Alien Pedagogy

Currently, my gradebook is organized into these sections:

• Tests
• Exam
• Assignments
• Projects
• Participation

This strikes me as an arbitrary way to report student achievement as it has nothing to do with student objectives.

I’d prefer to organize the grading in this way:

• Writing
• Reading
• Speaking
• Listening
• Viewing
• Representing

This way, when students come to ask me how they can improve their grade, I can say “Work on your writing skills” rather than “looks like you’re having difficulty with tests.” While it doesn’t keep students from prioritizing grades over learning, it does limit the gap between grades and learning.

The only question it leaves with me is how should the six skill areas of English be broken into fractions?

For a long time, I’ve organized tests like this:

• Section One: Multiple Choice
• Section Two: Short Answer
• Section Three: Long Answer

I’ve come to view this as an arbitrary form of organization. The data that each section reveals has nothing to do with the standards of our curriculum.

So I’ve started to adopt a system more like this:

• Section One: Knowledge
• Section Two: Analysis of Character
• Section Three: Analysis of Theme

There are a variety of question types in each section.