What is Contract Grading?
"Introduction to Literary Study" will be assessed using a contract grading system (described below). The work of the class will be conducted across these four assignments:
- Participation (including serving as "Lifeline" as stipulated for your contract)
- Blog Posts (criteria to be shared separately)
- Midterm Exam
- Final Project
Grade Contracts
In this course, you will determine the grade you receive by fulfilling a contract you will submit for my approval in class on Thursday September 11th.
What follows will lay out:
- the requirements you will meet in order to receive the grade for which you’ve contracted,
- the penalties you will incur for not meeting those requirements,
- a calendar you will follow for meeting the requirements you have outlined.
Why Contract Grading?
As you no doubt know, grading can be a contentious issue in college courses, particularly in writing- and discussion-based courses, where grades can seem arbitrary and contestable. Grading in school does not much resemble the way you will be evaluated in your lives or careers, where you will define many of your own goals and be measured by how responsibly and effectively you achieve them. To quote Cathy Davidson, a peer professor at CUNY and a leading thinker about alternatives to traditional pedagogy:
The advantage of contract grading is that you, the student, decide how much work you wish to do this semester; if you complete that work on time and satisfactorily, you will receive the grade for which you contracted. This means planning ahead, thinking about all of your obligations and responsibilities this semester and also determining what grade you want or need in this course. The advantage of contract grading to the professor is no whining, no special pleading, on the student's part. If you complete the work you contracted for, you get the grade. Done. I respect the student who only needs a C, who has other obligations that preclude doing all of the requirements to earn an A in the course, and who contracts for the C and carries out the contract perfectly. (This is another one of those major life skills: taking responsibility for your own workflow.)
Contract grading also respresents an experiment in foregrounding the often silent and invisible ideological work that grading, and other forms of what Michel Foucault calls "disciplining," does. By diverging from the usual, deeply ingrained procedures we've internalized over decades of teaching and learning, we become more critical about them. And that's exactly what this course wants to achieve, both in its content (the readings and discussions) and its form (the assessments and protocols).
Contract Details
To fulfill any grade contract a student must do the following, which should nonetheless be specified in the contract submitted for approval. When writing self assessments students must describe how they have met these requirements in addition to the grade-specific requirements:
- Come to class prepared to discuss the assigned readings. Participate actively in class activities and discussions, making observations and asking questions that help the class think together.
- Meet with me in person—during office hours or another scheduled time at least once by Thursday November 20th-to ensure you are on-track to meet your contract requirements, discuss any questions or concerns you have about the course or your progress, and decide on any necessary contract amendments.
- Complete the minimums of quantity and quality of the various assignments (above) for your contracted grade.
- Revise contractual assignments as necessary until both you and I consider them “Satisfactory.”
- Complete a final self-assessment demonstrating that your work has met the agreed requirements, submitting it to Professor Allred by 5pm on Friday December 12th.
“A” Contract
To contract for an “A” in this course, you agree to:
- Miss no more than three classes for any reason.
- Serve as a "lifeline" for at least three classes (requirements here).
- Meet with me in person—during office hours or another scheduled time at least once by Thursday November 20th
- Exceed expectations regarding in-class device according to the policies outlined in the device use rubric.
- Enter three annotations via hypothes.is for each reading that requires it.
- Earn a "Satisfactory" on six blog posts and post them by the applicable deadline on the schedule.
- Earn a "Satisfactory" on the midterm, including the extra material for A contract students
- Earn a "Satisfactory" on the final project, including all required steps for A contracts completed on time and the full essay submitted by midnight on Monday December 15th.
- Submit a self-assessment to the professor by 5pm on Monday December 15th, along with your final project.
“B” Contract
To contract for an “B” in this course, you agree to:
- Miss no more than five classes.
- Serve as a "lifeline" for at least two classes (requirements here).
- Meet with me in person—during office hours or another scheduled time at least once by Thursday November 20th.
- Meet expectations regarding in-class device according to the policies outlined in the device use rubric.
- Enter two annotations via hypothes.is for each reading that requires it.
- Earn a "Satisfactory" on five blog posts and post them by the applicable deadline on the schedule (skipping one deadline as you see fit).
- Earn a "Satisfactory" on the midterm.
- Earn a "Satisfactory" on the final project, including all required steps for B contracts completed on time and the first four paragraphs of an essay (to be explained later) submitted by midnight on Monday December 15th
- Submit a self-assessment to the professor by midnight on Monday December 15th.
“C” Contract
To contract for an “C” in this course, you agree to:
- Miss no more than seven classes.
- Serve as a "lifeline" for at least one class (requirements here).
- Attend office hours at least once by Thursday November 21st.
- Meet expectations regarding in-class device according to the policies outlined in the device use rubric.
- Enter one annotation via hypothes.is for each reading that requires it.
- Earn a "Satisfactory" on four blog posts and post them by the applicable deadline on the schedule (skipping two deadlines as you see fit).
- Earn a "Satisfactory" on the midterm.
- Earn a "Satisfactory" on the final project, including all required steps completed on time and a thesis statement (to be explained later) submitted by midnight on Monday December 15th
- Submit a self-assessment to the professor by midnight on Monday December 15th.
“D” and “F” Grades
Once again, to draw from the inimitable Cathy Davidson:
The professor reserves the right to award a grade of D or F to anyone who fails to meet a contractual obligation in a systematic way. A “D” grade denotes some minimal fulfilling of the contract. An “F” is absence of enough satisfactory work, as contracted, to warrant passing of the course. Both a “D” and “F” denote a breakdown of the contractual relationship implied by signing any of the contracts described above.
To simplify the differences between the A/B/C contracts, here’s a table:
| A | B | C |
|---|---|---|
| max 3 absences | max 5 | max 7 |
| 6 blog posts | 5 blog posts | 4 blog posts |
| 3 lifelines | 2 lifelines | 1 lifeline |
| 3 hypothes.is notes/reading | 2 hypothes.is notes/reading | 1 hypothes.is note/reading |
| longer midterm | normal midterm | abbreviated midterm |
| full 10-12 p. final essay | 1st 4 paragraphs of final essay | thesis of final essay |
| self-assessment | self-assessment | self-assessment |
| attend office hrs 1x or more | office hrs 1x | office hrs 1x |
What About Exceptional (or Mediocre) Work?
I also reserve the right to reward exceptional work throughout the semester using the full range of Hunter's grading scale. If you contract for a “B,” for instance, and submit particularly strong pieces to fulfill that contract, I may choose to raise your contracted grade to a “B+.”
Likewise, if you consistently submit mediocre work in fulfillment of your contract, I reserve the right to adjust your grade one half-step down (e.g. from “A” to “A-“) or even, in extreme cases, a full step.
Contract Adjustments
At midterm season, I will ask you to evaluate your work thus far and compare it against what you agreed in your grade contract. In these moments you can also take the opportunity to request an adjustment to your contract in either direction. If you find that you will be unable to meet the obligations of your contract, you may request to move to the next lowest grade and its requirements. Contrariwise, if you find that you’ve been performing above the obligations of your contract, you may request to fulfill the requirements for the next higher grade. The last date to make any contractural changes is November 20th, just before Thanksgiving, and any changes must be made in person during office hours, unless you're able to make alternative arrangements with Prof. Allred.
Important Note: In order to effectively evaluate your own progress, you must keep track of your work, including days missed, blogs completed, and so forth.
