Professor, associate instructor disagree on grading policy

On May 13, Jonathan Elmer, chair of the IU Department of English, sent an e-mail to the 16 students from one section of Tony Ardizzone’s Introduction to Creative Writing course explaining why some of their final grades had been lowered.

He wrote, “I thought I should address some fundamental issues regarding this class, and the disagreements and misunderstandings that have occurred.”

Many courses at IU are taught by professors with sections taught by associate instructors. However, professors teaching the courses have authority over the students’ grades, and there are different steps the professors can take in setting a fair, even standard.

Halfway into the spring semester, Ardizzone began to see that the grading procedures of one AI were not consistent with the other six.

“I am responsible for a degree of uniformity,” Ardizzone said. “I was getting a range of grades from six of the AIs, but she wasn’t giving me a range.”

Juliana Crespo, the AI for the section, said she was more concerned with students’ learning and believed grades were irrelevant in the classroom.

“You’re going to get an ‘A’ if you put a decent amount of work in the course,” she said. “And (students) respond to that.”

Crespo, Ardizzone and Romayne Dorsey, director of creative writing pedagogy, met the week after spring break to discuss Crespo’s grading.

“The three of us met, and they tried to convince me to assign new grades,” Crespo said. “It would be disrespectful to my students.”

At the end of the semester, Crespo said she met with Dorsey again to go over the fiction portfolios, and both of them graded the assignments. Dorsey’s grades were lower than Crespo’s, but Crespo said Dorsey allowed her to assign the grades she felt comfortable giving, and that Dorsey would not change those grades.

After the final grades were posted, Crespo said her students questioned why they received a lower grade than anticipated.

“Tony e-mails them back and tells them that they had reassigned new portfolio grades — the ones that Romayne had assigned them,” she said.

Seventy-three percent of all six sections received an “A” or a “B” as their final grade, Ardizzone said. In Crespo’s section, he said, 75 percent did after the grade changes.

“What we worked with specifically was to try to get her to a sense where she agreed with the norms of the section,” he said. “And she didn’t agree; that’s her right. But it’s my responsibility, absolutely, to make sure that I have a uniformity of treatment and grades within the sections.”

Crespo said Ardizzone thinks there should be a wide range of grades in the class and that she does not believe in that sort of grading system.

Ardizzone said it is possible to have all A’s in one section, however, it is highly unlikely.

“My response will be, ‘That’s possible,’” he said. “‘Because it’s unlikely, let me have a look at the work.’ That’s what we did in this case. What we found was that they weren’t all A’s.”

During the first week of orientation, Ardizzone met with the AIs to discuss examples of weak and strong student poems.

Ardizzone said he then worked with all of the AIs as a group after each assignment was handed in to determine what a fair grade range would look like.

“Grades are an indication to the writer as to the writer’s relative level of growth,” he said.

Claude Cookman, an associate professor in the IU School of Journalism, said he instructs his visual communication class on a criteria grading system.

“You set clear criteria, and everyone who meets those criteria gets a good grade,” he said. “There’s no feeling that you have to have a set number of C’s and D’s and F’s. Students work harder when they understand that their work could earn a good grade.”

Cookman said in courses that have sections with multiple instructors, students are justifiably concerned about fairness.

“So I try very hard...to make sure the AIs and myself do try to grade consistently across all discussion sections,” he said.

When an assignment comes in, Cookman said he asks the AIs to take a sample of 10 to 12 projects and rate the two highest, two average and two lowest grade-wise.

He then meets with the AIs to discuss which project will receive what score.

“This gives us some real parameters for looking at the rest of the assignments,” he said. “So, I don’t often have complaints from students.”

Junior Emily Hoff said AIs helped with grading in her history class. For finals, she said the professor and the two AIs split the grading.

“There’s no real way to tell if they’re grading the same,” she said. “But I think that they definitely try their best — no huge discrepancy there.”

While Cookman said he supports his AIs’ grading decisions, he has changed some grades.

“I may have changed a few grades over the years,” he said. “When a student comes to complain, I try to make that a teaching moment. I talk about their product and how they could do it better the next time.”

Senior Philip Hawkins, a student in Crespo’s section, said while he thinks the professor has the ultimate authority over grades, the changes Ardizzone made seemed inappropriate.

“We worked with (Crespo) the whole semester,” he said. “She graded our assignments.”

Hawkins said he thinks grading for creative classes should reflect how hard students work, not the level of their work.

“When you get a low grade, what is that supposed to say? Does that mean my work sucks?” Hawkins said.

Students in all departments have noticeably been receiving higher grades in recent years, Elmer said. However, he said he does not think it is because professors are grading easier.

“It certainly is a more competitive market,” he said, “I don’t think my colleagues think about this when they’re doing grades. I think they try to be fair-minded.”

Marcus Wicker, an AI in the Department of English, said all faculty members and AIs in the department stick to a high standard of grading.

“I think that because the economy is so tough, it’s not enough just to have a college degree,” he said. “Because of that, students are working harder. If there is an increase of grades, they should be applauded for it.”