Standards Based Grading + The 3P System

A few years ago, I stopped grading my students' work. It was scary, but very rewarding. Instead of grading work, I began assessing their skills and progress throughout the year.

I borrowed my ideas from Steve Peha's 3P Grading System.

I also wrote about "Five Reasons Why You Should Stop Grading."

During this time, I began looking at Standards-Based Grading. If you aren't familiar with SBG, here is a great article from ASCD the explains the concept.

After a couple of years, I began to think about how the 3P grading system could be combined with Standards Based Grading. I wanted to give students the feedback that SBG provides, but also allow students ownership of their grades that the 3P system provides.

Here is the new grading system I developed:

1. Everything is based on a 4-point scale, much like official GPA transcripts:

4=A
3=B
2=C
1=D
0=F

2. I still do a participation grade that is worth 1/3 of their overall grade. 

I conference with students at midterm and quarter about their participation grade. They give themselves a grade (out of 4), and I give them a grade (out of 4).

I have the students fill out this rubric to help them determine what grade they would give themselves.

The student and I must be within 1 point of each other. For example, if the student gives themselves a 3 and I give them a 2, then we are OK. However, if the student gives themselves a 4 and I give a 2, we must come to a compromise. Either I must come up to a 3, or the student goes down to a 3. Either way, we must be within one number of each other.

3. I eliminated the "Progress" component from the 3P system. For me, it was too vague and difficult to assess. 

4. Instead, we have three weighted grades:
Participation = 1/3
Writing Assessments = 1/3
Performance = 1/3 (Anything not covered by writing, such as Socratic Seminars)

5. After the participation, we added SBG.  Each assignment that we grade has multiple “Standards” that we assess. So one assignment may have 3-5 grades. In the gradebook, it looks like we have a ton of grades, but it is really multiple grades for one assignment.

Here is a rubric we used for our Animal Farm assignment. As you can see, there are six grades that will be entered into the gradebook. This allows me to see what each student is doing well on or needs to improve. It also allows me to track the class as a whole, providing data on trends within the class.

6. Because everything is out of 4 points, you have to change what grade percentages correlate with each letter grade. I multiplied the lowest grade that would be rounded up, and figured out what percentage it would be. For example, 3.45 / 4 = 86% which is the lowest percentage to get an A. 

This is confusing, but here is the formula:

A= 3.45-4.0        (86%-100%) 

B = 2.45-3.44     (61% - 85%)

C = 1.45-2.44     (36% - 60%)

D = .45-1.44       (13% - 35%)

F = 0-.44             (0% - 12%)

Kids and parents will freak about this because they could have a 65%, but it is a B. However, a B is a 3 out of 4 in the GPA grading scale. I tell them to LOOK AT THE LETTER GRADE AND IGNORE THE PERCENTAGE!

7. A grade book might look something like this:

Teacher participation: 4

Student participation: 3

Synthesis: Evidence: 3 (Writing)

Synthesis: Claim: 2 (Writing)

Synthesis: Conventions: 4 (Writing)

Ignite Talk: Preparation: 4 (performance)

Ignite Talk: Visuals: 3 (performance)

In this example we have the participation grade, and two assignments: Synthesis and an Ignite talk. The synthesis has 3 grades, and the Ignite Talk has two grades. The synthesis would go in as a writing assessment, and the Ignite Talk would be performance.

Each of these categories (participation, writing, performance) is weighted 1/3, so the computer does the math. Without doing the math, this student would be somewhere between a 3 and a 4, likely closer to a 4. 

8. Students may REDO any standard that is below a 3 UP TO a 3. This allows students the chance to correct and learn from their mistakes.

For example, the student in #7 received a 2 for his claim statement. He may rewrite his claim to meet the criteria for a 3.

Not all students take me up on this offer, but many do. It is better than giving students an F and not allowing them a chance to learn from their mistakes.

This is not a perfect system, but it is better than what I had before. Students have ownership in a part of their grade by giving themselves a grade, but they can also see what areas they are doing well and struggling in through the SBG component.

Please ask any questions you have in the comments section.

Teaching Animal Farm: Common Core-Style

When I was in high school, I studied George Orwell's Animal Farm through the lens of the Russian Revolution. I'm sure you did too. We had to learn which character represented whom. You know, Old Major represents Lenin... or was it Marx? See, almost 20 years later I can't remember.

If I can't remember, I should not expect my students to learn and memorize facts that will not be important to their lives after high school.

Previously, I wrote about close reading resources to support the Common Core. Animal Farm is one of the richest books we have on our shelves to teach two key concepts: rhetoric and satire.

This year, we had our students read the entire book, then we went back and taught rhetoric and satire through specific speeches. We didn't worry about which character represented whom in history; our objective was to get students to closely read and analyze the rhetoric in the speeches the characters delivered.

1.We used this lesson to teach rhetoric: the rhetorical triangle, appeals, and rhetorical strategies/fallacies.

2. Of course, the first major speech is from Old Major, imploring the animals to dream of a better future. Here is the text from the book that students performed a close read of Old Major Text.

3. After the close read, students then wrote about the text through a rhetorical precis. The rhetorical precis is a writing template that forces students to write about the text through the rhetorical triangle: author, audience and text. Here is a great template with power verbs that I found online. This is another fantastic explanation from Oregon State University.

4. After practicing with Old Major's speech, we did a summative assessment with two of Squealer's speeches combined: Squealer text. Students did a close read and then wrote another rhetorical precis over the speeches, analyzing the appeals and persuasive techniques. Here is the rubric we used to grade Squealer's speech.

5. Once we taught rhetoric, we switched gears to satire. We used a portion from Chapter 8 to teach satire: Chapter 8 text. Our purpose was to have students identify Orwell's elements and objects of satire. He uses satire throughout the book; however, the aftermath of the Battle of the Windmill is particularly rich.

Even after teaching Animal Farm this year, I still can't remember if Old Major represents Lenin or Marx. I don't care if my students can remember it either. However, I hope that they can take the skills that we taught them, such as close reading and analyzing rhetoric and satire, and apply them to much more challenging works as they move on through high school, college and beyond.

Close reading resources to support the Common Core

"Close reading" is the new buzzword in education, especially in Language Arts and Social Studies classes. Last summer I wrote a post called "Five close reading strategies to support the Common Core." After publishing that article, I received several requests for ideas on WHERE to find passages for students to close read.

Here are four ideas to get you started, with instructional ideas for implementation in your classroom:

1. Room for Debate - New York Times

If you are looking for multiple perspectives on current issues in the news, this is your one-stop shop. Room for Debate takes an issue and asks multiple experts to write a short editorial on the issue. I haven't counted, but I would estimate there are over 700 "issues" that are covered, and the site is updated with a new topic every couple of days.

I love the fact that most of the topics start with an essential question, such as: "Should Tweets Cost You Your Job?" and "Should Kids Pick Their Own Punishments?" Within those topics, there are usually 4-8 different opinions about the issue from professional writers. As you can see, they are high-interest topics for high school students.

Instructional idea: This site is great for pulling ideas for synthesis essays, where students must pull from different sources and address the opposition. Students can close read the articles and then develop an answer to the question in the form of an argument.

Mentor Writer: Leonard Pitts, Jr.

2. Mentor authors

In another post, I wrote about "Three ways to engage your students in writing." One of those strategies is to use "mentor texts" where students closely examine the "moves" that professional writers make, much like how I analyze the swing of professional golfers to help improve my struggling golf game.

There are many great mentor writers out there. Some of my favorites include:

• Leonard Pitts, Jr. - Miami Herald
• Mitch Albom - Detroit Free Press
• Rick Reilly - ESPN.com
• Roger Ebert - Chicago Sun Times
• Dave Barry - Miami Herald

Instructional idea: I ask students to first close read articles from these mentor authors and then emulate them for their own papers. Check out Kelly Gallagher's book Write Like This for more information on mentor texts.

3. Kelly Gallagher's "Articles of the Week"

Speaking of Gallagher, if you want a treasure trove of diverse articles, his website is the place to go.

In his book Readicide, Gallagher discusses how he noticed his students were not aware of current events happening in the news. His school implemented "Articles of the Week" where students read about a current event, while practicing close reading.

The last two years, I have had great intentions of doing an article each week for my students to stay current on what is happening in the news, but I keep moving away from it because I run out of time. This is something I need to commit to and stay consistent with in the future.

Instructional idea: Gallagher's site really kills two birds with one stone: practicing close reading strategies, while learning about what is happening in the world. 

Don't teach like this...

4. Short Passage from Novels

For years, I spent my time "teaching" as nothing more than a human Cliff's Notes, laboring through the plot and characters of novels. My quizzes and tests were filled with questions about which character said a particular quotation or what color of hat Holdyn wears in The Catcher in the Rye. It was boring for me, and I felt like I was working harder than my students.

I began to ask myself, "In 10 years, does it really matter that a student remembers the color of Holdyn's hat?" 

Honestly, I would argue that it is irrelevant and a waste of time.

Let me be clear: I believe it is important for students to be exposed to a variety of texts, including the "classics." However, I also believe that my job is to teach students how to dissect those works so they can extract meaning from them and then be able to apply those skills to other complex texts for the rest of their lives.

Instructional idea: I made the switch to teaching "excerpts" from the typical class novels, rather than the entire plot of a novel. 

For example, read this post to see how I changed my approach to Julius Caesar by focusing on the rhetoric of the speeches.

For Fahrenheit 451, students read the entire book on their own, but did close readings of specific passages. For example, we closely examined the first four pages for the imagery and figurative language that Bradbury used. We also looked at the argument between Captain Beatty and Montag, and analyzed the rhetorical strategies that Beatty employed. 

I know... it is a radical way of thinking about teaching novels. Trust me. Students will dig far deeper into the novel and have a better understanding of the book than if you just plow through and answer questions about plot.

Final thoughts

My teaching style has been revolutionized by the Common Core. In my previous teaching life, students were only swimming at the surface level of a book. Now, we are diving in to the deep end of the reading pool. These are great places to go in order to get started with close reading.

What are other resources you go to in order to find close reading passages? Please post in the comments below.