Recently, for the second time in four years, I served on a search committee to hire a poet for our creative-writing program. We’ve always had a ton of applicants, ranging from the ultraqualified to the barely qualified. Those we interviewed handled themselves, as expected, quite adeptly. But one question we posed always resulted in an unsatisfactory answer: “How do you grade your students?”
Here are some of the answers we received:
“Oh, I don’t assign grades.”
“If they show up, participate in class, and complete the assignments, they get an A.”
“Poetry’s so subjective. I give them grades on a critical essay and a book review.”
“I don’t want to stifle their creativity by grading their efforts.”
“If I grade the poems, the students won’t take any risks.”
“I don’t assign any grades till the end of the semester.”
“We work on portfolios, with no grades until each poem is revised several times.”
“I grade on effort and improvement.”
In each instance, we followed up with a pedagogical question or two and then moved on. But at the risk of bringing the poetry-workshop instructors of the world down on my head, I maintain that these responses are evasions. They represent what’s wrong in a lot of creative-writing programs and confirm outsiders’ suspicions of what goes on—or doesn’t go on—in far too many courses devoted to producing art. Let’s deal with each response in turn.
* “Oh, I don’t assign grades.” Most institutions assign grades of A through F for all sorts of coursework. A pass-fail course is far easier for a teacher to preside over, since no tricky assessments between, say, an A and a B, ever crop up. And unless a student really messes up, everyone passes. Some teachers provide written assessments in place of grades. I’ve read plenty of those evaluations, and the language of evasion is particularly noticeable; comments tend to be blandly positive with maybe a few weak suggestions for improvement, and end with a pat on the back. This ego-stroking leads students in advanced workshops to complain of poor ratings: They did so well in Professor X’s beginning workshop! (Well, I’ve sat in on Professor X’s workshop, and it resembles nothing so much as group therapy.)
Here’s what Wallace Stegner, in On the Teaching of Creative Writing, had to say about such classes:
Once or twice I have taken over a class after it had been handled for a term by a soft and indulgent teacher who gave everybody A, exacted no penalties for late work or no work, and uncritically accepted the “truth” of what was written by his students. Those teachers were good people and good writers, but they were not good teachers of writing, because they demanded too little. After one term under their direction, the class was spoiled; winter term and spring term were wasted time. Students get no benefit from that kind of indulgent teaching. Their only hope is to recover from it.
Wallace Stegner was on to something.
* “If they show up, participate in class, and complete the assignments, they get an A.” Seriously? Aren’t all those aspects of the course taken for granted, whereas the real grades come from the quality of their work? And shouldn’t the administration be concerned about a class in which almost everyone receives a stellar grade? Remember the dodo bird in Alice in Wonderland: “EVERYBODY has won and all must have prizes.”
* “Poetry’s so subjective. I give them grades on a critical essay and a book review.” This evasion is based on a half-truth: As opposed to, say, basic chemistry, art has no real right and wrong answers. But art can still be judged on how skilled or effective it is, even if it’s just one person’s opinion. Reviewers “grade” poetry all the time, some quite stringently. No one said to Randall Jarrell or William Logan, “But you can’t do that. It’s too subjective.” If you can’t recognize a bad poem, or are unwilling to pass judgment on it, you aren’t the right person to teach poetry. Or serve as a journal editor. Or be on an M.F.A. admissions committee.
A good judge of creative writing should be eclectic and impartial, but also willing to apply some sort of standards—to say, for instance, “These similes just don’t work.” In reverse: Just as judging creative work should involve standards, grading critical work involves assessing creativity. Yet to grade that material and not the poetry is to create a false, rather invidious, division. I’ve graded literature essays that were far more imaginative than the average workshop poem.
* “I don’t want to stifle their creativity by grading their efforts.” Why is it assumed that bad grades discourage people? It’s quite the opposite: In most cases, they spur students to do better. And in a class devoted to displaying poetic creativity, students usually respond by writing on a higher plane.
* “If I grade the poems, the students won’t take any risks.” This statement is a version of the “stifling creativity” argument. I certainly understand some students’ disinclination to take chances if their grades depend on what they hand in—which is why I tell them that I’ll reward risk-taking and experimentation, and that I applaud material that goes beyond the routine.
* “I don’t assign any grades till the end of the semester.” This response is a watered-down version of “I don’t assign grades,” an acknowledgment that the institution demands assessment, but it can at least be prolonged till the last possible minute. In fact, this strategy tends to frustrate students, who want to know how they’re doing in the course.
* “We work on portfolios, with no grades until each poem is revised several times.” The portfolio system, firmly entrenched in writing programs, is useful for its emphasis on revision but for little else. It comes across as coddling—particularly since so many portfolios count only the highest grade in the revision process. Imagine a calculus student handing in a test to the professor, who marks the errors and gives it back to the student to revise and resubmit for a better grade.
* “I grade on effort and improvement.” This method sounds simple and worthy but doesn’t make sense in practice. How can one judge effort in a work of art? By the sweat stains on the manuscript? By the sleep-hollowed eyes of the student-poet? Also, effort doesn’t always translate to quality. Art isn’t fair in that regard—a striver who spends hours and hours on a poem may produce dreck, whereas a talented individual may dash off a beautiful piece in half an hour. Who deserves a better grade: the student who’s painfully nudged his quality from C work to a B level, or the student who’s consistently produced A material?
Teachers want to encourage. Et cetera. But that’s more a matter of attitude and good pedagogy, not grades.
Everyone who presides over a workshop is acquainted with the annoying question, “Can you really teach creative writing?” It’s a legitimate query, based on notions of art versus so-called teachable skills. Anyone who has taught creative writing knows that you can edit, foster creativity, suggest further reading, and so on. Nonwriters may point to students in workshops who will never become excellent writers, but that’s not an argument against creative writing. Why does no one ever ask, because some students will never master algebra, “Can you really teach mathematics?” The reluctance to grade creativity builds on people’s worries that what’s practiced in the poetry workshop is some strange alchemy whose secrets can’t be fully imparted or assessed. These issues apply equally to a fiction or drama workshop.
Can you grade creative work? Sure. Try the old content and style rubric: Look for an intriguing subject or a fresh take on an old one, and a sophisticated or at least proficient technique. At the graduate level, that may translate into “Tell me something I haven’t heard before, or in a way I haven’t heard.” To judge that way is not so exact a process. But it’s doable and, if we’re ever to shake the accusation of creative fuzziness, worth doing.