Abstracts
Abstract
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.
Keywords:
- Ungrading,
- anti-racist pedagogy,
- contract-grading
Résumé
Cet essai décrit l'expérience de l'introduction d'un contrat de classement fondé sur la main-d'œuvre dans une section de l'introduction standard à la lecture et à l'écriture académiques de l'Université de Victoria qui n'était ouverte qu'aux étudiants qui se sont identifiés comme autochtones. Les contrats de notation basés sur la main-d'œuvre offrent une approche alternative à la notation conventionnelle, dans laquelle la note d'un étudiant est déterminée par la quantité de travail que l'étudiant effectue au cours du semestre. En mettant l'accent sur le travail et l'apprentissage, cette approche de la notation vise à décentrer la blancheur normalisée dans la pédagogie de l'écriture académique. Dans cet essai, je décris notre contrat, j'explique comment notre classe a négocié le contrat et je partage quelques réflexions sur ce qui s'est bien passé et sur ce que je ferais différemment la prochaine fois.
Appendices
Bibliography
- Cedillo, C. V. (2020). Cultural literacies: Towards inclusive writing pedagogies and practices. Composition Studies, 48(3), 132-162.
- 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