on a curve and using low grades as a form of punishment does not show how each student is progressing” (pg. 2). Grading on a curve seems to discount the very purpose of certifying and acknowledging mastery of skills. By changing a grade on a curve, it is not the individual student’s work that is being graded, but instead giving a grade after-the-fact in comparison, to other students work. Sandra Myers argues, “a drawback of using a single grade report system is that student’s and parent’s can be misled when low performing students who are highly motivated and working hard are graded as performing at high levels, which is what can happen when student progress have to represented in a single grade” (pg. 4). The solitary grade does not show progress, weak points, strong points nor any of the other components that go into writing a paper. This leaves the student, as well as the parent, in the dark and unaware of what needs to be improved on or changed.

Also, attempting to put a grade on the mastery of knowledge and skills is only relevant on an individual school basis. Myers examined a 2003 U.S. Department of Education report that stated, “students in high-poverty schools who received mostly A’s in English got about the same reading scores as C and D students in the most affluent schools” (pg. 3). So, when a grade is given should it be compared to other student’s work or judged solely on the work itself? This question then leads to the question of objectivity. How can a teacher look at every student and grade their work objectively? Lynn Bloom claims, “Each and every grade reflects the cultural biases, values, standards, norms and prejudices of the time and culture in which it’s given. No teacher, no student, nor anyone else, can escape the tastes of their own time” (pg. 363). So then why exactly does a student deserve a good grade or a bad grade? I think a student should receive a good grade because they have completed the required assignment and have possibly even gone above and beyond the requirements of the given assignment. But if the assignment doesn’t sufficiently meet the requirements given, should the student still be given a better grade because they tried really hard or “because the student is working forty hours a week/ a nice person/ comes form a disadvantaged background/ is just learning English?” (Bloom, pg. 363) On the other-hand, if the student receives a bad grade is it single-handedly due to the work itself or because “the author takes a stand we-the teacher- find reprehensible or offensive/ the sixtieth paper we’ve read on the subject in three weeks/ it’s late/ sloppy/ or plagiarized?” (Bloom, pg. 363)

In a recent article published in the Dallas Morning News, Plano ISD officials discussed a proposed policy that would “discontinue docking grades for cheating and late assignments.” Reporter Matthew Haag explains, “Educators said that Plano’s proposal reflect a growing national philosophical shift, putting more emphasis on what students are learning overall rather than mostly focusing on a grade that could be pulled down by smaller assignments, bad behavior, or poor study skills.” This new proposal was given in an effort to encourage students to complete their work rather than just “taking a bad grade and moving on.” Even if this proposal were to take place, can we really hold students accountable for this without giving a grade for their work? I don’t think so. Allowing a student to turn in a completed assignment, knowing that it will not be graded based upon quality, content, and all the other facets of composition, will ultimately diminish the quality of the work. Why would a student spend quality time working on an assignment that doesn’t count?

A particular grade may be given based upon any of the factors I have previously mentioned. It seems unfair to grade a student’s work based upon anything other than the work itself. Because of all the different circumstances that a teacher could use to determine a grade, it is also important to acknowledge the fact that grades can also label the student. Barbara Davis claims, “For some students, grades are also a sign of approval or disapproval; they take them very personally” (pg. 1). The Self- fulfilling prophecy is defined in Wikipedia as “a prediction that directly or indirectly causes itself to become true, by the very terms of the prophecy itself, due to positive feedback between belief and behavior.” This suggests that as grader, we are not only grading an assignment, but also the student. Bloom suggests that “We say we are only responding to the text, not to the character of the writer behind it, but our students know better” (pg. 363). Bloom claims that students know what it’s like to be labeled an “A student, a B student, a C student, or worse.” If a student is labeled- and is aware of it- at the beginning of their academic career, potentially even in the beginning of elementary school, it is very likely that the student will carry the burden of those grades throughout their academic lives and work only to those standards set by their original teachers- their own prophecy handed back to them on a sheet of paper with a big, red letter at the top of it.

The final and perhaps biggest problem that grades present is that grades indicate unchangeable and permanent judgment. Bloom explains, “It’s a toss-up as to which is worse, a false appearance of permanence, or an actually unchangeable grade” (pg. 365). If a student has no way of improving their grade, they will never take the opportunity to re-work their mistakes, find solutions and improve, overall, as writers. And like I previously questioned- why would a student, who is busy with a million other classes and activities, take the time to re-do an assignment if it doesn’t count for anything? Bloom argues, “if grades were out of the picture, the real reasons for revising- such as clarity, emphasis, argument, style- would become manifest and the implication that writers revise essentially to improve their grades would be irrelevant” (pg. 365-66). I think that this problem as a whole encompasses all the other problems that I have argued above, in a nutshell. The general ideas of permanence and judgment serve as a vehicle for the self-fulfilling prophecy and also the issue of student disengagement in the classroom.

In the end, assigning a final letter grade or a number grade is probably not something that will ever be abolished in the academic system. Because grades have the potential to label the student, discourage them from attempting to become better writers, undermine good teaching and compare them to a standard-rather than judging them as individuals, it is important to look for solutions that can help the student become more successful in writing, as well as all other aspects of the academics. Robert Kennedy, author of “The Case for Letter Grades vs. Numbers,” argues, “It might help if teachers focused on the accumulated range of grades and determine overall what level of mastery the student has ultimately obtained. I don’t want my students to think that an outstanding paper or performance on an exam can not show up in their final grade just because they got off to a slow start.” The way a student is taught, how they work within the classroom and perhaps most importantly, the feedback they receive from their teachers-usually in the form of a big red letter/number circled on the top of their paper, will ultimately affect their future endeavors in composition.

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Blog 10

I feel like this class has given me alot of insight about things i've never really known before. I really enjoyed our class discussions on cannibalism and I also felt like our discussions and lectures over Rhetoric and the Toulmin model were very clarifying. On a more personal term, I think that some of the isses we have discussed have really interested me and I want explore further...things like Humanism (which is still a little fuzzy).

Professionaly, I feel like I have learned alot of things I could intergrate into my own classroom and teaching style. I felt that most of our discussions are relavent to any type of classroom and I have really enjoyed listening to everyone's different perspectives on topics that never really come to my mind.

This has def. been a valuable learning experience.

Blog 9

Richard Lanham's book "Style: An Anti-text Book" was NOT fun to read. I think that the language he used throughout the book was to difficult to understand that that he tried to use big words to make himself seem more credible or more intelligent. Chapter 3 was especially difficult and really confusing. I feel like he was trying to explain simple concepts, but in super-duper hard terms. I feel like what he was trying to say was relevant to what he have been discussing in class all semster, but I feel like it can be done without reading the entire novel. I did enjoy when, as a class, we pointed out specific quotes from the novel that we felt meant something important or of value to the class as a whole, or that could be applied in our future teaching careers.

Overall, the book was not enjoyable to me and I wouldn't recommend it to others...