I had a great discussion with my students today. A couple of them asked me why I don’t grade participation in Socratic seminars. I used to. I stopped because I find that grading participation is slippery. If you quantify it, you run the risk of encouraging shallow participation for points. In their reflections, students share…
In June I successfully defended my dissertation at Northeastern University. My research focused on grading and assessment, which will likely not surprise anyone who has been reading this blog for a while, as I have written about grading and assessment frequently. My dissertation was qualitative action research, a dissertation in practice grounded in the Carnegie…
My ambition got away from me. I have continued to read Joe Feldman’s Grading for Equity, but I haven’t been posting reflections here. I will, eventually. I just need to finish a project I’m working on before I post here. In other news, a manuscript I submitted to English Journal was rejected with encouragement to revise,…
I have a copy of my great-great-grandmother Stella Bowling Cunningham’s diary from 1893-1894, which I transcribed. It’s a fascinating window into history for many reasons, one of which is that while Stella was writing the diary, she was a teacher. She married in May 1894, after which she had to quit teaching and keep house….
I’m not sure how many folks know this, but I’m currently entering the dissertation phase in my doctoral program at Northeastern. in fact, I’m hoping to defend my dissertation proposal before the month’s end. One reason this blog has been quiet for so long (until recently) is that I just haven’t made time to write…
