Evaluating Students: Assessment, Grades, and Homework

                As an English Language Arts instructor evaluating students on literature, writing, and comprehension rarely comes in the form of definitive answer test, such as multiple-choice questions. The desire for instructors is to have students infer, interpret, and understand what the author is writing about. Also, to be able to come up with their own ideas as well as deep understandings of things such as plot, characters, and themes. Often in order to get an authentic inference, opinion, or true analysis of a text the grading of the journal entry, short essay, or blog post should be made less about the mechanics and more about the overall content and contributions. Fear from students “messing up” or “being wrong” about things will generate less of a genuine original thought and come out more as a retelling or summary rather than an in-depth analysis of what the just read.

                When it comes to the general progress of students understanding of the material grades is always the thing that gets brought up whether it be by the students themselves, the parents, and even the higher up administration who are curious about the progress of the class as a whole. It is key that as an instructor our grading criteria and scale are very clear an easily understandable. Making confusing bench marks and hard to measure skill obtainment can make it not only difficult for you to justify as an instructor, but even worse it can confuse the students making it impossible for them to know what is being asked of them and how exactly they are supposed to achieve their learning targets throughout the course. In your district if you have the ability to allow parents to access their students’ grades via online knowing where their child is at and knowing how to improve or maintain that progress will keep all involved informed and fully aware on what needs to happen in order to succeed.

                Success is also achieved via practice so homework is something that should be handed out with intention and as an aid not just extra work to overwhelm the student. Homework is something that is meant to aid the student in further understanding the material presented them in class, not something that is built to make or break a grade they achieve in class. Students have many other things in their lives outside of schoolwork that can range anywhere from after school activities and a job to food insecurity and finding a warm place to sleep. The idea of homework at that point gets pushed to the back of the mind rightfully so. The end goal of homework should always be to aid not hinder, assist and not overwhelm.