CHOICE 1998 Outstanding Academic Books Grading is one of the thorniest issues writing teachers must deal with, yet, surprisingly little has been written on this topic. As writing teachers move increasingly toward practices that focus on writing as a process, they face a growing need to reconsider their systems of grading to determine whether or not these systems support their pedagogies. The authors interrogate the grading of individual papers as well as portfolios and the assigning of end-of-term grades. This collection explores the issues and problems that have emerged as conventional grading practices have lagged behind and been challenged by new theories of language. While the book will be of interest to theorists, Zak and Weaver have also made the book relevant and useful to teachers whose primary interest is the practical consequences of theory in their classrooms. Where theoretical discussion takes place, the language is clear and accessible. Many of the authors write directly from personal experience, telling stories of the classroom or writing of new techniques and approaches they have tried. They speak with the voices of teachers, and the tone and content of their words convey a sense of the immediacy of the topic.

Table of Contents:
Foreword Pat Belanoff Preface Frances Zak and Christopher C. Weaver Acknowledgments Part I. Directions and Misdirections Student Voices 1. The Origins and Evolution of Grading Student Writing: Pedagogical Imperatives and Cultural Anxieties Richard Boyd 2. Direction in the Grading of Writing? What the Literature on the Grading of Writing Does and Doesn't Tell Us Bruce W. Speck and Tammy R. Jones 3. Do We Do What We Say? Contradictions in Composition Teaching and Grading Bruce Maylath Part II. The Power and Authority of Graders Student Voices 4. Construction, Deconstruction, and (Over)Determination: A Foucaultian Analysis of Grades Kathleen Blake Yancey and Brian Huot 5. Peter Elbow and the Cynical Subject Michael Bernard-Donals 6. Differences of Opinion: An Exchange of Views Peter Elbow and Michael Bernard-Donals Part III. How Students See Grades as Signifiers Student Voices 7. Grading as a Rhetorical Construct Nick Carbone and Margaret Daisley 8. Resisting Reform: Grading and Social Reproduction in a Secondary Classroom Steven VanderStaay Part IV. Institutional Entanglements Student Voices 9. The Politics of Cross-Institutional Grading: An Adjunct's Dilemma Pauline Uchmanowicz 10. The Politics and Perils of Portfolio Grading Maureen Neal Part V. Imagining Alternatives Student Voices 11. Grading in a Process-Based Writing Classroom Christopher C. Weaver 12. Gender and Grading: "Immanence" as a Path to "Transcendence?" Irene Papoulis 13. Grade the Learning, Not the Writing Cherryl Smith and Angus Dunstan 14. Changing Grading While Working with Grades Peter Elbow 15. The Conversation Continues: A Dialogue on Grade Inflation Kathleen Blake Yancey, Michael Bernard-Donals, Margaret Daisley, Maureen Neal, Steven VanderStaay, Nick Carbone, and Brian Huot Works Cited About the Contributors Index