Many of you have already come to discuss your grades with me, well before the Spring Break this year. Tranell's e-mail this morning reminded me of how much I need to emphasize that grades are interactive in this class, and you mustn't just forget about them till the end of the semester.

On Saturday, April 7, Tranell Colquitt wrote:

The site I am referring to is csudh.edu/dearhabermas/aidsfr01.htm. Also are you able to tell me how I am doing in the class so far?

On Saturday, April 7, jeanne responded:

First of all, thank you, Tranell, for responding so quickly and directly to my request for the file to which you were referring in your last comment. The site is very large and there are nearly 200 students in our classes this semester. When you tell me that you're referring to the article on AIDS in Africa, I'm not sure of the precise article. Your memo this morning helps tremendously.

Your second question is what led me to answer you here, in a teaching essay: Are you able to tell me how I am doing in the class so far?

Good question. Many wonder, but few have asked. So your question affords me a good opportunity to return to the principles of interactive grading. I would like to deal with the unstated assumptions with which this question is surrounded.

Unstated Assumptions About Grades

• There is a list of grades somewhere.

  Either in a roll book or on a scrap of paper, or in my head (in which case you wish I'd write it down, in case I get sick again. But somewhere, your grade exists.

  Wrong. If there were such a list, it would mean that I could "label" you at this point, and tell whether you are an A, B, C, etc. student. But you are not an A, B, C, etc. student. You are a student in the process of learning, and I am in the process of learning from you about your learning. Interactive grading means that we both refrain from "labeling each other" until we can engage in discussing the measurements you have chosen to measure your learning.

  First reaction, I didn't remember anything outstanding about the comments. If I had "graded" or "labeled" you as A, B, or C by that memory, it would have been inaccurate. for, when I went to check the comments, I found you had written several while I was sick, and I was actually just behind in responding. My C, not yours.

  But here's the crucial piece: When you ask me to pull up out of my apperceptive mass how you are doing in the class, you are trusting me to remember all your transactions, or to be able to find them in an impossibly long list of all our discussions, e-mail, and interpersonal transactions. Because there are 200 others, my apperceptive mass is rather full of data. And the unstated assumption is that you rely upon my ability to sort all your learning measurements out of that mass.

  That's why you have a journal. So you can tell me specifically things you've actually done, and which you would like to have taken into account in your grade. Some students have had to learn to use the computer because the Internet is what makes possible our interactive grading. But that has required much more of them than of those of you who came into this class knowing how to use the Internet. They need to tell me about their computer learning for this course. They need to let me know they want that counted as one of their measures of learning.

  You mustn't assume that I know what you've done. You need to tell me.

  Now, getting back directly to your question, Tranell, how could you have phrased it interactively? You could have told me: jeanne, I've sent comments on 6 or 7 articles from the site, I've done one painting in class that I would like to have credit for my interpretation, and I've done 3 things in my personal experiences that I would like you to be aware of for my grade in Peace and Conflict.

  You don't need to write everything out. You just need to give me an idea that you have some things in your journal you'd like to make sure are in my journal, too. And then you need to make sure you've given me a grade form with your choices expressed as to what will count for your grade.

  You'll see here that there is NO GRADE FLOATING OUT THERE IN THE REAL WORLD. Grades are a socially constructed concept that are made into concrete realities either by my imposition of my perception of your learning arbitrarily, or, as is more appropriate in a peacemaking environment, by our interactive assessment of both our perceptions of your learning.

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