I found Peter Elbow and Jane Danielewicz's "A Unilateral Grading Contract to Improve Learning and Teaching" a refreshing piece to read as a student, a tutor, and a future teacher. The style was clear, the concepts practical rather than theoretical (I love to listen to and be inspired by the theoretical, but it's so hard to figure out ways of putting it into practice), and the authors anticipated and addressed each of my qualms in a systematic, thorough way.
When I was an undergraduate in particular, I was obsessed by grades. I was always trying to assess where I stood in each class. For my more objective classes like calculus or biology, which had regular graded work and where my professor posted grades on blackboard, I never had to approach the professors outside of class to try to gauge how they felt about the effort I was giving in class. In my literature and creative writing classes, however--classes far more important to me--the grades were fewer and farther between, and the teachers tended not to be very regular about updating blackboard. Elbow and Denielewicz say that "[u]ncertainty about grades often leads to irrational or unproductive feelings in students like fear or failure, writer's block, or anxiety about how the teacher is applying hidden subjective grading standards" (255); as an undergrad, I lived in a constant state of anxiety exactly as the authors describe and, if the before-the-professor-comes-into-class conversation was to be believed, so did just about all of my fellow students. We didn't go to see our professors during office hours to talk over our anxieties because we were afraid we would be pestering them, and that doing so could only negatively influence our subjective grades.
The contract system is a built-in way for students not only to know about where they should stand in a class, but also about how and when to approach their professors. If, as a student, you're doing everything you can to earn your contract "B", and you're comfortable with a "B", there's no reason for the anxiety. If you feel like you haven't lived up to your side of the contract, or if "B"-level work is troubling to you, the contract says that it's all right to approach your professor and ascertain on a more personal level what you're doing now and what you should be doing. Overall, I think the contract system would encourage teacher-student discourse.
As a tutor, I often find these uncertain and anxious students coming in to the Writing Center, trying to ask me to tell them what's "wrong" with their papers (the "thoughtlessness" that Elbow and Danielewicz describe: "Just tell me what to do and I'll go along" (255). If the student were to inform me that s/he was in a contract writing course, that would help me better ascertain the emphasis on writing technique and what level of effort the student might have to make in order truly to earn a higher grade than the guaranteed "B".
I'm not saying I'm a convert to the contract system. I think it would be wise to seek out a thorough, well-written criticism of it, if one exists. But, as a teacher-to-be who is already concerned with problems such as subjectivity, the contract system would be one way in which my students and I could have a closer, more constructive discourse on their effort and skills in my class.
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