More than Facts

Perceived by many as the dark side of a teaching job, grading can be a time-consuming task. When teachers create an assignment they also need to have in mind how they are going to assess the students’ work. Although it creates more work up front, attaching a well-made rubric with the assignment will most often make the grading easier because it increases the chances of a good response.

            One of the main characters in Charles Dickens’ Hard Times, Thomas Gradgrind, is a schoolteacher who strongly believes in facts. In the start of the novel he embarrasses girl number twenty after her attempt of explaining what a horse is; Gradgrind then turns to Bitzer who can provide detailed information—facts—about a horse. Gradgrind applauds Bitzer, and continues his lecture about the importance about facts and how that is all he wants. His teaching philosophy in the beginning of the story could possibly work today if he was a math or science teacher; however, I think his assessment was too one-minded.

            GIRAFTS is an approach to assignment design that is taught in English 324. It’s an acronym for Goals, Intellectual process, Role of writer, Audience, Format, Task, and Scoring. The Intellectual process is where the teacher should list action verbs that cover what the students should be accomplishing while working with the assignment. Verbs further to the right on the scale of Bloom’s Taxonomy will in most cases challenge the students more as they include evaluate, analyze, and predict. On the contrary, if one stays to the left end of the scale, the students will be asked to state, name, and define—action verbs Mr. Gradgrind consistently used in his teaching.

            Although I prefer assignments that demand more analysis and evaluation, there’s a time and place for rote memorization and facts. In science fields such as medicine it is necessary for the students to memorize muscles, bones etc. before they can advance further in the field. In other words, the facts have to be in place before a student becomes a doctor. One could argue that it is similar with English because one has to learn how to read and write before attacking complex assignments that are geared towards evaluation; however, for native speakers language is intuitive and there’s usually not a need for practicing vocabulary before handing out an assignment.

             In the rubric, or the scoring part of GIRAFTS, the criteria should reflect the action verbs in intellectual process. The rubric is where the teacher informs the students about what is expected to achieve various grades. A rubric not only increases the chance of a good response, but also gives the teacher a reference while grading—which is fairer towards the students.