Assessment+Philosophy

Our approach to assessing work for the course is designed to maximize the quality of learning and the amount of flow. We discussed it in class, but the explanation below gives you a detailed resource on the subject. Please read it over carefully! If you want to print it out, feel free to do so. :)


 * The C.S.Q. System **

==== To help you learn, and especially to help you learn to write better, we're going to try a system I'm calling "The C.S.Q. System." The system is designed the way it is to prevent the severe damage that grades do to learning and motivation. ====

====**__ Compliments __** - When I go over your writing, I will call attention to the things you're doing well. It's important for you to know what you're doing well so that you can keep doing it. If you don't know that something you wrote is good (for whatever reason), how will you know that you should do it again? When I call attention to the things you're doing well, you should feel as though you have received a compliment (you have!). J ==== ====**__ Suggestions __** - If I see something in your writing that makes me think of something to suggest to you that could help you become a better writer, I will make a suggestion. Seriously consider the suggestion, and if you feel comfortable adopting it, please go ahead. Be sure, however, that you have given it sufficient, open-minded consideration. J ====

====**__ Questions __** - As I read your writing, questions might occur to me that can cause you to think in ways that are beneficial to you as both a writer and a person. I will pose those questions in writing in the margins or at the end of your paper. Your attempts to answer the questions will help you become a better writer. J ====

==== Here’s the point of this system: you write to become a better writer, not to prove something to your teacher. (If there’s anyone to whom you’re trying to prove something, it would only be yourself.) The value of becoming a better writer is that writing well is a beautiful experience; writing well enables you to express your ideas, to be understood, and even to change the world. Your development as a writer is enhanced if I don’t merely “grade your paper.” With the C.S.Q. System, there is no grade on the paper. Instead of worrying about the grade that the teacher gives the piece of work, you become focused on writing well and then writing better and better. Also, the compliments, suggestions, and questions require that you think, and thus you become better at thinking. We’re trying to take grades out of the equation so that your learning and motivation are maximized. J ====