Using Grading Contracts

Maybe it’s because I’m in a more science-oriented field, but I’m surprised this article was even written as I didn’t realize that it’s normal for professors to be so vague with their grading. Even as a student I remember there being a section of the syllabus breaking down what constitutes the final grade. I don’t have a “grading contract” in my courses, but I have a section in my syllabus that outlines the grade breakdown in detail. I say precisely how much each exam and assignment is worth, as well as any other part of the grade such as class participation. I also break down class participation by specific activities the student can perform to get participation points (e.g. talking in class as well as participating on the online discussion board) and how much each activity is worth. I include precise attendance policies and how much credit students will miss once they’ve skipped too many classes. Within an exam or an assignment, if the questions subjective (i.e. not multiple choice), I will include a rubric that states what required content is worth how many points. Finally, I include the cut-offs for each final grade so they know not to bother me if they get an 86.9 and I only give them a B instead of a B+.What I like about this system is that it’s even more clear than the example posted in this article. In the case above, what happens if a student has exceptional writing but poor attendance? Are they automatically bumped down to a “C” or does the exceptional writing resurrect some shortcoming with the attendance? Students should know how much each aspect of the course is worth.I don’t receive questions about grades. I do sometimes get people angling for higher grades but each case is so easy to address because the requirements are so clear. It saves so much headache. When you teach 100 students in a single class you can’t have them all bugging you about vague grading practices. Also, sometimes you’re coordinting grades with another instructor or a grader. That’s where rubrics help, because they keep everything fair and objective. I do think that rubrics can be problematic because for an essay assignment it takes away some ability to be creative. A student might do something brilliant that was not anticipated by the rubric (but also make other errors), and it’s hard to know what to do with that. But I think the solution is to have a flexible rubric for that assignment if necessary. Overall I think that being clear about grading is LESS work, not MORE as the author states. I also think it’s much more fair to the students. In the end it will help with your evaluations as well, because students won’t be bitter about arbitrary grading practices. Finally, one reason I’m glad I use objective and clear grading practices is because I don’t want my feelings about a student to cloud how to evaluate him/her. A student with a bad attitude won’t get full class participation points, but s/he still might end up with an “A” in my class if s/he does everything else right, as much as I would like to knock him/her down a notch. A wonderful, sweet, highly interested student might easily earn 100% participation points, but if s/he doesn’t do great on demonstrating actual knowledge, I will be forced to stick him/her with a C+ if s/he has a final grade of 79.

Dear loyal ProfHacker readers,Let’s try to focus on answering the questions posed at the end of the above post: “What have your experiences been like with contract grading? How might contract grading be effective in a discipline outside of writing? How do grading contracts work in large lecture sections? In a science-type course? In an activity-based course? What have been your experiences with contract grading (positive and negative)? Please leave comments below.“If you don’t have any experience with contract grading, it might be a good idea to wait until some people who do have left their comments.Thanks!George H. Williams, ProfHacker editor

Thanks, @ksledge. You raise many of the concerns I have. I sometimes with writing could be scored as objectively as some other disciplines can be. In writing, there is rarely a “right” or “wrong” answer to any type of writing. Yes, we could grade solely on the number of grammatical/usage errors a student makes, but history has taught us that’s not good pedagogy…. it’s also not good writing.I also include statements on the syllabus that state that if a student misses “x” number of classes, “x” number o points will be deducted from the final grade. The syllabus really is clear. But student challenge it, nonetheless.I’m getting off subject here a bit, but I’ve actually had students come to me at the end of the term wanting a grade change because their science/math/whatever professor won’t change THEIR grade, and because, “you know, writing is so subjective, can you change your grade so I can [keep my scholarship, join a Greek organization, not fail out of school completely]?”Anyway, as I stated in the post, grading is a complex issue. I’m glad you posted here so we could continue the conversation.

Thanks, @heatherwhitney! I agree with your statement that students expect the high grade for doing the minimum amount of work. This is one of the benefits of the contract grading (as outlined by Elbow and Danielewicz). The contract does show a student (at least) the very many steps that are involved in getting quality work accomplished. This is the focus on the process and not so much on the product. Standard grading practices generally focus on the product. In writing, we are evaluating BOTH the produce and the process.

I don’t understand the need for a grading contract. I do understand the need for grading rubrics on every assignment you give to your students. That’s what I do in my courses. For each assignment, I clearly state, in writing, what is needed to earn each letter grade, then I explain in the grading portion of the syllabus how I calculate the grades (strict average or if certain assignments count more than others). My experiences have been better at end of term once I started using grading rubrics versus just using the syllabus. Only frustration results from professors not clearly outlining what students must do to earn grade x.

B”HI am a writing instructor, and I absolutely understand the need for grading contracts. It seems the students today come to class with the attitude, “I paid for this class, I deserve an ‘A,’ and I won’t accept anything less! The problem isn’t always that the grading is somewhat subjective, but that, as writing instructors who read the personal writing of our students on a daily basis, we may become closer to our students, more empathetic, and more subject to student manipulation.So, the grading contract may not be just for our students. It may, more appropriately, serve us. I also have a very specific day-by-day syllabus. It is not for my students, really. It is for me. It keeps me organized and on subject every day–no matter what they throw at me!Michelle

I have lots of respect for Peter Elbow, but the list of criteria for a B is not a contract (contracts are negotiated, not laid down from on high), and in my (fairly extensive) experience with explicit, concrete criteria for, e.g., a B, this list is composed of a series of invitations for haggling and grade grubbing. Further, a B isn’t what almost any student wants, or even is happy to settle for. The issue is that our society has made grades the only thing education is really about, partly by charging increasingly high prices for them. While I agree with ksledge that “students today care about grades more than they used to,” I’d suggest that the more we “use grades to motivate,” the more we reinforce the idea that that is all it’s about.

@profshelly, really good point that that the contracts serve us maybe a little more than they do the students. That’s something I need to remember. ;-)@russhunt, of course a contract is negotiated (to a degree)….and the negotiation is part of the pedagogy. This post wasn’t really about Elbow and Danielewicz. I just use their criteria (which I’m sure was negotiated with students) as an example of what might be included on a contract. (Like I said in the post, I wasn’t doing their article justice–but was using it as a jumping off point for this discussion.) Take a look at the entire piece. It’s quite good.

@astroman I understand your point. I misspoke on B being for average work.To others who have commented on why the need for grading contracts, especially when it comes to the sciences: in the past I’ve had students who, even though I sat down and showed them exactly how I calculated their grade numerically, did not believe they deserved the letter grade they received. Some have even tried to suggest different grading schemes to change their grade. One student wanted me to take points from his final exam and apply them to his lab grade, for example. (?????) Students have often argued that if they did well on a test, that should be representative of their entire effort in the class. I think a grading contract would have been useful in this case because it would have been another way the student could have some clear information on what kind of work, in total for the entire semester, constitutes a B, C, etc. For many of our science students, grades are just numbers that can be manipulated. I think the point of the grading contract is not necessarily to set a numerical rubric but to communicate the spirit of the letter grade. It complements any rubrics you may be using.

I would like to adopt a grading contract in my courses, but in order to account for the variations in B-work or A-work, I think I will provide the criteria and state that the student cannot earn that grade WITHOUT fulfilling those criteria. The rest of the grade will be based on the student’s general achievement in writing, but he or she must complete all drafts, provide peer review, be free of grammar and spelling mistakes, etc. Also, I would base it on individual assignments. I have found it’s quite reasonable and effective to assign a certain number of points to each assignment and base the final grade on the points earned in the class.Another way to account for this problem is to be specific about what certain things are worth. They earn grades based on their performance in writing, but points are deducted for missing drafts or spelling errors. My father, who teaches history, deducts two points for each misspelled word. He has found that by the third assignment there are no more misspelled words. The point system could also be worked into a contract.

When I was a grad student I TA’d for a prof who used a grading contract for his History class on Nazi Germany. It worked on a couple of levels. First, he had a traditional midterm and final exam. Second, there was a weekly film component to the class, so the students had to write a film journal. Third, he believed that an A in this class meant not just a superior level of work, but also a superior level of effort. To contract for an A a student had to earn A’s on both exams, write 12 good quality film journal entries and a 20 page research paper that also had to earn an A. If you earned a B on either exam or the paper, too bad, so sad, you earned a B for the class.To contract for the B a student had to earn at least B’s on both exams and write 10 film journal entries. But they did not write the research paper. To contract for a C the student had to earn a C or better on both exams, write eight good qulity journal entries. Students contracted for the grade at the beginning of the term, but then could drop down to a lower grade later in the semester. About hald the students would contract for the A, but most of them would drop down to a B after they either missed a deadline for the research project or only earned a B on the midterm. This system was great for a couple of reasons. First, it simplified the grading. I didn’t have to read the film journals closely, it was just pass/fail. The professor handled the students who were writing the research papers. Grading the exams was simple. Just A, B or C , I didn’t have to make a lot of comments on the exams. Second, the students knew right off the bat that earning an A was going to be a hell of a lot of work. So they guaged their interest in the class and ability to succeed accordingly.Finally, it simplified the ‘waste management’ aspect of teaching. There were 80+ students in the class. I didn’t have to worry about leading discussion sections, grading participation, quizzes, etc. I just kept track of the contracts, if the students made the benchmarks they earned the grade. I don’t even think I needed to do any math! (This was 12 years ago, I forget some details…)I am history prof at a medium sized RII. I don’t use contract grading, because my classes are relatively small. If I had bigger classes, I would definitely use a similar contract grading system.

Here’s an activity-oriented example:During the past few years I’ve been incorporating a good deal of art-integrated learning into my rhetoric and composition classes and have found grading contracts mostly very helpful. For example, this spring I had my visual rhetoric students compose three-dimensional assemblage artworks as nonverbal “revisions” of their research papers. The projects took several weeks to develop and I wanted the process to be communal and dialogic–in other words, I wanted students to explore a wide range of symbolic options and to value the process as much as (maybe more than) the final product, while making sure the final product would be something intellectually and aesthetically satisfying.In the past I’d used a regular syllabus plus a special rubric (co-developed with the students during class) as a way to handle the art project. While a rubric is helpful for clarifying expectations for the finished product, it doesn’t get at the *process* of making the artwork. And since we’re a rhetoric class, not a studio art class, the evaluation of the artwork can become a source of anxiety for students on various levels. (It can also be a temptation for good rhetoricians to focus on coming up with a dashed off project, beautifully rationalized, rather than a composition that raises authentic questions in their own minds.)The grading contract enabled me to require the development of the artwork as a basic expectation for earning a grade of B or above in the class. And “development” meant not just turning something in but participating in the planning, hands-on creation, peer critiques, and presentations of the artworks. The studio-style approach helped ensure the project would evolve over time, giving us a solid emphasis on process and rhetorical decision-making, and the grading contract made it safe to experiment with unfamiliar materials and methods instead of worrying about the “beauty” of the finished composition.