labor based grading

During my first practicum course, as a doctoral student, I learned about Labor-Based Grading. The professor teaching the practicum had long used Labor-Based Contracts in her undergraduate courses and shared Inoue’s scholarship with our class. She assigned our cohort several tasks with syllabi and assignment descriptions to practice various approaches we might take that created a practical version of Labor-Based Grading to implement in our own FYC classrooms. The social justice sought by Labor-Based Grading genuinely appealed to me and suited the multimodal assignments I often had students complete. The semester after the practicum, I completely transitioned to using Labor-Based Grading. It enabled me to instruct writing the way I always wanted: to emphasize rhetoric and give student writers agency. I did not want students to be constrained by standards, especially those that center White language as the proper way to speak and write (Pattanayak, 2017).

By adopting Labor-Based Grading across all of my subsequent courses, my instructional role became less about assigning arbitrary grades and instead mentoring student writers. First, I instructed lessons that delivered content about the writing process. Next, I facilitated activities wherein students could practice writing. Then, I introduced more comprehensive tasks in the shape of a large-scale project. I could provide constructive feedback throughout the scaffolded tasks, which prompted students to make revisions to improve the project. As long as students were putting forth effort to work through the feedback loops, they would earn their contracted grade. My feedback almost exclusively spoke to the learning outcomes that I emphasized on a given project. Whether annotated in the student’s project, written up as a wholistic response, or captured on a video, I did not aim to qualify the student work as “good” or “bad,” but rather pose some generative questions that offered alternate approaches and strategies to strengthen the writing.

Writing that delivers a clear message to the reader is certainly ideal; however, the style of the writing is more subjective. What may appeal to me in a student’s writing may not appeal to a peer reviewer. The writer may depend on unanimous feedback: the same points repeated across all reviewers. This will alert the writer to a particular feature of their piece that needs revision. I had hoped by narrowing the feedback to features articulated in the learning outcomes would make more sense to students. Moreover, students could focus on a few aspects of the project, instead of the many categories typical of a points-based rubric.

Students had power in the assessment process as they determined a letter grade range as a goal: A range, B range, or C range. Students only received a grade below C range if they did not submit the project before the end of the semester. By students setting their own goals, they were accountable for the work. The letter grade earned on the final iteration of a project was confirmation that the student had in fact done everything expected and needed throughout the scaffolded tasks to develop a cohesive final project. The letter grade also signaled that the student had achieved the associated learning outcomes.  

Using the Design Journal entries and Project Builder submissions to track student effort and labor, I was informed about their progress working toward the artifact. Although the Projects 1-4 were worth a majority of the student’s final grade in the course, the DFA to FYC was developed with pointed interest on writing process. Thus, a student was already well at work toward their project grade during their scaffolded journals and builders. I provided the kind of feedback, on each Design Journal and Project Builder, that alerted students to areas within their project that needed attention. The writing and designing tasks contributed to a majority of the work on any given project. More specifically, Project Builders tasked students with both partial and full drafts of final projects, edits and revisions to make based on peer feedback, and reflections that illustrated their rhetorical decisions throughout the project. Design Journals and Project Builders were marked by a complete or incomplete and completion was attached to set of available points; I marked an assignment incomplete, with directed comments, until the student was able to make the necessary edits to get their project back on track and earn a completion score. Unless a student failed to submit a Design Journal or Project Builder before the final project was due, they had a chance to receive credit.  

focus on learning outcomes

Instead of using rubrics or quantifying the various qualities in an artifact, I identified the specific learning outcomes that students should focus on for each project. Taking the emphasis off of features like conventions, grammar, and formatting allowed students to focus their efforts on critically thinking about their topic or issue, designing an artifact, and figuring out ways to connect with their audience through modes.

Using the learning outcomes stated on the course syllabus (shown below), I chose to focus on a select few that were the most relevant in each of the four major projects. 

Below you will see a sample of Design Journal 5 (the Artist’s Statement) where Noelle (from the Student Case Studies) reflects on their rhetorical choices in Project 1. Noelle’s summary and rationale for their work were pivotal in my understanding of the scope of their work. I also saw evidence of their understanding of writing as a process. Noelle was able to articulate how they moved through the process to achieve an end.  

Noelle writes, “this project is intended to reveal and expose the lies and narratives Black women have been telling themselves for centuries…to unite and form community for my classmates as we face challenges this semester…” Noelle has clearly articulated the purpose of their project: to reveal and expose a problem that is important for their peers. Then, Noelle identifies the segment they designed to be most important in the project sequence: the performance where Noelle’s spoken word plays as their peers witness Noelle apply make-up and a wig. The combination of gesture and spoken word allows Noelle to express their perspective, but more importantly invite in the class to participate in the conversation Noelle has begun. Noelle has also included a brief explanation for changing aspects of the project throughout the design process as they recognized the importance for fluency and comprehension for the audience. Thus, Noelle has shown rhetorical agency, responsibility, flexibility and revision. 

multimodal feedback loops

Students had multiple touchpoints for feedback during the course of each project. In addition to noting progress and guiding students through the Design Journals, I provided feedback on the 1st Project Builder. Guided peer review was performed on the 2nd Project Builder. During Project 2, I held one-on-one conferences where I had an opportunity to talk through my feedback with students. During at least one lesson, for a project, I would use an anonymous student draft to work through real material concerns in front of the class. It was also a great opportunity to generate discussions about the objectives of the project as a whole group. Both sections of the course were part of the Wayne State University Composition Learning Community and were assigned a peer mentor. In addition to being present for in-class support once a week, the mentor was able to offer remote office hours to support students in troubleshooting the complications that arose while writing their projects. The peer mentor also offered targeted feedback during the week leading up to the project deadline if a students asked 1-2 specific areas for review.