This post was written by 起点传媒member Anthony Lince.听
Many educators around the US are having meaningful conversations about building inclusive classroom spaces. In English language arts and first-year-writing classrooms, I鈥檝e noticed that the bulk of these discussions are focused on diversifying the texts that are taught and read.
As a Mexican American who rarely read diverse texts in school, this change makes me incredibly happy. Students of color are going to have a chance to see themselves reflected in the stories and texts they read. This is extremely important.
But the conversations and efforts to build inviting classroom spaces cannot stop there, not if our goal is to truly include and welcome all students and help them succeed鈥攅specially students who, historically, have been in the institutional margins. In speaking on the work of researcher James A. Banks, Tricia Ebarvia that diverse texts do little to change the inequities in our schools. In fact, Ebarvia further contends, diverse curriculum might just mask larger systemic issues that need to be resolved.
This isn鈥檛 to say that diverse texts aren鈥檛 important. They are. But we simply must do more. We need to challenge harmful systems that continually exclude and harm our students of color and multilingual students. And what has hurt these readers and writers the most in our classrooms? Grades.
In talking about the barriers that students of color and multilingual students often face, Mike Rose that grades pass 鈥渏udgments about [students鈥橾 ability . . . at a very young age, and those judgments, accurate or not, affect the curriculum they receive, their place in the school, the way they鈥檙e defined institutionally.鈥� Eventually, students internalize the judgments passed down by their schools, an issue that is particularly problematic for students of color and multilingual students, as they are disproportionately assigned low grades ().
Those low marks, then, aren鈥檛 just a judgment on the work and ability of particular students in a given class, but rather a judgment on who these students are as people鈥攁nd they are, if their grades are taken as the indicator, failures.
To make matters worse, traditional grading systems don鈥檛 just affect students鈥� perceptions of themselves; teachers, too, start to hold negative beliefs about students of color and multilingual students and their ability to succeed in school. We might say that our grading systems are fair and objective, but biases often enter our evaluation practices. For instance, a recent study conducted by David M. Quinn 鈥渞acial stereotypes can influence the scores teachers assign to student work.鈥�
Thus, when marginalized students reach our classrooms, it鈥檚 no wonder if they have negative relationships, identities, and emotions related to reading and writing. Though we say, 鈥淥ur classrooms are inclusive spaces, and everyone has the chance to succeed,鈥� our assessment practices indicate otherwise, which leads students to not believe us. Our judgments, accompanied by letters and numbers that mark students as deficient, have destroyed students鈥� faith in the educational system.
So, what can we do to build trust in our classrooms? I think we need to stop grading our students.
But we can鈥檛 just stop grading our students on their assignments, can we? Actually, we can. In fact, many are currently not grading (or are ungrading) in their classrooms. There are a lot of options to choose from when deciding to ungrade, including labor-based grading and mastery-based grading.
In my first-year-writing courses at the university level, I鈥檝e chosen to use a labor-based grading model (based on the work of , whose scholarship focuses on antiracist assessment practices). I chose this route because “labor-based grading contracts,鈥� as Inoue asserts, 鈥渁ttempt to form an inclusive, more diverse ecological place, one that can be antiracist and anti鈥揥hite supremacist by its nature.” With this methodology, only measurable labor is used to calculate a student鈥檚 final course grade, and no letters or numbers are placed on student writing or other work.
Many educators that, without grades, students are able to focus on their learning in meaningful ways and put forth much more effort in their work. In my courses, I鈥檝e noticed that too. I鈥檝e also noticed that going gradeless can lead to a classroom environment that fosters trust鈥攖rust in the teacher and trust in peer-to-peer relationships. In this piece, I won鈥檛 speak much about the numerous other benefits that ungrading leads to in our classrooms. That鈥檚 because, first and foremost, we need to focus on gaining our students鈥� trust, especially when we鈥檝e lost it from our most vulnerable students. Only when every student feels that the classroom is an equitable, safe space can we focus on learning.
These days, when I provide feedback on writing, I don鈥檛 have to worry about assigning a grade that gives no , and I don鈥檛 mark students down for not meeting a single dominant standard, . Instead, I focus exclusively on giving useful feedback during the writing process, on building meaningful connections with my students, and on having genuine conversations that engage with their ideas. No longer do I see student writing with a deficit lens; rather, I look at it for what it was trying to accomplish in that moment and what it could accomplish.
With this approach, students who have been hurt the most by traditional grading practices are able to come into our classrooms knowing that they can trust our feedback, trust our words, to help them improve as writers. They can let go of those past judgments and just focus on the productive labor that will lead to learning. Diverse students will also feel comfortable knowing that the many Englishes they bring to our classrooms (for example, African American English) are embraced, not turned away, because the dominant standard is not a barrier anymore. This gradeless environment allows the teacher-student relationship to flourish in authentic ways.
Student-teacher relationships aren鈥檛 the only dynamics that improve in our classrooms. The classroom environment as a whole improves as well. Grades usually lead to partitions among our students; they create detrimental hierarchies. Because low grades are more often given to students of color and multilingual students, these structures and divisions in our classes often grow along racial and linguistic lines, which could perpetuate negative assumptions and beliefs about the ability of these students to succeed. When there are no grades on assignments鈥攅specially on essays鈥攖here鈥檚 an opportunity for those hierarchies to come tumbling down.
In my classes, I鈥檝e seen that students don鈥檛 divide themselves by arbitrary standards. They are able to focus on their peers鈥� ideas and writing without those marks and judgments getting in the way of the dialogue. In an end-of-semester survey on labor-based grading, one of my students said, 鈥淲orking with peers felt more real than in other English classes with grades. We weren鈥檛 focused on standards, on who鈥檚 better, just on the writing and how to help each other improve.鈥�
The entire classroom community, then, benefits from not having grades in the class. In many ways, labor-based grading sets the foundation for a positive classroom community, one that can be built on trust.
Because grading practices have gone mainly unquestioned, our students have suffered, and many continue to suffer today. It鈥檚 time to end the harm that grades cause. All of our students deserve to have meaningful, equitable places of learning, strong classroom relationships, and classroom communities that are truly inclusive and supportive.
As Adam Rosenblatt has , if we choose to ungrade in our classrooms, we can finally start challenging 鈥渙ne of the academy鈥檚 most pervasive and unquestioned forms of structural injustice.鈥� Let鈥檚 ungrade, so we can make that happen today.
Anthony Lince is a writer, Latinx scholar, husband, and dad. He鈥檚 pursuing a master鈥檚 degree in English with an emphasis in rhetoric, and he鈥檚 also teaching first-year-writing at San Diego State University. His research centers on antiracist assessment practices.听Twitter: @LinceAnthony
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