My Term Paper, an Interesting (to me) Discussion of Mastery Assessment in Freshman Composition
Mastery Assessment in Freshman Composition: Moral and Pedagogical Opportunities
Mastery-based assessment is possible and practical in Freshman Composition.
This discussion will begin with a presentation of the moral reasons I consider mastery assessment a generally morally superior practice to conventional grading, followed by discussion of how a mastery-assessment Freshman Composition program might be structured and implemented. After this exposition, I will present some ways in which mastery assessment meets needs and goals highlighted in the literature and history of college composition, and I will note some precedents for mastery assessment. This will conclude with discussion of Peter Elbow’s recent essay “Changing Grading while Working with Grades.” Next I will present a dialogue with myself (somewhat like Plato’s “Socrates” dialogues, but without the illusion of multiple participants in the discussion, though some statements of other composition scholars are discussed) in which I attempt to bring up reasonable objections to mastery assessment in Freshman Composition and explain them away by processes more honest than hand-waving. After this dialogue I will briefly consider whether mastery assessment might also be used in secondary writing instruction, and then I will attempt to end the paper in a productive way.
A Moral Case for Mastery Assessment
My arguments for the practice of mastery assessment stem from my own principles. I acknowledge that not all my readers are likely to share all my principles (few principles are universal), but I expect that few of the reasons I present will be contrary to the principles of a significant number of caring educators. This discussion is presented as if focusing on Evangelical Christian education, taking the premises of a Bible-based worldview, but most of the contents of the discussion are equally applicable in secular education and in religious education based on different principles. While not all my moral premises may be shared by all readers, most readers are likely to find elements from the argument persuasive and deserving of implementation.
Modern American education focuses on personal achievement. Do a good job and you get an A. Get an A and you get “honors.” Get honors so that you’ll get a good job or scholarship. Do to Get. But the Apostle Paul said, “Love doesn’t seek its own” (I Cor. 13:5). Christians need to communicate a different paradigm to students than that which our culture currently communicates. True, the idea of reward for effort is a Biblical one, but Christians are directed to seek Heavenly rewards, not earthly ones—“Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you” (Matthew 6:33). Believing God entails a renunciation of worldly priorities; Christians, let us not teach the world’s errors to the next generation of believers!
Instead of seeking credits and grades for advancement, students should be taught to seek competencies and opportunities for service. Creativity, instead of being directed to win acclaim (or, down the road, a place in the canon or in the high regard of experts), should be directed to communicate and execute (e.g., in professions, in charity, in relationships) the truth of the Gospel.
For this reason I advocate a mastery approach to assessment (“mastery assessment”). Assessment of some sort must occur in order to teach students responsibility and to provide accountability for diligence. The mastery approach emphasizes acquisition of competencies, which I see as a primary goal of Christian education (readers employed in secular education may consider how their goals accord), while conventional grading allows students to elect a low or high level of success, and to feel proud or inferior based on natural talent (probably every group learning situation brings in these temptations, but conventional grading, with its permanent mark of “86” or “68” or “93” [or A, B, C, or D] seems to actively promote these problems).
Mastery Assessment in Freshman Composition
Some subjects are difficult to assess in terms of mastery of competencies. For instance, writing is difficult to divide into isolated, conquerable competencies. Most graduate students in Texas Tech’s Department of English do not have flawless command of grammatical conventions (probably the most objectively and easily assessable writing competency). Perhaps competencies can be defined as pre-defined levels of skill displayed in certain areas. Accountability in writing might be provided through actual importance of assignments. For instance, letters to foreign governments urging the release of Christians imprisoned for evangelism are not to be written trivially (that is, in a style lacking gravity, formal correctness, consideration of audience, clarity of purpose, and information about the subject at issue), and the successful writing of a letter approved by the writing instructor as adequate for sending might be considered a “mastery.”
A two-semester sequence of Freshman English organized on mastery assessment in a college setting might be organized as follows:
The fundamental structure of the course is a series of varied writing projects that must meet instructor’s approval (demonstrating particular competencies or succeeding as particular types of documents). Students must pass the entire sequence of assignments to pass the class. Assignments may have individual deadlines or may all be finally due at the end of a semester. Since the alternative to meeting a deadline for a project is to retake the course, an end-of-semester deadline for all work might be appropriate (much like in a portfolio system). Students turn in work and drafts of work throughout the semester to receive feedback and eventual credit, once their drafts are satisfactory. Some competencies for mastery might be measured by dedicated projects, while others might be observed in projects dedicated to other competencies (for instance, correct comma usage might be proved in almost any writing assignment). The structure that most closely parallels the present two-semester freshman composition sequence might be a set of competencies calculated to take average students about two semesters to complete. Students sign up for the same course semester after semester until, amongst all the semesters taken, they have completed all the required projects. (This is almost a microscaling of the design of each student’s entire course of study, in which he or she must take and pass all required courses for his or her major, and may take two years or ten years to do it.) Most students will complete the project sequence in two semesters. A few might finish in one. Some will take more. Course fees will be a strong incentive to students not to linger in the program longer than necessary. Fees might be adjusted downward after the first semester according to the number of remaining competencies at the beginning of the semester, so that borderline students will not be encouraged to turn out frantically produced, barely adequate work at the close of semesters, and assessors will not be tempted to pass work that does not demonstrate competency out of misguided mercy for students. Assignments might all have a deadline of “eventually,” or individual assignments might have deadlines at specific points along the semester. All assignments should be offered every semester.
Students do not consistently attend a single class with a single teacher. Instead, they attend seminars about individual projects taught by the program instructors who grade those projects. Some general seminars (for instance, to cover minor topics over which students will not be assessed but which they should be aware of) at which attendance at some point in the semester is required might also be offered.
The concept of a general program faculty responsible together for all the students (while perhaps within that structure some have particular responsibility for certain students) is derived from the Freshman Composition program at Texas Tech University, in which I am employed. This program is headed by a director (currently Dr. Susan Lang) and two assistant directors, who devise a universal syllabus for use in all classes in the program (one for each of two levels, English 1301 and 1302). The program is structured so that it emphasizes time spent by students writing assignments over time in class (students only attend class for an hour and a half each week for a three-hour credit course). Assessment is carried out by “Document Instructors,” who grade assignments (which are turned in online) and provide extensive written feedback for student improvement. Every instructor in the program does at least some document instruction (including the director). Many instructors are also “Classroom Instructors,” who teach classes using their own lesson plans moving along the universal syllabus. Classroom Instructors have much lighter assessment loads than do pure Document Instructors. Classroom Instructors are also students’ means of appeal. If students think that their work was graded unfairly they may bring it to their Classroom Instructors for review. Grades may be further appealed to the Assistant Directors. Most of the instructors in the program are graduate students.
The universal syllabus and collective approach to instruction are ideal for a mastery-assessment system. Instructors might be assigned to teach and assess certain assignments, allowing students to receive instruction on the standards for competency demonstration from the same instructors who enforce them, so that they might know their audiences, and might direct their questions to the most knowledgeable instructors. This consistency also enables increased subjectivity in judgment of competency, since assignments are presented as satisfactory or unsatisfactory to particular instructors, rather than to the entire program. Such freedom for subjectivity might be important for enabling the program to demands higher levels of sophistication than are easily presented through checklists, rubrics, and formulae. Instructors might be assigned to teach and assess areas of their own strengths, which might enable maximally competent instruction. To employ all instructors evenly across the semester, without extreme surges and lulls in activity, every competency should be presented in workshops and its demonstration assignments accepted for assessment throughout the entire semester. This practice presents advantages to students of the possibilities of finishing quickly (or slowly), working on multiple skills or assignments at once or focusing on a single skill or assignment until mastered (according to the students’ most natural work patterns), time to revise assignments without being “left behind,” and increased communication with assessing instructors. Instructors, by focusing on one subject area, might develop their teaching and assessing practices to high levels of refinement, allowing instructors the opportunity to develop as thoughtful teachers and allowing students the opportunity to receive superior instruction.
Because of the opportunities for specialization of instructors and standardization of instruction and assessment across the program, and for the flexibility it can offer to students (particularly if, as I have suggested, students are not bound to proceed along the syllabus at equal pace with an arbitrarily-determined group of other students—their “class”), I see great promise in a Texas Tech-like collective approach to composition instruction in implementing a mastery-assessment curriculum, but mastery assessment could also be successfully employed in a traditional classroom, in which each instructor consistently teaches and grades a set group of students. Traditional classroom structure might be necessary at some smaller institutions, which might not employ enough instructors to allow specialization of instruction.
Below is a list of possible writing projects (labeled by genre, loosely defined) for a Freshman Composition course employing mastery-assessment curriculum, presented in order to present the fundamental possibility of a mastery-assessment curriculum and to suggest some practical ideas to would-be (or present) implementers of mastery-assessment instruction. One principle to consider in the design and selection of projects is that accountability can be based on positive consequences, rather than negative ones.
Service Project: A letter to an oppressive government urging the release of a political or religious prisoner. This project might be limited to the drafting of the letter, or it might include a significant research component. The completed letters would be mailed, so that focus might be on service as the reason for competence, rather than on competence for its own sake or for winning academic success.
Artistic Project: A formally-correct and thematically clear sonnet (within the bounds and taste of the instructor, who we hope is a poet or poetry scholar), achieving some particular technical goals set out by the instructor (for instance, invocation of three senses, or use of line breaks to reinterpret phrases, or relevant allusions). Students might be allowed to choose a few from among many devices taught in seminars and in course texts for use in their poems. They might be allowed to choose from among several set forms, rather than being restricted to the sonnet. The completion of this project would not prove excellence as a poet, but it would show awareness of and competency in wielding particular tools of poetical writing.
Artistic Project: Alternatively, and probably preferably, students might be required to write a formally-correct sonnet (or other poetic form) that would be published with other student poems and distributed across the program. This would allow students to approach creative writing as communication to a real audience.
Practical Project: A useable resume or job letter.
Language-Awareness Project: An accurate and coherent translation or paraphrase of a text originally written in another dialect of English, or in early modern English. This project would require research of words and phrases, close reading, and moving thoughts from the mind onto paper without loss of clarity. The process would also encourage students to think about what the English language is and how it can be used. A source text might be chosen that involves foreign cultural elements, in which case explanatory footnotes might be required.
Language-Awareness Project: An exercise in transcription of the spoken word (probably from a sound recording) might also be profitable for encouraging students to consider the nature and flexibility, as well as the usefulness of conventions, of English. This project might require students to conduct interviews, perhaps as part of an oral history project (again putting competency in its appropriate context of service). A written introduction to the transcription, explaining the context and purpose of the interview and introducing the interview subject, might also be required.
Practical Project: A timed writing exercise, on any timescale (minutes to months). If the assignment is not completed to standards within the allotted time it must be begun afresh, with the clock reset. This could be applied to almost any assignment in the curriculum in order to train students to write with deadlines, even while deadlines do not inhibit the learning of weaker students, but only their convenience.
Literature Analysis Project: Can an essay interpreting a literary text be assessed by mastery standards? Advanced students might be required to write something either accepted for publication or deemed by the instructor to be worthy of publication. Beginning students might be required to go through the motions of certain processes (e.g., freewriting, outlining), assessed based on a working knowledge of standard writing processes, rather than on the quality of their final project. Accountability for a good final product might be provided by the publication of all the students’ final essays, with distribution to all the students in the program. The competitive instinct of male students might be put to good use in this situation if all students were required to analyze one work or even one passage. Beginning students also might simply be required to write a coherent and grammatically correct analysis, perhaps based on some predetermined essay format. This does not reward student brilliance, but brilliance is usually driven by students’ interest in material, rather than in grades. I consider six-page literature analysis essays to be of very limited use in the world, and would use them sparingly, placing more emphasis on more practical writing assignments.
Persuasive Writing Project: Assigning students to write in a program webmagazine (maybe a weekly political opinion rag—I know few persons who don’t wish others would adopt their political opinions), probably with the requirement that students read the webmagazine, would give students opportunity to write persuasively in a context of real communication among peers, and to practice meeting deadlines. Blogs might be used analogously.
Students might be required to demonstrate some competencies more than once, to counter the influence of “fluke” demonstrations (especially in grammar); and to ensure that students have actually learned, and not merely happened, by some process or other, to demonstrate competencies; and to allow reinforcement of concepts learned. Repetition of competencies could be achieved by repetition of assignments, or by introduction of new assignments requiring the same vital skills, or by measurement of certain competencies (especially grammar points) in parallel with assignment general adequacy using the same assignments.
Total objectivity in assessment is unnecessary, as long as students are allowed resubmit work until it meets requirements. Part of the writing process is finding how to communicate effectively to particular readers, and part of the college and professional processes is finding how to please (not necessarily in a flattering, gutless way) certain readers. While program assessors should try to be as fair as possible, since they are dealing with real human beings who deserve to be well-treated, the possibility of subjectivity in assessing an assignment is not disastrous in a mastery-assessment system, in which students can redo work until it meets standards (however illogical or undefinable standards may sometimes seem to be).
Students need feedback when they submit drafts, both so that they can know how their writing can be improved generally and so that they can know how to continue work to meet assessment standards. Feedback, at least of the latter kind, should be offered on all submitted work. If a student tries to submit something that displays a lack of effort, rendering an outside reader not yet necessary, it should not be accepted. In an online turn-in system, assessors might elect to comment on students' drafts or return them with an automated message explaining that submission is not yet appropriate. Of course, students should be allowed to ask specific questions about drafts and ideas, either through submission of drafts with comments, or through a writing center or assessor office hours.
Affinities
Mastery-based assessment matches well the Process model of composition instruction, in that it rewards activity in the multiple stages that typically lead to the production of strong finished writing. Rewriting is a necessary part of passing the course for all or nearly all writers. Elbowian minimally-directive “facilitative” comments on the general direction of drafts, rather than on sentence-level specifics, might be easily employed by instructors on many assignments, leaving students to figure out as much as possible on their own (Straub 233). In the course of multi-draft dialogue with instructors, instructors might adapt their commenting style from extremely directive to extremely non-directive according to the needs of individual students. It must be borne in mind that the goal of draft feedback is ultimately the teaching of writing, not of skill-demonstration projects. Instructors might even (to a limited extent) avoid giving students commentary that is defined in terms of competency demonstration, focusing commentary instead on general improvement (while at times students might need directive, project requirements-driven commentary).
Let us observe some observations of Peter Elbow on grading:
It's hard to imagine a procedure more untrustworthy than conventional grading:
It is almost invariably performed by only one person.
It encourages confusion between measurement and commentary.
It disguises the many diverse features of any important performance into a single number.
As a result it is maximally misleading both to students and to outside readers.
As a further result it encourages students and the rest of the community in the myth that a person's intelligence or learning tan be summed up on one dimension. …
Grading on a curve is the worst. Curved grades give no indication whether all or none of the students have actually learned what was taught. (Bleich paragraph 26)
The deemphasis of the grade, it being an eventual matter of course after diligent effort, might answer many of these problems. Certainly, mastery assessment has none of the problems inherent to curved grading! The application of the final grade (This’ll Work) after the entire revision process and the vague meaning of prior grades (Not Yet) should reduce the “confusion between measurement and commentary.”
Mastery-assessment pedagogical tactics—motivation besides the grade (e.g., publication for friends’ eyes), running dialogue between assessor and student—can (and should, in my opinion) emphasize the idea of writing as communication. This is in keeping with the Expressivist goal, as Joseph Harris observed: “The personal was the political, and to help students find their own voices seemed one way to protest a system run amok” (26). This is certainly in keeping with goals of Christian education, which seeks to equip students to be effective agents of Christ in a fallen world. Secular educators and religious educators with different principles may consider whether this subversive empowerment fits their pedagogical goals.
I hope that any readers with Formalist sympathies will readily observe that a mastery-assessment curriculum can easily be designed to teach with a focus at the sentence level (Fulkerson 344). Mastery assessment requires problems to be conquered, not just appeased, at least in individual pieces of work. For reinforcement programs may require multiple demonstrations of competencies. Mechanical writing skills are skills that can be mastered, and, at least to the Formalist, must be mastered.
Mastery assessment may also be considered to align well with the pedagogical approach of Mina Shaughnessy: in the words of the Bedford Bibliography for Teachers of Writing’s A Brief History of Rhetoric and Composition, “Mina Shaughnessy's important work, Errors and Expectations (1977) [472], argues for respect for students' home languages but also advises teachers on how to help these students become more comfortable with academic writing” (paragraph 39). In a mastery-assessment curriculum, students are not “graded down” for using their home dialects, and instructors who wish especially to affirm the value of home dialects may write comments of praise for writings in home dialects. At the same time, students can be made aware, gently, through non-acceptance of submissions for demonstrations of certain competencies (for instance, for most grammar requirements or writings for formal rhetorical situations), the appropriate rhetorical spaces for formal and non-standard English. (If writings in home dialects can satisfy certain competencies, instructors and program directors might consider accepting them in such cases, in order to further communicate the need for different uses of language in different rhetorical situations.)
Instruction in Applied Music in universities now is taught in what is essentially a mastery-assessment system (though one structured much differently than my proposed Freshman Composition Program, though imitation of Applied Music instruction structure in Freshman Composition might be worth consideration by somebody sometime, since the structure is highly effective for teaching musical expression skills). Students are expected to be punctual and diligent and show reasonable improvement in their lessons, and if they do so they are awarded A’s. A B signifies a serious warning. So grading of lessons is meaningless except as communication to students whether they are on track. In order to graduate, applied music majors must present recitals. Recitals are graded on a pass-fail basis with high standards for the level of performance a graduating musician should present. Students may put off the scheduling of recitals indefinitely until they and their teachers are confident in their preparation. Since musical performance is also a form of communication and art, as is writing, the practices of musical educators might not be dismissed out-of-hand by writing teachers. The overlap in pedagogical aims and practices between these two disciplines deserves consideration in another paper.
The modern A-B-C-D-F (E) system of grading is of recent vintage. It was introduced at Harvard in the 1880s. The scale of 0 to 100 is no older than the Nineteenth Century. For most of human history, including the parts that produced William Shakespeare, Samuel Johnson, the Apostle Paul, Jonathan Edwards, and Leonardo da Vinci, assessment was different (Boyd 5). In early American universities, formal assessment was provided only by a comprehensive oral examination given prior to graduation, much like the Senior Recital required of Applied Music graduates today (although usually these graduates must also pass courses in Music Theory and History). I do not suggest a return to ancient assessment models (especially not a return for kicks), but I wish to point out that the current system is not the only one that has been used with success. As Harvard and Yale stepped forward in assessment practice in the Nineteenth Century, perhaps some educators will step forward again in the Twenty-First Century.
Richard Boyd argues that origins of grading are political: “Grading has always been turned outward toward the community-at-large as much as it has inwardly focussed on student performance in the classroom; the political state and the state of education were and are inextricably linked, and grades, because they involve degrees, rank, and difference, are at the heart of the matter” (Boyd 7). After offering an interpretation of the political history of grading, Boyd advises, “The contemporary instructor would be well advised to consider seriously the cultural legacy of his or her professional life as an evaluator of student writing. The marking of that student essay with a grade is not an insignificant, nor apolitical, gesture” (15). Mastery-based assessment is equally political. It promotes a different ideal than does the current graduated system of grading. Mastery assessment says (if I may personify it for a moment), “Nobody, not even the professor, is here to judge. What we’re here to do is build ability. We have some particular abilities in mind to acquire, and we’ll keep track of which abilities we have as we obtain them.” No A students, no C students, just students learning and graduates competent. Certainly, students will not all instantly become angels, but mastery assessment says, “We’re not here to identify angels. We’re here to equip people, making provision for the difficulties, internal and external, that individuals face.” My readers may consider whether this is the political message they wish to bring to their students, or whether they believe students should be formally and permanently ranked.
Peter Elbow on Mastery Assessment
In a recent essay entitled “Changing Grading while Working with Grades,” Peter Elbow endorsed mastery assessment. Elbow’s “Final Comment” nicely summarizes the difference between mastery assessment and conventional grading practice.
“I have been implying a visual metaphor in my suggestions: less of the vertical (minimal grading); more of the horizontal (using criteria). But I would point out that my suggestions also imply a move away from the tradition of measuring or norm-based assessment toward the tradition of mastery or criteria-based assessment. Measuring or norm-based assessment involves making a single complex master all-determining decision about each student so as to place him or her at one spot along a tall one-dimensional line. All are strung out along a single vertical line—each at an exact distance above or below every other student. Mastery or criteria-based assessment, on the other hand, implies multiple simpler decisions about each student so that all are placed in a complicated multidimensional intersecting space—each student being strong in certain abilities, okay in others, and weak in yet more—with different students having different constellations of strengths and weaknesses. (183)
“Minimal Grading” is grading that classifies student work in more broadly-defined categories than are traditional (conventional grading uses eleven categories, from A+ to E or F). “Explicit Criteria” grading is grading that brings assessment into a two-dimensional space, replacing a general grade for an entire piece with a set of grades for different aspects of the piece, or for different competencies represented. Elbow’s piece approaches minimal and explicit criteria (competency) grading in terms of evaluation of individual pieces of student writing. This essay considers grading across a student’s entire semester’s work; unlike “Changing Grading,” this essay will discuss creation of curriculum based on mastery assessment. Elbow presents a vision of minimal grading that limits grades to three or four levels (much like three-tiered assessment in graduate seminars) (174). My reduction of grading to only two levels, demonstration and nondemonstration of competency applies the principle of minimal grading only slightly more rigorously. I see the argument for two-tiered grading, as opposed to three- or four-tiered grading, based primarily on the principle of “Grade the Learning, Not the Writing” (in the words of Cherryl Smith and Angus Dunstan) applied in the context of a Freshman Composition curriculum designed in terms of the set of competencies that students are expected to master (according to the standards and goals of particular institutions of higher learning and their Composition directors) (Smith and Dunstan 163).
Objections to Mastery Assessment in Freshman Composition
One objection my own mind has made to the practice of mastery assessment is that mastery assessment recognizes adequacy rather than excellence. This is a fair critique. I will bring a two-part answer.
1) Formal education is about preparation; it is not an end in itself. This is, again, speaking from my own premises, that formal education should be calculated to equip students for lives of useful service to their God, their families, their communities, and whatever parts of the globe God may call them to, through their professions and their unpaid lives. This equipping should happen both by the acquisition of skills, the “competencies” measured in mastery assessments, and by the formation of productive work and thought habits. Education should be thought of as the learning of competencies for use outside of the school setting. Our current grade-based educational system encourages students to approach their education only in terms of how to succeed within the school context. A deprioritization of “success” in the school context, with instead an emphasis on the nature of school as preparation for success outside the school context, may help to instill a proper perspective in students. This will actually promote excellence in academic endeavors, because the endeavors cease to be a high-stakes Monopoly game that is played for eighteen or twenty-two years and then abandoned, and become noble work toward the promotion of the Kingdom of God.
2) Students seeking excellence in their own education (certainly no assessment system can force students to be excellent) can still seek excellence through non-transcript (perhaps even graded) activities, and through seeking certification in more than the requisite number of competencies, or through seeking to reach competencies quickly. Still, however, the goal is to encourage students to approach education as preparation, as opposed to “chance to get ahead (or fall behind).” Ideally, students should be seeking excellence outside of their formal education, through service work; private reading of literature that interests them or other study according to personal interest (perhaps in reading/learning communities, which might be fostered by the school); meaningful time with their families, friends, and churches; and development of competencies in areas that the school may not be equipped to offer, such as equestrian skills, ethnic cooking, electrical wiring, rock and roll singing, etc. (pick something cool or productive); or working to earn some money and experience. I see the excellent student not as the one who spends his evenings, lunches, and Sundays at his desk, trying to perfect an essay that only one or two other persons in the entire world will ever see, but one who completes his work capably and uses the skills he has learned and the broader perspectives he has earned to pursue his own personal opportunities for servant-living, in whatever contexts are his own (which may be more or less academic). In the present system, B students are inferior to A students, because they have not spent so much time (sometimes an inordinate amount of time) at the desk. A students often must sacrifice their own opportunities and interests to work away in large amounts of time and effort to maintain their status of superiority while sometimes B-level investment is most appropriate for a given student, especially outside the student’s major. “This too is vanity and a great evil,” as Solomon said.
Another reasonable objection to raise is that a mastery-based curriculum prevents instructors from offering incentives and rewards for participation in discussion, improvement, unusually high individual investment in the subject (the difference between a 91 and a 99), and general brilliance. I answer that
In my own experience as a student, as an undergraduate student, a graduate student, and as a student in an academically elite independent high school, students do not participate constructively in subjectively graded activities for the sake of grades. Students that care about the subject (or for its own sake love discussion, which is a subject unto itself) will participate constructively, and others will fake it, at best. Removing the possibility of grades for things like class participation, creative thinking, and improvement will not significantly alter this dynamic. No more than a minimum level of involvement can be caused by grades (or likely even significantly influenced by them), and this same kind of involvement can be brought about equally well in a mastery-assessment system. Attendance at certain discussion meetings (probably with a consistent group of classmates) might easily be considered a course requirement, another “competency.” To combat passive-aggressive or blatantly aggressive attendance, discussion leaders might have the option to not count present students who are disruptive (or unresponsive, or even quiet, if the program director wants to be aggressive about it), and, of course, the option to ask disruptive students to leave (with, perhaps, a lower threshold to “disruption” than is common in current classrooms).
Another reasonable objection to mastery assessment is the argument that setting appropriate standards for competencies is much more difficult than grading, especially grading holistically. Also, the level of competency required might be hard to definitely establish. I answer that
Grading systems must also establish a level for adequacy, which is contained in a particular grade mark (often a 70). This practice only differs from the practice in mastery assessment in that it is less intentional. Surely it is better to thoughtfully instruct our students.
“You don’t mean to say that you want all students to work at a C level!”
Heaven forbid! Probably required competency should match up with what is now somewhere in the B range. Earning a C in a course doesn’t typically demonstrate competency in anything. Let us require our students to actually learn what we have set out that they are to learn, and not reward them for merely seeming to be aware of the course content.
This has turned into a question-and-answer session. “Do you mean to say that you expect every student to work on a B or even A level?”
I expect students to learn. If they don’t learn, they might as well not come. If meaningful learning is not represented until some high grade level in some classrooms and programs, so be it. If requiring meaningful learning requires holding students to a higher standard in general, perhaps it is about time.
“That sounds Draconian.”
Not at all (not to shoot you down). Students must be approached with patience. A major part of the beauty of the mastery-assessment system is that it allows students to make mistakes in the learning process without them going onto their permanent record, and it allows students to work largely at their own pace. Every college student, except perhaps a tiny number with serious disabilities (who might be accommodated), should be able to eventually learn the content of Freshman Composition. They should not be allowed to pretend that they have learned the content until they have learned it. It is the role of the program instructors to help them in whatever way possible to learn it.
“Is this all-or-nothing approach to the course appropriate? After all, no one has total mastery of all forms of English (except God).”
No. An all-or-nothing approach to English is not appropriate. But Freshman Composition cannot try to teach total mastery of English expression. Mina Shaughnessy puts it well: “Writing is something writers are always learning to do. When we speak, therefore, of a student’s ‘learning’ to write we have in mind that student’s reaching a level of proficiency that seems appropriate for his age and situation but not the level he will be confined to for the rest of his life” (276). Freshman Composition can teach the fundamental skills of effective formal writing in English (thinking skills, mechanical skills, audience-appeasement skills—whatever skills the writing program directors or instructors value). No student should be without these skills. If some skills are to be offered in the course that are not fundamental (for instance, the formal aspects of sonnets or précis), program directors might consider requiring students to master only a set number of non-fundamental skills, allowing students to choose those extra skills they find most important or appealing or requiring little effort. The mastery-assessed course might be likened to a course of study in a given major. All necessary courses must be passed for graduation. It might take three years or ten years. Some courses are taken by all the students in the major, while some are electives from designated lists of acceptable choices, chosen to fill designated elective slots.
Another reasonable objection is that competency demonstration projects encourage students to write formulaically, without individual voice or creativity. I cannot quickly dismiss this worry. I will say that
The cultivation of creativity or voice in any class depends largely on the value that the instructor sets on it. If an instructor grades based on how closely students’ work meets his or her expectations, individual voice and creativity are likely to be stifled. If an instructor grades based on an honest look at the content, stylistic features, and execution of students’ work, individual voice and creativity will be encouraged. If assignments in a competency-demonstration curriculum prove to be more narrowly geared to certain forms of expression, that does not necessarily rule out or even inhibit student individuality in writing. Sonnets and villanelles, highly restrictive forms, have been employed with great individuality and artistic power by many of the most prestigious poets, many of whom have considered form an enabling, rather than stifling, restriction.
“Okay. One more question. Thank you for your answers; they have been helpful. My question is: Speck and Jones quote W. McDonald as saying, ‘The inherent failure of the grading process… [occurs when] we are forced to reduce a complex of observations and responses and assessments to a single symbol, the letter grade, a manifest impossibility for a composition course’ (Speck and Jones 19). I agree with McDonald. And if a piece can not be summarized by a choice among five, or one hundred, possible marks, how can it be summarized by a choice among two?”
This is a difference between Mastery assessment and current grading practice. Current grading practice tries to summarize the quality of student writing. I also agree with McDonald; it probably can’t be done. But the more important question to me is, Why would you want to? (summarize the quality of a piece of writing, I mean). Unlike a grade, all the passage or non-passage of a submitted piece of writing in a mastery-assessment system signifies is the demonstration of some predefined (and, we dream, precommunicated) competency. It makes no attempt to evaluate writing as writing. Excellent writing might not be related to the competency, and though the piece be the next Faust it doesn’t demonstrate competency in précis form. No hard feelings, exuberant praise in instructor’s comments, no F for writing something good off-topic (as graded students often experience). Something may be nigh unquestionably folly, but if it demonstrates good comma use it demonstrates good comma use. Passage of that competency should not be understood (or presented) as praise of the writing as writing.
“Hold on! Do you want students to write trash, competency by competency?”
Not really, but it’s one of many ways to learn some skills, skills that are useful for quality writing in less artificial situations in the students’ futures (personal and formal letters, term papers, research reports, great American novels). Incentives outside the competency checklist, such as publication of pieces for peers’ reading, readings of papers in class, written comments on submitted pieces, and students’ own communicative and artistic goals may be enough to prompt many students to aspire to excellence. Assignments on the Expressivist model, assignments for writing on personal subjects, might be well-chosen as a significant part of a mastery-assessment curriculum. Composition programs could consider requiring a certain level of general quality in all submissions that achieve passage of a competency; that is, a competency demonstration submission must not only demonstrate the specified competency, but must also be of at least certain level of general quality (for instance, that now represented by a grade of 80, or 72). In such a circumstance, general quality could be determined by assessors in the same way that grades are now assigned based on general quality of work. Note that even in this scheme of assessment student work is not ranked and no permanent mark to encourage pride or lack of hope for success in students, but rather a certain kind of competency, that of writing something reasonably okay, is required in every passed submission.
Generalizing Still Further
Mastery-assessment curricula might also be used to teach writing at the secondary level. The typical marriage of literature study with writing instruction encountered in high schools would likely alter the competency lists (which might The year-by-year stratified progression of typical high school curricula and the need many high schools feel to keep their students in highly-structured situations might inhibit the ability of students to learn at varying paces, making the achievement of mastery of concepts by all students more difficult. Whether this is an argument against mastery assessment or against current secondary English curriculum structuring may be judged only by high school teachers and administrators. The psychological and moral-development reasons for mastery assessment may be more important for teenagers than for any other people, so some restructuring of programs to accommodate these priorities might deserve consideration.
What’s Next?
This discussion of mastery assessment is, of course, incomplete. I have not begun to deal with the realities created or reflected by grades in current practice. I have not presented examples of specific pieces of student writing analyzed in terms of competency demonstration. I have not addressed the questions of defining competencies or of setting standards. I have not presented extensive description and consideration of currently-existing analogues to my proposed system. Incomplete as it is, I hope that this piece succeeds in encouraging readers to consider mastery assessment and the pedagogical opportunities it offers.
Pedagogy is neither apolitical nor amoral. The ways in which a subject is taught and the ways in which students are assessed and motivated imply statements about the subject matter and endorsements of behaviors. Will students be rewarded or “corrected” for subversive writing? What will the assignments we choose to require communicate to students about the purposes and uses of written communication? What do one-dimensional transcript marks say about people, and what realities do they reflect or fail to reflect, or cause? Is it honest to employers or to students to say that one student is an “A” student and another is a “C” student? Is it honest to employers or to students to pass students out of a course when important learning objectives of the course have not been met? Is it fair to students of diverse backgrounds and learning styles to deal out permanent transcript marks based upon when students’ learned the course content rather than whether they learned it, as may occur when students are not allowed to resubmit revisions? Should instructors judge students, or only teach them? Can teachers and administrators responsibly ignore the political and moral content of their pedagogical choices?
Works Cited
Bedford Bibliography for Teachers of Writing. A Brief History of Rhetoric and Composition. 5th ed. Boston, Massachusetts: Bedford/St. Martin's Press: 2000. 17 November 2006 http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/bb/history.html.
Bleich, David. Rev. of Embracing Contraries: Explorations in Learning and Teaching, by Peter Elbow. ADE Bulletin 093 (Fall 1989): 44-45. 15 Nov. 2006 <http://www.mla.org/ade/bulletin/n093/093044.htm>.
Boyd, Richard. “The Origins and Evolution of Grading Student Writing.” Zak and Weaver 3-16.
Elbow, Peter. “Changing Grading while Working with Grades.” Zak and Weaver 171-184.
Fulkerson, Richard. “Four Philosophies of Composition.” College Composition and Communication 30 (1979): 343-348.
Harris, Joseph. A Teaching Subject: Composition since 1966. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1996.
Shaughnessy, Mina P. Errors and Expectations. 1977. New York: Oxford University Press, 1979.
Smith, Cherryl and Angus Dunstan. “Grade the Learning, Not the Writing.” Zak and Weaver 163-170.
Speck, Bruce W. and Tammy R. Jones. “Directions in the Grading of Writing.” Zak and Weaver 17-29.
Straub, Richard. “The Concept of Control in Teacher Response: Defining the Varieties of ‘Directive’ and ‘Facilitative’ Commentary.” College Composition and Communication 47 (1996): 223-251.
Zak, Frances and Christopher C. Weaver, eds. The Theory and Practice of Grading Writing. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 1998.
Mastery-based assessment is possible and practical in Freshman Composition.
This discussion will begin with a presentation of the moral reasons I consider mastery assessment a generally morally superior practice to conventional grading, followed by discussion of how a mastery-assessment Freshman Composition program might be structured and implemented. After this exposition, I will present some ways in which mastery assessment meets needs and goals highlighted in the literature and history of college composition, and I will note some precedents for mastery assessment. This will conclude with discussion of Peter Elbow’s recent essay “Changing Grading while Working with Grades.” Next I will present a dialogue with myself (somewhat like Plato’s “Socrates” dialogues, but without the illusion of multiple participants in the discussion, though some statements of other composition scholars are discussed) in which I attempt to bring up reasonable objections to mastery assessment in Freshman Composition and explain them away by processes more honest than hand-waving. After this dialogue I will briefly consider whether mastery assessment might also be used in secondary writing instruction, and then I will attempt to end the paper in a productive way.
A Moral Case for Mastery Assessment
My arguments for the practice of mastery assessment stem from my own principles. I acknowledge that not all my readers are likely to share all my principles (few principles are universal), but I expect that few of the reasons I present will be contrary to the principles of a significant number of caring educators. This discussion is presented as if focusing on Evangelical Christian education, taking the premises of a Bible-based worldview, but most of the contents of the discussion are equally applicable in secular education and in religious education based on different principles. While not all my moral premises may be shared by all readers, most readers are likely to find elements from the argument persuasive and deserving of implementation.
Modern American education focuses on personal achievement. Do a good job and you get an A. Get an A and you get “honors.” Get honors so that you’ll get a good job or scholarship. Do to Get. But the Apostle Paul said, “Love doesn’t seek its own” (I Cor. 13:5). Christians need to communicate a different paradigm to students than that which our culture currently communicates. True, the idea of reward for effort is a Biblical one, but Christians are directed to seek Heavenly rewards, not earthly ones—“Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you” (Matthew 6:33). Believing God entails a renunciation of worldly priorities; Christians, let us not teach the world’s errors to the next generation of believers!
Instead of seeking credits and grades for advancement, students should be taught to seek competencies and opportunities for service. Creativity, instead of being directed to win acclaim (or, down the road, a place in the canon or in the high regard of experts), should be directed to communicate and execute (e.g., in professions, in charity, in relationships) the truth of the Gospel.
For this reason I advocate a mastery approach to assessment (“mastery assessment”). Assessment of some sort must occur in order to teach students responsibility and to provide accountability for diligence. The mastery approach emphasizes acquisition of competencies, which I see as a primary goal of Christian education (readers employed in secular education may consider how their goals accord), while conventional grading allows students to elect a low or high level of success, and to feel proud or inferior based on natural talent (probably every group learning situation brings in these temptations, but conventional grading, with its permanent mark of “86” or “68” or “93” [or A, B, C, or D] seems to actively promote these problems).
Mastery Assessment in Freshman Composition
Some subjects are difficult to assess in terms of mastery of competencies. For instance, writing is difficult to divide into isolated, conquerable competencies. Most graduate students in Texas Tech’s Department of English do not have flawless command of grammatical conventions (probably the most objectively and easily assessable writing competency). Perhaps competencies can be defined as pre-defined levels of skill displayed in certain areas. Accountability in writing might be provided through actual importance of assignments. For instance, letters to foreign governments urging the release of Christians imprisoned for evangelism are not to be written trivially (that is, in a style lacking gravity, formal correctness, consideration of audience, clarity of purpose, and information about the subject at issue), and the successful writing of a letter approved by the writing instructor as adequate for sending might be considered a “mastery.”
A two-semester sequence of Freshman English organized on mastery assessment in a college setting might be organized as follows:
The fundamental structure of the course is a series of varied writing projects that must meet instructor’s approval (demonstrating particular competencies or succeeding as particular types of documents). Students must pass the entire sequence of assignments to pass the class. Assignments may have individual deadlines or may all be finally due at the end of a semester. Since the alternative to meeting a deadline for a project is to retake the course, an end-of-semester deadline for all work might be appropriate (much like in a portfolio system). Students turn in work and drafts of work throughout the semester to receive feedback and eventual credit, once their drafts are satisfactory. Some competencies for mastery might be measured by dedicated projects, while others might be observed in projects dedicated to other competencies (for instance, correct comma usage might be proved in almost any writing assignment). The structure that most closely parallels the present two-semester freshman composition sequence might be a set of competencies calculated to take average students about two semesters to complete. Students sign up for the same course semester after semester until, amongst all the semesters taken, they have completed all the required projects. (This is almost a microscaling of the design of each student’s entire course of study, in which he or she must take and pass all required courses for his or her major, and may take two years or ten years to do it.) Most students will complete the project sequence in two semesters. A few might finish in one. Some will take more. Course fees will be a strong incentive to students not to linger in the program longer than necessary. Fees might be adjusted downward after the first semester according to the number of remaining competencies at the beginning of the semester, so that borderline students will not be encouraged to turn out frantically produced, barely adequate work at the close of semesters, and assessors will not be tempted to pass work that does not demonstrate competency out of misguided mercy for students. Assignments might all have a deadline of “eventually,” or individual assignments might have deadlines at specific points along the semester. All assignments should be offered every semester.
Students do not consistently attend a single class with a single teacher. Instead, they attend seminars about individual projects taught by the program instructors who grade those projects. Some general seminars (for instance, to cover minor topics over which students will not be assessed but which they should be aware of) at which attendance at some point in the semester is required might also be offered.
The concept of a general program faculty responsible together for all the students (while perhaps within that structure some have particular responsibility for certain students) is derived from the Freshman Composition program at Texas Tech University, in which I am employed. This program is headed by a director (currently Dr. Susan Lang) and two assistant directors, who devise a universal syllabus for use in all classes in the program (one for each of two levels, English 1301 and 1302). The program is structured so that it emphasizes time spent by students writing assignments over time in class (students only attend class for an hour and a half each week for a three-hour credit course). Assessment is carried out by “Document Instructors,” who grade assignments (which are turned in online) and provide extensive written feedback for student improvement. Every instructor in the program does at least some document instruction (including the director). Many instructors are also “Classroom Instructors,” who teach classes using their own lesson plans moving along the universal syllabus. Classroom Instructors have much lighter assessment loads than do pure Document Instructors. Classroom Instructors are also students’ means of appeal. If students think that their work was graded unfairly they may bring it to their Classroom Instructors for review. Grades may be further appealed to the Assistant Directors. Most of the instructors in the program are graduate students.
The universal syllabus and collective approach to instruction are ideal for a mastery-assessment system. Instructors might be assigned to teach and assess certain assignments, allowing students to receive instruction on the standards for competency demonstration from the same instructors who enforce them, so that they might know their audiences, and might direct their questions to the most knowledgeable instructors. This consistency also enables increased subjectivity in judgment of competency, since assignments are presented as satisfactory or unsatisfactory to particular instructors, rather than to the entire program. Such freedom for subjectivity might be important for enabling the program to demands higher levels of sophistication than are easily presented through checklists, rubrics, and formulae. Instructors might be assigned to teach and assess areas of their own strengths, which might enable maximally competent instruction. To employ all instructors evenly across the semester, without extreme surges and lulls in activity, every competency should be presented in workshops and its demonstration assignments accepted for assessment throughout the entire semester. This practice presents advantages to students of the possibilities of finishing quickly (or slowly), working on multiple skills or assignments at once or focusing on a single skill or assignment until mastered (according to the students’ most natural work patterns), time to revise assignments without being “left behind,” and increased communication with assessing instructors. Instructors, by focusing on one subject area, might develop their teaching and assessing practices to high levels of refinement, allowing instructors the opportunity to develop as thoughtful teachers and allowing students the opportunity to receive superior instruction.
Because of the opportunities for specialization of instructors and standardization of instruction and assessment across the program, and for the flexibility it can offer to students (particularly if, as I have suggested, students are not bound to proceed along the syllabus at equal pace with an arbitrarily-determined group of other students—their “class”), I see great promise in a Texas Tech-like collective approach to composition instruction in implementing a mastery-assessment curriculum, but mastery assessment could also be successfully employed in a traditional classroom, in which each instructor consistently teaches and grades a set group of students. Traditional classroom structure might be necessary at some smaller institutions, which might not employ enough instructors to allow specialization of instruction.
Below is a list of possible writing projects (labeled by genre, loosely defined) for a Freshman Composition course employing mastery-assessment curriculum, presented in order to present the fundamental possibility of a mastery-assessment curriculum and to suggest some practical ideas to would-be (or present) implementers of mastery-assessment instruction. One principle to consider in the design and selection of projects is that accountability can be based on positive consequences, rather than negative ones.
Service Project: A letter to an oppressive government urging the release of a political or religious prisoner. This project might be limited to the drafting of the letter, or it might include a significant research component. The completed letters would be mailed, so that focus might be on service as the reason for competence, rather than on competence for its own sake or for winning academic success.
Artistic Project: A formally-correct and thematically clear sonnet (within the bounds and taste of the instructor, who we hope is a poet or poetry scholar), achieving some particular technical goals set out by the instructor (for instance, invocation of three senses, or use of line breaks to reinterpret phrases, or relevant allusions). Students might be allowed to choose a few from among many devices taught in seminars and in course texts for use in their poems. They might be allowed to choose from among several set forms, rather than being restricted to the sonnet. The completion of this project would not prove excellence as a poet, but it would show awareness of and competency in wielding particular tools of poetical writing.
Artistic Project: Alternatively, and probably preferably, students might be required to write a formally-correct sonnet (or other poetic form) that would be published with other student poems and distributed across the program. This would allow students to approach creative writing as communication to a real audience.
Practical Project: A useable resume or job letter.
Language-Awareness Project: An accurate and coherent translation or paraphrase of a text originally written in another dialect of English, or in early modern English. This project would require research of words and phrases, close reading, and moving thoughts from the mind onto paper without loss of clarity. The process would also encourage students to think about what the English language is and how it can be used. A source text might be chosen that involves foreign cultural elements, in which case explanatory footnotes might be required.
Language-Awareness Project: An exercise in transcription of the spoken word (probably from a sound recording) might also be profitable for encouraging students to consider the nature and flexibility, as well as the usefulness of conventions, of English. This project might require students to conduct interviews, perhaps as part of an oral history project (again putting competency in its appropriate context of service). A written introduction to the transcription, explaining the context and purpose of the interview and introducing the interview subject, might also be required.
Practical Project: A timed writing exercise, on any timescale (minutes to months). If the assignment is not completed to standards within the allotted time it must be begun afresh, with the clock reset. This could be applied to almost any assignment in the curriculum in order to train students to write with deadlines, even while deadlines do not inhibit the learning of weaker students, but only their convenience.
Literature Analysis Project: Can an essay interpreting a literary text be assessed by mastery standards? Advanced students might be required to write something either accepted for publication or deemed by the instructor to be worthy of publication. Beginning students might be required to go through the motions of certain processes (e.g., freewriting, outlining), assessed based on a working knowledge of standard writing processes, rather than on the quality of their final project. Accountability for a good final product might be provided by the publication of all the students’ final essays, with distribution to all the students in the program. The competitive instinct of male students might be put to good use in this situation if all students were required to analyze one work or even one passage. Beginning students also might simply be required to write a coherent and grammatically correct analysis, perhaps based on some predetermined essay format. This does not reward student brilliance, but brilliance is usually driven by students’ interest in material, rather than in grades. I consider six-page literature analysis essays to be of very limited use in the world, and would use them sparingly, placing more emphasis on more practical writing assignments.
Persuasive Writing Project: Assigning students to write in a program webmagazine (maybe a weekly political opinion rag—I know few persons who don’t wish others would adopt their political opinions), probably with the requirement that students read the webmagazine, would give students opportunity to write persuasively in a context of real communication among peers, and to practice meeting deadlines. Blogs might be used analogously.
Students might be required to demonstrate some competencies more than once, to counter the influence of “fluke” demonstrations (especially in grammar); and to ensure that students have actually learned, and not merely happened, by some process or other, to demonstrate competencies; and to allow reinforcement of concepts learned. Repetition of competencies could be achieved by repetition of assignments, or by introduction of new assignments requiring the same vital skills, or by measurement of certain competencies (especially grammar points) in parallel with assignment general adequacy using the same assignments.
Total objectivity in assessment is unnecessary, as long as students are allowed resubmit work until it meets requirements. Part of the writing process is finding how to communicate effectively to particular readers, and part of the college and professional processes is finding how to please (not necessarily in a flattering, gutless way) certain readers. While program assessors should try to be as fair as possible, since they are dealing with real human beings who deserve to be well-treated, the possibility of subjectivity in assessing an assignment is not disastrous in a mastery-assessment system, in which students can redo work until it meets standards (however illogical or undefinable standards may sometimes seem to be).
Students need feedback when they submit drafts, both so that they can know how their writing can be improved generally and so that they can know how to continue work to meet assessment standards. Feedback, at least of the latter kind, should be offered on all submitted work. If a student tries to submit something that displays a lack of effort, rendering an outside reader not yet necessary, it should not be accepted. In an online turn-in system, assessors might elect to comment on students' drafts or return them with an automated message explaining that submission is not yet appropriate. Of course, students should be allowed to ask specific questions about drafts and ideas, either through submission of drafts with comments, or through a writing center or assessor office hours.
Affinities
Mastery-based assessment matches well the Process model of composition instruction, in that it rewards activity in the multiple stages that typically lead to the production of strong finished writing. Rewriting is a necessary part of passing the course for all or nearly all writers. Elbowian minimally-directive “facilitative” comments on the general direction of drafts, rather than on sentence-level specifics, might be easily employed by instructors on many assignments, leaving students to figure out as much as possible on their own (Straub 233). In the course of multi-draft dialogue with instructors, instructors might adapt their commenting style from extremely directive to extremely non-directive according to the needs of individual students. It must be borne in mind that the goal of draft feedback is ultimately the teaching of writing, not of skill-demonstration projects. Instructors might even (to a limited extent) avoid giving students commentary that is defined in terms of competency demonstration, focusing commentary instead on general improvement (while at times students might need directive, project requirements-driven commentary).
Let us observe some observations of Peter Elbow on grading:
It's hard to imagine a procedure more untrustworthy than conventional grading:
It is almost invariably performed by only one person.
It encourages confusion between measurement and commentary.
It disguises the many diverse features of any important performance into a single number.
As a result it is maximally misleading both to students and to outside readers.
As a further result it encourages students and the rest of the community in the myth that a person's intelligence or learning tan be summed up on one dimension. …
Grading on a curve is the worst. Curved grades give no indication whether all or none of the students have actually learned what was taught. (Bleich paragraph 26)
The deemphasis of the grade, it being an eventual matter of course after diligent effort, might answer many of these problems. Certainly, mastery assessment has none of the problems inherent to curved grading! The application of the final grade (This’ll Work) after the entire revision process and the vague meaning of prior grades (Not Yet) should reduce the “confusion between measurement and commentary.”
Mastery-assessment pedagogical tactics—motivation besides the grade (e.g., publication for friends’ eyes), running dialogue between assessor and student—can (and should, in my opinion) emphasize the idea of writing as communication. This is in keeping with the Expressivist goal, as Joseph Harris observed: “The personal was the political, and to help students find their own voices seemed one way to protest a system run amok” (26). This is certainly in keeping with goals of Christian education, which seeks to equip students to be effective agents of Christ in a fallen world. Secular educators and religious educators with different principles may consider whether this subversive empowerment fits their pedagogical goals.
I hope that any readers with Formalist sympathies will readily observe that a mastery-assessment curriculum can easily be designed to teach with a focus at the sentence level (Fulkerson 344). Mastery assessment requires problems to be conquered, not just appeased, at least in individual pieces of work. For reinforcement programs may require multiple demonstrations of competencies. Mechanical writing skills are skills that can be mastered, and, at least to the Formalist, must be mastered.
Mastery assessment may also be considered to align well with the pedagogical approach of Mina Shaughnessy: in the words of the Bedford Bibliography for Teachers of Writing’s A Brief History of Rhetoric and Composition, “Mina Shaughnessy's important work, Errors and Expectations (1977) [472], argues for respect for students' home languages but also advises teachers on how to help these students become more comfortable with academic writing” (paragraph 39). In a mastery-assessment curriculum, students are not “graded down” for using their home dialects, and instructors who wish especially to affirm the value of home dialects may write comments of praise for writings in home dialects. At the same time, students can be made aware, gently, through non-acceptance of submissions for demonstrations of certain competencies (for instance, for most grammar requirements or writings for formal rhetorical situations), the appropriate rhetorical spaces for formal and non-standard English. (If writings in home dialects can satisfy certain competencies, instructors and program directors might consider accepting them in such cases, in order to further communicate the need for different uses of language in different rhetorical situations.)
Instruction in Applied Music in universities now is taught in what is essentially a mastery-assessment system (though one structured much differently than my proposed Freshman Composition Program, though imitation of Applied Music instruction structure in Freshman Composition might be worth consideration by somebody sometime, since the structure is highly effective for teaching musical expression skills). Students are expected to be punctual and diligent and show reasonable improvement in their lessons, and if they do so they are awarded A’s. A B signifies a serious warning. So grading of lessons is meaningless except as communication to students whether they are on track. In order to graduate, applied music majors must present recitals. Recitals are graded on a pass-fail basis with high standards for the level of performance a graduating musician should present. Students may put off the scheduling of recitals indefinitely until they and their teachers are confident in their preparation. Since musical performance is also a form of communication and art, as is writing, the practices of musical educators might not be dismissed out-of-hand by writing teachers. The overlap in pedagogical aims and practices between these two disciplines deserves consideration in another paper.
The modern A-B-C-D-F (E) system of grading is of recent vintage. It was introduced at Harvard in the 1880s. The scale of 0 to 100 is no older than the Nineteenth Century. For most of human history, including the parts that produced William Shakespeare, Samuel Johnson, the Apostle Paul, Jonathan Edwards, and Leonardo da Vinci, assessment was different (Boyd 5). In early American universities, formal assessment was provided only by a comprehensive oral examination given prior to graduation, much like the Senior Recital required of Applied Music graduates today (although usually these graduates must also pass courses in Music Theory and History). I do not suggest a return to ancient assessment models (especially not a return for kicks), but I wish to point out that the current system is not the only one that has been used with success. As Harvard and Yale stepped forward in assessment practice in the Nineteenth Century, perhaps some educators will step forward again in the Twenty-First Century.
Richard Boyd argues that origins of grading are political: “Grading has always been turned outward toward the community-at-large as much as it has inwardly focussed on student performance in the classroom; the political state and the state of education were and are inextricably linked, and grades, because they involve degrees, rank, and difference, are at the heart of the matter” (Boyd 7). After offering an interpretation of the political history of grading, Boyd advises, “The contemporary instructor would be well advised to consider seriously the cultural legacy of his or her professional life as an evaluator of student writing. The marking of that student essay with a grade is not an insignificant, nor apolitical, gesture” (15). Mastery-based assessment is equally political. It promotes a different ideal than does the current graduated system of grading. Mastery assessment says (if I may personify it for a moment), “Nobody, not even the professor, is here to judge. What we’re here to do is build ability. We have some particular abilities in mind to acquire, and we’ll keep track of which abilities we have as we obtain them.” No A students, no C students, just students learning and graduates competent. Certainly, students will not all instantly become angels, but mastery assessment says, “We’re not here to identify angels. We’re here to equip people, making provision for the difficulties, internal and external, that individuals face.” My readers may consider whether this is the political message they wish to bring to their students, or whether they believe students should be formally and permanently ranked.
Peter Elbow on Mastery Assessment
In a recent essay entitled “Changing Grading while Working with Grades,” Peter Elbow endorsed mastery assessment. Elbow’s “Final Comment” nicely summarizes the difference between mastery assessment and conventional grading practice.
“I have been implying a visual metaphor in my suggestions: less of the vertical (minimal grading); more of the horizontal (using criteria). But I would point out that my suggestions also imply a move away from the tradition of measuring or norm-based assessment toward the tradition of mastery or criteria-based assessment. Measuring or norm-based assessment involves making a single complex master all-determining decision about each student so as to place him or her at one spot along a tall one-dimensional line. All are strung out along a single vertical line—each at an exact distance above or below every other student. Mastery or criteria-based assessment, on the other hand, implies multiple simpler decisions about each student so that all are placed in a complicated multidimensional intersecting space—each student being strong in certain abilities, okay in others, and weak in yet more—with different students having different constellations of strengths and weaknesses. (183)
“Minimal Grading” is grading that classifies student work in more broadly-defined categories than are traditional (conventional grading uses eleven categories, from A+ to E or F). “Explicit Criteria” grading is grading that brings assessment into a two-dimensional space, replacing a general grade for an entire piece with a set of grades for different aspects of the piece, or for different competencies represented. Elbow’s piece approaches minimal and explicit criteria (competency) grading in terms of evaluation of individual pieces of student writing. This essay considers grading across a student’s entire semester’s work; unlike “Changing Grading,” this essay will discuss creation of curriculum based on mastery assessment. Elbow presents a vision of minimal grading that limits grades to three or four levels (much like three-tiered assessment in graduate seminars) (174). My reduction of grading to only two levels, demonstration and nondemonstration of competency applies the principle of minimal grading only slightly more rigorously. I see the argument for two-tiered grading, as opposed to three- or four-tiered grading, based primarily on the principle of “Grade the Learning, Not the Writing” (in the words of Cherryl Smith and Angus Dunstan) applied in the context of a Freshman Composition curriculum designed in terms of the set of competencies that students are expected to master (according to the standards and goals of particular institutions of higher learning and their Composition directors) (Smith and Dunstan 163).
Objections to Mastery Assessment in Freshman Composition
One objection my own mind has made to the practice of mastery assessment is that mastery assessment recognizes adequacy rather than excellence. This is a fair critique. I will bring a two-part answer.
1) Formal education is about preparation; it is not an end in itself. This is, again, speaking from my own premises, that formal education should be calculated to equip students for lives of useful service to their God, their families, their communities, and whatever parts of the globe God may call them to, through their professions and their unpaid lives. This equipping should happen both by the acquisition of skills, the “competencies” measured in mastery assessments, and by the formation of productive work and thought habits. Education should be thought of as the learning of competencies for use outside of the school setting. Our current grade-based educational system encourages students to approach their education only in terms of how to succeed within the school context. A deprioritization of “success” in the school context, with instead an emphasis on the nature of school as preparation for success outside the school context, may help to instill a proper perspective in students. This will actually promote excellence in academic endeavors, because the endeavors cease to be a high-stakes Monopoly game that is played for eighteen or twenty-two years and then abandoned, and become noble work toward the promotion of the Kingdom of God.
2) Students seeking excellence in their own education (certainly no assessment system can force students to be excellent) can still seek excellence through non-transcript (perhaps even graded) activities, and through seeking certification in more than the requisite number of competencies, or through seeking to reach competencies quickly. Still, however, the goal is to encourage students to approach education as preparation, as opposed to “chance to get ahead (or fall behind).” Ideally, students should be seeking excellence outside of their formal education, through service work; private reading of literature that interests them or other study according to personal interest (perhaps in reading/learning communities, which might be fostered by the school); meaningful time with their families, friends, and churches; and development of competencies in areas that the school may not be equipped to offer, such as equestrian skills, ethnic cooking, electrical wiring, rock and roll singing, etc. (pick something cool or productive); or working to earn some money and experience. I see the excellent student not as the one who spends his evenings, lunches, and Sundays at his desk, trying to perfect an essay that only one or two other persons in the entire world will ever see, but one who completes his work capably and uses the skills he has learned and the broader perspectives he has earned to pursue his own personal opportunities for servant-living, in whatever contexts are his own (which may be more or less academic). In the present system, B students are inferior to A students, because they have not spent so much time (sometimes an inordinate amount of time) at the desk. A students often must sacrifice their own opportunities and interests to work away in large amounts of time and effort to maintain their status of superiority while sometimes B-level investment is most appropriate for a given student, especially outside the student’s major. “This too is vanity and a great evil,” as Solomon said.
Another reasonable objection to raise is that a mastery-based curriculum prevents instructors from offering incentives and rewards for participation in discussion, improvement, unusually high individual investment in the subject (the difference between a 91 and a 99), and general brilliance. I answer that
In my own experience as a student, as an undergraduate student, a graduate student, and as a student in an academically elite independent high school, students do not participate constructively in subjectively graded activities for the sake of grades. Students that care about the subject (or for its own sake love discussion, which is a subject unto itself) will participate constructively, and others will fake it, at best. Removing the possibility of grades for things like class participation, creative thinking, and improvement will not significantly alter this dynamic. No more than a minimum level of involvement can be caused by grades (or likely even significantly influenced by them), and this same kind of involvement can be brought about equally well in a mastery-assessment system. Attendance at certain discussion meetings (probably with a consistent group of classmates) might easily be considered a course requirement, another “competency.” To combat passive-aggressive or blatantly aggressive attendance, discussion leaders might have the option to not count present students who are disruptive (or unresponsive, or even quiet, if the program director wants to be aggressive about it), and, of course, the option to ask disruptive students to leave (with, perhaps, a lower threshold to “disruption” than is common in current classrooms).
Another reasonable objection to mastery assessment is the argument that setting appropriate standards for competencies is much more difficult than grading, especially grading holistically. Also, the level of competency required might be hard to definitely establish. I answer that
Grading systems must also establish a level for adequacy, which is contained in a particular grade mark (often a 70). This practice only differs from the practice in mastery assessment in that it is less intentional. Surely it is better to thoughtfully instruct our students.
“You don’t mean to say that you want all students to work at a C level!”
Heaven forbid! Probably required competency should match up with what is now somewhere in the B range. Earning a C in a course doesn’t typically demonstrate competency in anything. Let us require our students to actually learn what we have set out that they are to learn, and not reward them for merely seeming to be aware of the course content.
This has turned into a question-and-answer session. “Do you mean to say that you expect every student to work on a B or even A level?”
I expect students to learn. If they don’t learn, they might as well not come. If meaningful learning is not represented until some high grade level in some classrooms and programs, so be it. If requiring meaningful learning requires holding students to a higher standard in general, perhaps it is about time.
“That sounds Draconian.”
Not at all (not to shoot you down). Students must be approached with patience. A major part of the beauty of the mastery-assessment system is that it allows students to make mistakes in the learning process without them going onto their permanent record, and it allows students to work largely at their own pace. Every college student, except perhaps a tiny number with serious disabilities (who might be accommodated), should be able to eventually learn the content of Freshman Composition. They should not be allowed to pretend that they have learned the content until they have learned it. It is the role of the program instructors to help them in whatever way possible to learn it.
“Is this all-or-nothing approach to the course appropriate? After all, no one has total mastery of all forms of English (except God).”
No. An all-or-nothing approach to English is not appropriate. But Freshman Composition cannot try to teach total mastery of English expression. Mina Shaughnessy puts it well: “Writing is something writers are always learning to do. When we speak, therefore, of a student’s ‘learning’ to write we have in mind that student’s reaching a level of proficiency that seems appropriate for his age and situation but not the level he will be confined to for the rest of his life” (276). Freshman Composition can teach the fundamental skills of effective formal writing in English (thinking skills, mechanical skills, audience-appeasement skills—whatever skills the writing program directors or instructors value). No student should be without these skills. If some skills are to be offered in the course that are not fundamental (for instance, the formal aspects of sonnets or précis), program directors might consider requiring students to master only a set number of non-fundamental skills, allowing students to choose those extra skills they find most important or appealing or requiring little effort. The mastery-assessed course might be likened to a course of study in a given major. All necessary courses must be passed for graduation. It might take three years or ten years. Some courses are taken by all the students in the major, while some are electives from designated lists of acceptable choices, chosen to fill designated elective slots.
Another reasonable objection is that competency demonstration projects encourage students to write formulaically, without individual voice or creativity. I cannot quickly dismiss this worry. I will say that
The cultivation of creativity or voice in any class depends largely on the value that the instructor sets on it. If an instructor grades based on how closely students’ work meets his or her expectations, individual voice and creativity are likely to be stifled. If an instructor grades based on an honest look at the content, stylistic features, and execution of students’ work, individual voice and creativity will be encouraged. If assignments in a competency-demonstration curriculum prove to be more narrowly geared to certain forms of expression, that does not necessarily rule out or even inhibit student individuality in writing. Sonnets and villanelles, highly restrictive forms, have been employed with great individuality and artistic power by many of the most prestigious poets, many of whom have considered form an enabling, rather than stifling, restriction.
“Okay. One more question. Thank you for your answers; they have been helpful. My question is: Speck and Jones quote W. McDonald as saying, ‘The inherent failure of the grading process… [occurs when] we are forced to reduce a complex of observations and responses and assessments to a single symbol, the letter grade, a manifest impossibility for a composition course’ (Speck and Jones 19). I agree with McDonald. And if a piece can not be summarized by a choice among five, or one hundred, possible marks, how can it be summarized by a choice among two?”
This is a difference between Mastery assessment and current grading practice. Current grading practice tries to summarize the quality of student writing. I also agree with McDonald; it probably can’t be done. But the more important question to me is, Why would you want to? (summarize the quality of a piece of writing, I mean). Unlike a grade, all the passage or non-passage of a submitted piece of writing in a mastery-assessment system signifies is the demonstration of some predefined (and, we dream, precommunicated) competency. It makes no attempt to evaluate writing as writing. Excellent writing might not be related to the competency, and though the piece be the next Faust it doesn’t demonstrate competency in précis form. No hard feelings, exuberant praise in instructor’s comments, no F for writing something good off-topic (as graded students often experience). Something may be nigh unquestionably folly, but if it demonstrates good comma use it demonstrates good comma use. Passage of that competency should not be understood (or presented) as praise of the writing as writing.
“Hold on! Do you want students to write trash, competency by competency?”
Not really, but it’s one of many ways to learn some skills, skills that are useful for quality writing in less artificial situations in the students’ futures (personal and formal letters, term papers, research reports, great American novels). Incentives outside the competency checklist, such as publication of pieces for peers’ reading, readings of papers in class, written comments on submitted pieces, and students’ own communicative and artistic goals may be enough to prompt many students to aspire to excellence. Assignments on the Expressivist model, assignments for writing on personal subjects, might be well-chosen as a significant part of a mastery-assessment curriculum. Composition programs could consider requiring a certain level of general quality in all submissions that achieve passage of a competency; that is, a competency demonstration submission must not only demonstrate the specified competency, but must also be of at least certain level of general quality (for instance, that now represented by a grade of 80, or 72). In such a circumstance, general quality could be determined by assessors in the same way that grades are now assigned based on general quality of work. Note that even in this scheme of assessment student work is not ranked and no permanent mark to encourage pride or lack of hope for success in students, but rather a certain kind of competency, that of writing something reasonably okay, is required in every passed submission.
Generalizing Still Further
Mastery-assessment curricula might also be used to teach writing at the secondary level. The typical marriage of literature study with writing instruction encountered in high schools would likely alter the competency lists (which might The year-by-year stratified progression of typical high school curricula and the need many high schools feel to keep their students in highly-structured situations might inhibit the ability of students to learn at varying paces, making the achievement of mastery of concepts by all students more difficult. Whether this is an argument against mastery assessment or against current secondary English curriculum structuring may be judged only by high school teachers and administrators. The psychological and moral-development reasons for mastery assessment may be more important for teenagers than for any other people, so some restructuring of programs to accommodate these priorities might deserve consideration.
What’s Next?
This discussion of mastery assessment is, of course, incomplete. I have not begun to deal with the realities created or reflected by grades in current practice. I have not presented examples of specific pieces of student writing analyzed in terms of competency demonstration. I have not addressed the questions of defining competencies or of setting standards. I have not presented extensive description and consideration of currently-existing analogues to my proposed system. Incomplete as it is, I hope that this piece succeeds in encouraging readers to consider mastery assessment and the pedagogical opportunities it offers.
Pedagogy is neither apolitical nor amoral. The ways in which a subject is taught and the ways in which students are assessed and motivated imply statements about the subject matter and endorsements of behaviors. Will students be rewarded or “corrected” for subversive writing? What will the assignments we choose to require communicate to students about the purposes and uses of written communication? What do one-dimensional transcript marks say about people, and what realities do they reflect or fail to reflect, or cause? Is it honest to employers or to students to say that one student is an “A” student and another is a “C” student? Is it honest to employers or to students to pass students out of a course when important learning objectives of the course have not been met? Is it fair to students of diverse backgrounds and learning styles to deal out permanent transcript marks based upon when students’ learned the course content rather than whether they learned it, as may occur when students are not allowed to resubmit revisions? Should instructors judge students, or only teach them? Can teachers and administrators responsibly ignore the political and moral content of their pedagogical choices?
Works Cited
Bedford Bibliography for Teachers of Writing. A Brief History of Rhetoric and Composition. 5th ed. Boston, Massachusetts: Bedford/St. Martin's Press: 2000. 17 November 2006 http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/bb/history.html.
Bleich, David. Rev. of Embracing Contraries: Explorations in Learning and Teaching, by Peter Elbow. ADE Bulletin 093 (Fall 1989): 44-45. 15 Nov. 2006 <http://www.mla.org/ade/bulletin/n093/093044.htm>.
Boyd, Richard. “The Origins and Evolution of Grading Student Writing.” Zak and Weaver 3-16.
Elbow, Peter. “Changing Grading while Working with Grades.” Zak and Weaver 171-184.
Fulkerson, Richard. “Four Philosophies of Composition.” College Composition and Communication 30 (1979): 343-348.
Harris, Joseph. A Teaching Subject: Composition since 1966. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1996.
Shaughnessy, Mina P. Errors and Expectations. 1977. New York: Oxford University Press, 1979.
Smith, Cherryl and Angus Dunstan. “Grade the Learning, Not the Writing.” Zak and Weaver 163-170.
Speck, Bruce W. and Tammy R. Jones. “Directions in the Grading of Writing.” Zak and Weaver 17-29.
Straub, Richard. “The Concept of Control in Teacher Response: Defining the Varieties of ‘Directive’ and ‘Facilitative’ Commentary.” College Composition and Communication 47 (1996): 223-251.
Zak, Frances and Christopher C. Weaver, eds. The Theory and Practice of Grading Writing. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 1998.
posted by Victor Grafe III at 3:06 PM
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