Navigating Ungrading and Workshop in a Graded World
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We train students to be risk averse. They don’t want to take any chances. And I’m like, that’s not how you learn things.
—P.L. Thomas
Learning Without the Fear of Losing Points
For more than four decades, P. L. Thomas has been questioning the ways grades shape students’ relationships with learning. Beginning as a high school English teacher and continuing today as a professor of education at Furman University, Paul has experimented with delayed grading, revision, writing workshop, ungrading, and grade contracts.
In this conversation, Paul and I explore why students can experience feedback as judgment, how grading trains students to avoid risk, and why workshop asks students to see writing as an ongoing process rather than a one-shot performance. Paul also explains how grade contracts can create more adult relationships between teachers and students—and why assignments are better understood as “teaching and learning experiences” rather than evaluations.
Topics
Why even high-achieving students can experience feedback as criticism.
Revision, writing workshop, and learning through multiple attempts.
How grades and point systems can make students risk-averse.
Grade contracts as a way to build trust and clarify expectations.
Why mistakes and experimentation are necessary parts of learning.
What writing workshop actually requires from teachers and students.
Navigating ungrading when schools and universities still require final grades.
Practical ways educators can begin moving away from averaging and traditional grading practices.
