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Leanne Fasulo
The eleventh chapter of //Fair Isn’t Always Equal// writes about six different issues in grading. Two of the topics that I found out to be the most interesting were the sixty v. zero on assignments that were not turned in and the grading of late work. In the pervious chapter the book discussed about how a teacher should give the student a sixty even though some teachers believe that it is cheating. The book within the book is contradicting itself telling the teacher to never scale on tests, but that they should scale a student’s grade when they do not turn in the work. The book also suggests that when a teacher gives the student a sixty they are indicating a valid mastery. However, clearly if they deserve a zero they are not mastering anything. While this book has given some good ideas for teachers this is not one of them. Students need to understand that in life people get what they deserve based on how much they work for it. Giving the student a sixty would cheat the student of a life lesson that they in fact deserve to learn. The second issue that was presented was grading late work. While the book talks about teachers who take a full letter grade off for late work it does not cover a diversity of ways that a teacher could deal with late work. There are so many factors that need to be considered such as how old are your students? Is this a one time thing, or constant? Has something happened in the student’s life recently like a death? As a teacher nothing is going to be black and white all the time including grading late work.

Christina L Quach
Chapter 11 of FIAE brought up problems with the grading system. The chapter discussed zeros a lot and also brought up the consideration of marking in grade books incomplete. This chapter also brought up grading special education students in a class that contains inclusion. I think that it was fair when Wormeli said, “A healthier compromise is a detailed discussion of the special needs student’s progress between the regular and special education teachers. The regular education teacher identifies the standards that should be mastered by report card time, and the special education teacher indicates whether such standards are developmentally appropriate for the student (150).” What I really liked about this is that they are taking into consideration teaching the special needs student and grading them the way they would anyone else while still keeping in mind what is developmentally appropriate. I never had this problem myself, but from being out in the schools I can see how it affects students. There are a lot of students failing for this reason. Also I have seen students with good grades have their grades torn apart because of a zero. I always thought that a zero was deserved if someone was not doing the work, but the way that the book puts it, even filling the zero in with a sixty shows the student as failing. It is not like by giving them the 60 is going to pass them when they have not mastered the content. Honestly I am not really sure how I would incorporate this into my classroom yet. I have not met any teachers yet that use a 60 or 1.0 to average out the students mastery level. Wormeli makes a great argument, but teachers have not completely switched to this idea for a reason.

Richie Johnson
Chapter eleven of //Fair Isn’t Always Equal// contains more on grading. As I have announced in many of the previous chapter blogs, grading is something I am not (yet) fond of. However, such makes reading about it all them more valuable for me. Anyhow, one of the main themes in this chapter was that of using a “60” rather than a “0” for incomplete work. The basis of Wormeli’s argument is strong, I think, and I generally agree with it all- putting a “0” for incomplete work is undoubtedly ineffective. Conversely, though, many may argue that giving a student any credit at all (a “60) for not doing his work is not logical. My thought has sort of always been that when I teach I would not put zeroes in the grade book until the very end of the quarter, semester, or what-have-you. This way I would give each student the chance to make their missed assignments up without giving any false perceptions of what their grade is/will be. It is likely that once I was to test this concept it would prove to have faults, though. Anyway, my quest to understand grades and their worth, effectiveness is remains incomplete. I do not know that I will ever have it all figured out, but I will continue to try!
 * //Fair Isn’t Always Equal//: Chapter 11**

Brittany Blackman
Chapter 11 is about grading issues. At the very beginning of the book they say that when a student does not complete an assignment, the teacher needs to decide whether to leave a 0 in the grade book or change it to a 60. I didn’t understand at first why teachers would do that at all. Now it makes more sense, and I guess I agree. If a student doesn’t do an assignment, but gets A’s on everything else, it makes more sense to get an A or B+ in the class than a C. The only problem I see with it is it seems as if (and this could be just because I have been conditioned to think so) we should penalize students a little harsher for simply not trying or doing the work. In a way we’re telling them, “Hey, if you know the material really well, and do well on most of your work, don’t worry about doing all of the assignments. If you don’t feel like finishing it, it won’t affect your grade that drastically.” Maybe in some school settings that is an okay message to provide, but in most I don’t think it is.

I agree with grading gifted students differently. This problem was actually discussed in my mentor teachers AP calculus class. The students were complaining because they didn’t think AP courses were scaled for class standing (or something of the sort). They said that a student that gets an A in Algebra shouldn’t have a higher GPA than a student with a B in AP calculus. I agree with this. It discourages kids from taking harder classes.

Kelsea Trefethen
Chapter 11 of FIAE discussed the various struggles teachers face with grading honestly, fairly, and efficiently. I found this chapter very interesting to read. There are some things I agreed with and others I disagreed with. One of the things I disagreed with was replacing students zeros with sixties to even out their grade. While I understand a zero has a harsh effect on a student’s grade and doesn’t necessarily represent their mastery of the course, I think there is a better way to go about it. I think when I teach I will give students the opportunity to make up the work instead, or give them alternative or additional assignments. I don’t think it sends a good message to the students to give them points they didn’t earn; what does that say to the students who at least tried but failed? The book talked about weighting more difficult classes. My high school did that I thought it was great. The book stated that the reason for weighting the more difficult classes was so that students would be motivated to take them. The book went on to say that they had no evidence that the weight was motivational. When I was in school I thought the reason they weighted the classes was to improve the GPA of the students. The competition for valedictorian can get very competitive. Why would a student struggle in a harder class when they could get all 100’s in a lower level class? I think the reason is to reward the students who apply themselves in the more difficult courses.

Kalib Moore
As stated in a previous blog entry, I believe that if necessary, zeros should be given to students who do not put in the work. Chapter 11 of //Fair Isn't Always Equal// discussed "six burning grading issues" that teachers have. The first one was talked about in a previous chapter and it was the question of whether or not teachers should give students sixties when they fail something instead of zeros. I am completely supporting the side of using zeros. I believe that if a student fails to complete the assigned work, puts no effort in, and refuses to speak to the teacher about why the work wasn't completed, they should receive a zero. It isn't fair for other students who put the effort in and completed the work and receive 80 and have another classmate do literally nothing and get a 60, 20 points less, because it is more "fair." In my future classroom I plan on placing a policy on late or incomplete work and have all my students read and understand that I will have no tolerance for laziness in my classroom and that I expect as much as I think they can produce.

Tyler Oren
Chapter 11 of //Fair isn’t Always Equal// discusses several “burning” grading issues, just as the chapter title would suggest. Wormeli puts most of his emphasis however the question of whether a teacher should record a zero or a sixty in the grade book for a missing, incomplete or late piece of work. Wormeli suggests recording a sixty in the grade book because of the devastating results of a zero in a traditional grading formula. Wormeli asks teachers to understand that life happens and assignments get missed or late or even lost in the tide of other papers young individuals are charged with each day. Wormeli uses the traditional grading formula to show that a missed assignment can easily throw a student who consistently earns As and Bs into the C range. What is a better representation of the student if they have turned in 12 assignments that were of high quality and earned an A, but a single assignment was missed should they then earn a B for the semester or final grade? Absolutely not. Wormeli also commits quite a large portion of the chapter to discussing weighted grades and their waning relevance in schools today. Wormeli argues that weighting grades serves no other purpose besides identifying Valedictorian, which is a highly questionable position to begin with in his opinion. Why should only a single student’s success be celebrated when another student who is a decimal away is not? Wormeli asks that schools and similar institutions begin to focus on every student’s achievement rather than a small percentage.

Evgeni Bouzakine
Chapter eleven talks about the issues when it comes to grading your students assignments. The chapter focuses on different ways you can assess your students, to see if the students have covered all the criteria. Grades are a big part of becoming successful in our society. Unfortunately this is the only way we see if a student is proficient enough in something. This does not mean our students are learning all of the content. I remember when I was in high school; I really focused on the grade and not so much on the content. I studied only what I needed to know for the test. Some teachers even allow me to retake the same exact test. This does work, but it does not work if the test is multiple choices or fill in the blank. I could easily remember everything on the first test. There are so many weird acceptations teachers make. If a student fails a test they are allowed to retake it, to average the two together. That is not fair to the person that took the test and barley passed. As a future teacher I want to implement a system that actually makes it fair. Hopefully at some point the grading system will be redone, so the focus can be more on the content and not so much on the grades

Johnny Buys
Chapter 11: Six Burning Grading Issues Rick Wormelli discusses six issues pertinent to fair grading for the differentiated classroom. Wormelli first discusses what he believes to be “mathematically and ethically…unacceptable”—giving 0’s (138). He proposes that rather than using the 0 which skews averages that using a failing grade of a 50 or a 60 are better alternatives. This process more adequately demonstrates students’ understanding achievement rather than allowing the grade to skew because of missing work. Another issue that presents itself is the issue of grading gifted students. Gifted students need “more rigorous standards that go beyond the course description” such as in Mass Customization Learning (141). The gifted student’s grade should be reflective of both the “regular and advanced material” (142). Weighting grades is also an issue for Wormelli as it focuses on what the teacher deems important, but has little to know motivation factor (144). He then connects this to an argument on the pointlessness of ranking and valedictorian status (145). While eloquent, he fails to recognize the benefit of competition and the recognition that valedictorians receive making it worthwhile to the students who chose to pursue it. Automaticity and concept attainment while presented as conflicting appear more reciprocal when teachers structure the first time content is learned to be concept attainment while automaticity is more encouraged in later teaching. Wormelli argues against decreasing the value of late work (148). It is important to recognize that communication is the most important thing with late work. Students who take advantage of this principle should be reprimanded, but understanding that every student has other factors and important things besides school is beneficial. Finally, Wormelli discusses that the “healthiest approach for grading each special needs student in light of the long-term goals for him of her and the curriculum” (150).

Cyril Lunt
//Seriously, FIAE? Another grading chapter?// Oh well. Chapter eleven of FIAE is about six "burning" issues with grading, and how to keep grading fair, objective, and insightful.

The biggest issue is the zero policy, or if a student doesn't pass something in they get a zero. Wormeli proposes that these students should get sixties, instead of the usual zero, in order to "balance out their grades". But the thing is, they //did// pass in the homework. What if someone did pass in their homework and got less than a sixty? All the student learns is that it was better to not try at all than try and fail. Isn't that the exact //opposite// course of action we want our students to do? Didn't we have an entire reading about how it's okay to fail earlier in the semester? Or did I hallucinate that. I don't know. But I'm sure that mentality goes against what we're trying to strive for in some way.

In my classroom, if someone doesn't pass in their homework, they will get a zero. No ifs, ands, or buts. Sure, you can pass it in late for less credit, or redo something for more credit (the two are not related), but I'd never give something that doesn't exist more than a zero.