Contracts and Rubrics

I think the reification of process advocated by Danielewicz and Elbow seems to lead to an oversimplifed conception of assessment and grading.  In emphasizing the process of writing,  the authors apparently devalue the text as an object available to fair and appropriate evaluation.  Although they attest to positive results from their contract-based grading, I can’t imagine that, as a student, I would have responded positively to such a  practice. Much of their argument for contracts rests on the elimination – or at least decrease – of conflict and negative emotions.  However, the lack of guidelines for achieving grades above B seems likely to lead to negative emotions for those students who in the authors’ terms “simply ache for an A.”  I think that to denigrate students concerned about the grades rather than focused solely on the ‘process demonstrates a somewhat callous attitude of the instructors toward those students motivated by high grades.’  It’s easy for people whose futures no longer rely on a collection of letters, “a one-dimensional quantitative score” (or alternatively, “a one-dimensional form of evaluation”) to assert the intrinsic meaninglessness of grades and to insist that their students ought to feel the same. 

            I think the rubric method Elbow proposes in his other essay is much more fair and gives the student a more effective means of evaluating his or her own writing before turning it in. It allows the instructor to define and clarify his or her priorities in an essay and expectations of the student.  Furthermore, the easy and appealing graphic nature of the rubric is much easier to comprehend than the jumble of comments – usually unorganized and not easily identifiable by relative usefulness or importance – that usually comprise typical instructor feedback. Such a method seems like it would lead to better writing in the initial, revision and final stages.