Teaching & Learning Without Grades

As we move into the middle of May, I’m finding myself more and more inspired by the group of students I have been honored to learn beside this school year. Recently, I asked students to create a five-piece writing collection connected by a common theme, giving them time to search through their notebooks to find the big ideas and concepts that arose from quickwrites, notebook time pieces, and reading responses. Naveah chose to focus her writing on her connection to the natural world, while Marcus decided to write a series of poems about different adventures—reading, hunting, and exploring. Students’ reading-writing notebooks, like Marcus’s and Naveah’s, have evolved into artifacts of learning as they have responded to their reading, captured thinking during quickwrites, and expanded pieces into full drafts of writing. When I conference with students during independent reading, I hear stories of book love, of personal challenge, of the migration from non-reader to reader, with an allegiance to different genres and authors. They have worked hard and have been moved by their own interests, finding books and writing topics that nudged them as readers, writers, and thinkers. But there’s one more thing you should know— they have done this in a gradeless classroom.

Several years ago, I approached my principal about changes I wanted to make in my instruction. Recent conversations had led me to question my methodology, as well as the ways I graded my students. Our principal had quite a few questions, most of them related to complying with local grading requirements and communicating changes to parents, but my desire to disrupt a traditional practice and to focus on engagement moved her to say yes. While I wanted to help students develop authentic reading and writing identities, I was perplexed by grading systems. Every system I had put in place, and even the ones I had discussed with colleagues, had major flaws, primarily in the treatment of the learning process. In most cases, the learning process was what was graded, not the learning outcome. Across a grading period, students may master a skill, but if the grades along the way— homework, quizzes, and activities— tend to be lower grades, their overall grade will not portray that they have mastered the skill. Additionally, students grow when they have feedback, not numbers. Feedback, whether from a teacher or a peer, gives them thinking to lean on. Learning tends to stop when kids see a number, assuming that the number is a non-negotiable, and often, kids see it as an end to the learning process. Convicted by my participation in this process, I began looking for ways to more accurately portray what students know and can do.

Not long ago, I was nudged by my friend, Jennifer LaGarde, to share my gradeless practices on my blog. At first, I was horrified— not at Jennifer, but at the prospect of sharing such controversial thinking. That first year of gradeless teaching and learning stretched into a second year, then another one, and now, I am looking at five years of cultivating my understanding of feedback, engagement, and authentic experiences. Since then, I’ve migrated away from grading and have moved to deeper thinking about learning. I’ve tried to determine how I can motivate students to learn and to create without using grades as a bribe or punishment. In the beginning of this process, I was uncertain, and my initial reaction was to abandon what I believed would provide a clearer picture of their abilities and pick up old practices, ones that seemed easier and familiar. I kept moving forward, though. Over time and, as I read about grading and teaching and wrote beside these ideas in my notebook, my philosophies began to take shape, and I noticed trends in the words and phrases I was using. I also noticed a consistent schedule of ideas and questions that would come up when I spoke with a new administrator, a new group of parents, a new group of students, or curious colleagues. Clarity is important in this work; communication is essential. People were striving to understand my methods, and honestly, at the onset, I failed to implement a meaningful gradeless classroom. Even now, I struggle to do so, but my understanding is deeper. And each year, my kids teach more about sparking a desire to read, to create, and to learn.

Part of the challenge of teaching is finding a way to engage kids in the act of learning. When I used a traditional grading method, I recognized that students were performing because of the number grade they would receive. Fear of failure or of “not passing” kept most students working, but when asked about things that moved them, that encouraged them to be continual learners, answers were unrelated to school, the place they spent eight hours of their day. And most of them defined their success at school as “having finished all their work.” I began to question the number of worksheets, quizzes, and tests I was giving and started asking some hard questions about their utility— were they working, were they meaningful, and were students better readers, writers, and thinkers because of them. Ultimately, the answer was no. So I made a few changes to my practice.

1. I do my best to focus on engagement over compliance. Instead of holding students accountable with grades, I try to encourage them to read and to write about the things that are meaningful to them. Together we study mentor texts and passages that inform different types of writing and interpretation, but students are responsible for keeping up with an independent reading life and responding inside their notebooks. We study different genres and write in response to a variety of texts— poems, articles, videos, and images. I spend a good portion of the beginning of each year helping students tap into their interests— with heart maps, poems, and interest inventories— and give them space and time across the rest of the year to explore those interests. When kids are engaged by their interests, they will work to perfect a piece of writing, a project, or a reading response. They will search out books and articles to inform their understanding of a topic. When they are driven by passion, numbers are of little interest to them.
2. Everything in my classroom is based on feedback. When students craft a piece of writing or are responding to a book, poem, or informational text, feedback drives the learning process. The reader’s-writer’s notebook is a means of communication with students because it gives me a place to see their thinking, respond to it (feedback), and nudge them to deeper thinking. Time is given in class to provide peer feedback, and we discuss how to provide meaningful feedback. A fishbowl demonstration helps start the conversation about meaningful feedback.
3. Reflection is a necessary, navigational tool. Students reflect on their reading lives each Friday, noting the things they discovered in their reading and identifying the behaviors and trends they noticed about themselves as readers during that week. They also set reading goals. In regard to writing, students reflect on the origin of their ideas and their process for writing— what helps them write and how does that process shift depending on the type of writing they are doing and the mentor texts they are using? After several reflections, students look back through their thinking and identify the things they notice. What are they thinking, how are they thinking, and what do they need to do as a result of both?   
4. Grade conferences help remove any biases I may have and give students a voice in their own learning. Toward the end of each grading period, students start thinking about the grade they feel they have earned. Because a final grade is required, I have to find a way to translate their learning to a number, but I refuse to do it by myself. I want their grade to be a reflection of what they’ve accomplished and the progress they’ve made as readers, writers, and thinkers. Together, we set requirements for A, B, and C work (I avoid going below a C), and students use their evidence from their reading and writing lives to argue the grade they feel they’ve earned. I look forward to these conferences because they give me another window into the minds of my students.
5. Communication with families establishes connections early in the school year and creates alliances beyond the classroom. I send home a letter at the beginning of every school year that explains my grading practices with students’ families. I want them to know that at the core of my instructional practices is a desire to engage students’ hearts and minds. I write narratives of students’ progress and make these available to parents on grade conference forms.

While this system works for me and has helped me nudge my students as readers, writers, and thinkers, I’ve had frustrated educators tell me my methods are too soft; that I’m not preparing students for the real world. I’ve had teachers brag to me about the number of individual grades they’ve given in a single grading period (some of them upwards of 50!). In some cases, conversations about gradeless classrooms have turned hostile. In these moments, teachers feel challenged by the idea of gradeless teaching, as though someone is telling them their method is wrong and the method I’ve adopted is the right one. I don’t believe that. Like all things in education, grading (or in my case, not grading) is a process that must be revisited each year, and if revision is necessary, we have to be willing to modify the systems that aren’t working or pledge to change a system that isn’t enriching an experience.

The gradeless initiative in my classroom has seen multiple revisions. From standards-based, mastery grading to reflection to a blend of both, I’ve watched the system I implement change based on my current understanding, the research I read, and the students I teach. I start with empathy— what do my students need and what will help them the best? I seek to understand them first. We move forward from there.

Of one thing I am certain–learning is messy. It is not the linear process we so often want to make it. I’ll admit my own failures in trying to make the learning process clean and logical, but I always realize the complexity of the human mind. Any attempt to make learning general and diagnostic never shows what students truly know. Helping them find the things that are meaningful to them is a strong start, though. A gradeless classroom does have its challenges, especially when students must grow accustomed to an environment based on feedback and reading and writing choices. And honestly, there are some students who are unmotivated by a classroom such as mine. I still sit beside them, though, and I try to learn from them. I do my best to help them identify the things that are meaningful to them. And I nudge them. Because I believe that the energy for learning rests inside them, and if I can do anything to help them access that special place in their hearts, I can move them to lifelong learning.

I am inviting you to think beside me, believing that together we can move young people to fall in love with learning. I do not believe for a moment that I have all of the correct answers, but I do know that when we start with empathy, our methods have the ability to touch hearts and to change lives. The changes I have made in my grading practices have been full of growing pains— for me and students— but every year, I watch students dig deep inside themselves to find the things that matter to them. And when they identify those things, I watch the read, write, and think with fervor.

T
**My thinking about gradeless teaching and learning has been enhanced by conversations with colleagues and professional reading. Punished by Rewards by Alfie Kohn, Fair Isn’t Always Equal by Rick Wormeli, Teaching Reading in Middle School by Laura Robb have provided a deeper understanding of this work. Also, I want to thank Cristi Julsrud for nudging me to start thinking about different grading practices. Over time, our thinking has changed together, and although our grading methods are quite different, our philosophies remain the same. Thank you, friend. You have helped me see things from a different perspective ever since we met.