Asao B. Inoue's Infrequent Words

This is part one of two posts on revising in distant learning environments.  I want to respond to a question about revision, which came to me from a colleague Iris Ruiz (@ChicanaDra), in two ways. The first way is from a teacher's perspective: How do you teach revision in these times of social distancing?  In another post, I'll offer the same question addressed to students, so it'll be about how to learn to revise and learn from it. Teaching Revision from a Distance I think there are lots of ways to do this, like most things. I don't think I have all the answers, or even most of them. Mine is just one of many answers. Hopefully I offer here something that helps you further your own thinking about how to help you create ways to help your students revise drafts in your courses that are now online and from taught from a distance. What I offer, though, are ideas that I use in both face to face and online courses. Photo from Mopple Labalaine , "Dafad" Th...

This post is part three in a three-part series that responds to Erik Armstrong's (@mr_e_armstrong) Tweet. Thank you, Erik, for asking these questions. If you haven't, read part one and part two .  Is a labor-based grading contracted course rigorous? Is it as rigorous as a similarly structured writing course that uses conventional grades? My quick answer is: Yes, and No. Yes, a labor-based grading system can be just as rigorous as a conventionally graded course, even more rigorous. And no, it is not the same kind of rigorous. Rigor means something different in each kind of grading ecology. These two kinds of assessment ecologies are differently made, often have different functional definitions of rigor, and are just not very easily compared. Comparing what rigor looks like in labor-based grading ecologies next to conventionally graded ecologies is comparing rigor-apples to rigor-oranges. But then, just because a teacher grades papers by some standard of quality does not m...

This post is part two in a three-part series that responds to Erik Armstrong's (@mr_e_armstrong) Tweet. Thank you, Erik, for asking these questions. If you haven't, read part one .  How well do SLOs, or Student Learning Outcomes, work with labor-based grading systems? Most college writing programs and high school English courses have SLOs of some kind. They are often used to do a number of things: identify key competencies that students are supposed to learn; help determine curricula; and provide the specific things that programs can assess in order to understand how effective their courses or program is. Do labor-based grading systems in writing classrooms contradict or ignore SLOs? Can you use a labor-based grading system in a course that has SLOs already determining much of what goes on in the course? Photo by CZ , "Spring" The short answer is, yes. A much longer answer is in chapter seven of my book, Labor-Based Grading Contracts: Building Equity and Incl...

This post is a three-part series that responds to Erik Armstrong's (@mr_e_armstrong) Tweet. Thank you, Erik, for asking these questions.  Many folks often ask me about ways to account for the busy and often unpredictable lives that many students must face while going to college. How can one use labor-based grading contracts in a writing class, one that uses attendance, or the presence of students, to help calculate course grades? I'm appreciative of Erik's thumbs, since they raise three great questions, ones often asked in various ways when I do workshops on contracts. To honor the spirit of his tweet, I'll try to address all three of his questions (in three separate blog posts), since I also get versions of all of them all the time. If you are not familiar with labor-based grading contracts, you may want to check out a past post of mine that has lots of other resources on the practice, "How Do You Do Labor-Based Grading in Pre-Existing Curricula." Pr...

Photo from Victor Burclaff , "Egg Dawn" My friend, @minfucious, asked me a really good question about teaching problems and changes occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic. There are lots of reasons for why things go awry in a literacy classroom (online or face to face). I don't want to pretend that what I'm about to offer is a universal solution. It isn't. But maybe it will offer something to begin with. Min asks, "In my efforts setting up remote learning, which is a whole new system for my school, my students and me, I’m feeling the failure of my imagination. So much of assessment had to do with the culture we built in a classroom together." She adds, "Tho not all of it, the physical proximity is foundational. How do I reimagine instead of trying to make a square peg fit in a circle?" I believe, Min is working in a high school context, or maybe it's a middle school one, regardless her question really is one that we all can ask no matt...