One Year of Unmaking the Grade
What's coming next, and some posts you might have missed
On May 19, 2023, I published my very first post on Substack, which promised a forthcoming, week-by-week chronicle of my experiences with ungrading a first-year writing class. Since that time I’ve published 36 more posts about two different classes and a collection of thoughts on grading more generally. And almost 1,700 of you have subscribed to follow along!
I’m grateful for your support over the last year as well as the great conversations we’ve had about teaching. Today’s post will look forward to what’s coming next for the blog (hopefully with some input from you) and look back on some highlights so far.
Looking Forward
I’m considering several different topics I’d like to write about here. Because I’ll be teaching Writing 101 again in the fall, I’m hoping to return to more concrete reflections on ungrading as well as more direct student responses to it. But I’m also thinking broadly about where the alternative grading community as a whole is headed and about systemic change in grading.
I’d love to hear from you: what topics would you most like to read about?
This summer, you can also expect reports and reflections from The Grading Conference, for which I am on the organizing committee. This affordable virtual conference will take place June 13-15. It’s a great space to learn more about current experiments with and research on alternative grading in many different disciplines. Register here!
Looking Back
I started this blog as a kind of reflection journal for my first ungraded class at the University of Mississippi, the entries of which I published week by week at the conclusion of the course. Since then, I’ve written about revisions to my ungrading practice as well as more general meditations on the whys and hows of ungrading.
Many of you joined this journey part-way through or only recently. Below, I’ve collected previous posts in a variety of categories in case you’d like to revisit any earlier reflections.
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Managing Ungrading Challenges
Posts about the most difficult parts of grading with students:
Conferencing with Students
Posts about mid- and end-of semester student meetings:
Student Perspectives
Posts about students’ responses to ungrading and other matters:
The Progress Tracker
Posts about a tool for helping students track their progress in an ungraded course:
The Whys of Ungrading
Posts about the larger purposes of (un)grading:
Happy reading, and happy summer! I’ll be back with more in a couple of weeks. And thanks again for following along. I’m thrilled to be a part of such a supportive community of educators and excited to keep the conversation going.