Ungrading and Alternative Grading

Depending on your teaching context, some of these strategies may be more or less feasible than others. While we hope you will examine each strategy with an open mind about how it might foster an inclusive learning environment and motivate deep learning, we also encourage you to focus your thinking on those strategies that seem best suited to your context.

Collaborative Rubric-Building

As widely used as rubrics are, they are not without controversy. For instance, there is the “Problem of the Universal Reader,” wherein inflexible use of rubrics can lead to less natural ways of reading for the sake of applying strict evaluative criteria. The message sent to students is that there are universally agreed-upon standards for good writing, when in fact these standards are temporarily forged within the rhetorical context of the assignment. There is also the “Problem of the Generic Rubric,” wherein using one rubric to evaluate different writing tasks can mask the significant differences across disciplinary expectations and genres. And finally, the “Problem of Implied Precision,” wherein rubrics designed in grids create a false sense of objectivity about “good” writing.

These problems with designing and using rubrics can be mitigated by addressing them explicitly with the students in your course. Especially in cases where you have relatively small enrollment, building a rubric collaboratively with students can be a valuable learning experience—for you and for them!

For instance, you might set aside class time to review course learning goals with students and invite them to articulate ways in which the given assignment could demonstrate their progress toward achieving those goals. You and/or your students might then draft evaluation criteria or “step-down” descriptions for different levels of achievement, which you could use in your evaluation of their submitted assignments. Consider how sharing and discussing a sample of the assigned genre of writing could help give shape to both your evaluation criteria and descriptions.

Portfolio Grading

Portfolios are a popular means of measuring knowledge and performance in the world our students will enter after they graduate.^[1] Professionals in many different fields—from artists to consultants to academics—are expected to submit portfolios of their work as part of the hiring or employee review process. Although most common in composition courses, portfolios can also be used for the writing component of subject matter courses in the disciplines.

Portfolios of student writing can take a variety of forms. Students might be asked to submit a collection of specific documents, or students might be given a chance to select which documents to include. Portfolios might include just final drafts, or they might include earlier drafts as well. Digital portfolios provide additional affordances, such as allowing video, audio, and hyperlinked work.

Regardless of the format or specifications of the portfolio, there are guiding values that inform any effective portfolio requirement. Primarily: portfolios enable students to document their growth over time. Another value is that portfolios are a collaborative, dialogic kind of assessment. For instance, by writing reflective essays to introduce the portfolio, students become involved in the assessment process and guide the instructor’s reading of their work. Still another value is that portfolios more effectively support instructors’ role as coach: when we ask students to revise their work right up until the end of the course and submit a final portfolio, students are far more likely to value our comments on drafts and apply our suggestions to revisions.

Exhibits 16.1 and 16.2 in Engaging Ideas offer a couple of different approaches. See Engaging Ideas Ch. 16, “Alternatives to Traditional Grading: Portfolio Assessment and Contract Grading,” for a discussion of these examples in context.

Contract Grading

Some educators and writing scholars have suggested “contract grading” or “labor-based grading” as possible solutions to the problems posed by traditional grading. With contract grading, students are presented with the criteria to earn a certain grade, and are assured that if they meet those criteria they will receive that grade. For example, if students complete all assigned papers in a course, they can be assured no lower than a B in that course.

In a course with writing assignments, contract grading can accomplish the following:

• reduce writing anxiety
• make grading less subjective
• give a fair chance to all students
• encourage students to focus on ideas rather than mistakes
• students write for themselves not the teacher
• students can have “do overs” without penalty if they want to improve
• shifts learning from a “performance” orientation to a “mastery” orientation (i.e. developing and learning are the goals, not a single performance—encourages a “growth mindset”)

Contract grading is most often used in writing courses, but has been used successfully in computer science, psychology, and engineering (see supplemental resources below).

Supplemental Resources

• Labor-Based Grading Contracts: Building Equity and Inclusion in the Compassionate Writing Classroom (Links to an external site.) (Inoue 2019);
• “Alleviating Statistics Anxiety Through Contract Grading (Links to an external site.)” (Campana and Ford)
• Contract grading with mastery learning in CS 1Links to an external site.” (Lejeune 2010)

Specifications Grading

Specifications (or “specs”) grading is a version of competency-based assessment that uses pass/fail grading paired with feedback and revision. Individual assignments must meet stated specifications in order to receive credit. There is no partial credit or stepped-down grades (A, AB, B, etc.), but students are provided feedback as well as options for revising or dropping assignments that did not meet the specs. See Chapters 5, 6, 7, and 8 of Linda B. Nilson’s Specifications Grading for more information (access the full book online).

Contact Us!

The Writing Across the Curriculum team is eager to talk with you about any of these approaches. Let us know if you’d like to schedule a consultation.