Labour-Based Grading Contracts in an Indigenous-Specific Section of Academic Reading and Writing
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31468/dwr.975Keywords:
Ungrading, anti-racist pedagogy, contract-gradingAbstract
This essay outlines the experience of introducing a labour-based grading contract in a section of the University of Victoria’s standard introduction to academic reading and writing that was only open to students who self-identified as Indigenous. Labour-based grading contracts offer an alternative approach to conventional grading, in which a student’s grade is determined by the amount of labour that the student does over the semester. By emphasizing labour and learning, this approach to grading works towards decentering normalized whiteness in academic writing pedagogy. In this essay, I describe our labour-based contract, I explain how our class negotiated the contract, and I share some reflections on what went well and what I would do differently next time.
References
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Gaudet, L. (2020) ATWP 135: Academic Reading and Writing [Syllabus]. University of Victoria.
Inoue, A.B. (2017) Grading contract for TWRT 464 [Section A]. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Rs4Y0l7wdvlWHeYVeLLn1b3_DKOgD0cyfX7ytObKZNA/edit
Inoue, A.B. (2019). Classroom writing assessment as an antiracist practice: Confronting WhiteSupremacy in the judgments of language. Pedagogy 19(3), 373-404. https://muse-jhu-edu.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/article/733095/pdf
Inoue, A.B. (2015). Antiracist writing assessment ecologies: Teaching and assessing writing for a socially just future. The WAC Clearinghouse. https://wac.colostate.edu/docs/books/inoue/ecologies.pdf
Inoue, A.B. (n.d.). A social justice framework for anti-racist writing assessment: Labour-based grading contracts. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1q2KIqTBSIQRPxt5wvBwEvIm3jEfmIs0ixBrTIZtqEdU/edit
Wargo, K. (2020). A conceptual framework for authentic writing assignments: Academic and everyday meet. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 63(5), 539-547. https://doi.org/10.1002/jaal.1022
University of Victoria. (2020). Grading. Retrieved from: https://www.uvic.ca/humanities/atwp/current-students/grading/index.php
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