Colleagues, parents, and students are usually taken aback by the fact that I don’t assign grades for formative tasks like classwork or homework. There are so many reasons that assigning a letter or percentage grade is inequitable, unjust, and a poor practice. If you’re curious about more strategies for equitable grading, I encourage you to check out Grading for Equity, by Joe Feldman. This book started it all for me! Let me tell you why I stopped grading homework and what I do instead!

First, I call it homework, but that can mean different things for different people! What I mean by “homework” is any classwork that is designed to help students practice a skill, versus testing their mastery of it.

I Refuse to Give Points or a Letter Grade

First, grades for classwork or homework reward students who already understand material and penalize students who make mistakes (i.e. are learning). Homework/ classwork is a great (and necessary) formative tool, but when we take points away for incorrect answers, we are not showing students that we value learning, growth, mistakes, or progress. Instead, we are showing them that we value perfection.

Think about it – a student might do all right on a task – maybe they make a few mistakes along the way, but by the end they’ve got the hang of the skill. Despite the fact that they actually mastered the skill, they still receive a C. Think about how demoralizing that would feel as a student. You worked your behind off to make sure you understood what to do, but all you have to show for it is a middling grade that will not help your class grade or your overall GPA. Meanwhile someone else who could already perform the task automatically gets an A – without having to push themselves to learn anything new or improve their skills.

Furthermore, when we assign points for a task, we close the feedback loop with students. Students see their grade as final, unchangeable. It reduces an opportunity for feedback and growth in preparation for a test or project into a transaction. I go into this idea in a lot more detail in my post on equitable grading.

I Refuse to Give a “Participation” Score When Grading Homework

Even worse, in my view, is when we assign effort or completion grades to homework or classwork. When we reward students for just “getting it done,” just showing up for class, just being on time, just having their materials, etc.; they’re only learning that they can put whatever they want on that paper, as long as they “try.” This number, too, goes into their official grade – which then invalidates the overall grade as a student’s record of learning or success in mastering the content of the course. The grade is a measure of students showing up. Students who have the ability to finish a task ( or make it look like they gave some effort) win out over students who, for myriad reasons, can’t simply “get it done.”

I Refuse to Fail Students for Taking Risks

Students are hyper-focused on “getting it right” – they know that missing one problem will ultimately affect their GPA. So if they don’t understand they get anxious, they cheat, or they don’t turn in anything at all. What doesn’t make sense to me is that when we as teachers assign formative tasks, we are usually trying to see what students get and what we need to re-teach. When we fail students for taking risks, we show them that it is better to take the path of least resistance – to do the smallest amount of work for the safest grade. While we might preach a growth mindset, when we assign a grade for practicing skills, the consequences for taking risks and maybe getting it wrong actually support a fixed mindset.

What I Do Instead

Let’s go back to the purpose of formative work such as classwork and homework. First, we want to get a gauge on how well students understand a concept or skill so we as teachers know what to reteach or where to move next with our curriculum. Second, we want students to see their mistakes or misconceptions and correct them so that they can build on those skills in preparation for a summative task.

If we give a participation grade, they’re not going to get that feedback ( and neither will we). If we assign a grade, we know what students did wrong, but we’re not giving them an opportunity or means to fix it before it becomes part of their permanent grade.

Instead of grading homework, I do these things:

1. Before I assign the task to students, I determine what mastery of the skill or content looks like. I create a quick, bullet-pointed checklist of items I am looking for in success. This takes the guesswork and potential bias out of providing feedback to students. Also, once I provide feedback for all students I’ll have a nice, tidy, concrete list of what students have grasped and what I need to reteach before asking students to complete a summative task.
2. In my gradebook and LMS, the task will show up as “Missing,” “Incomplete,” or “Complete.” I communicate with parents and students that if it’s documented missing, it should be turned in ( or a students should see me for help), if its documented incomplete, the students should review my feedback and revise their work ( or see me for help). If it’s complete, they’re ready for the next skill. Students won’t receive a letter grade until the middle and end of the quarter.
3. Along with this non-grade cue, I also need to provide specific, actionable, feedback. I do this in writing, either on the paper itself or the submission if electronic. I keep a feedback bank of common mistakes to streamline this task for me. Sometimes, I’ll pre-print a rubric or a sticky note with my checklist. Other times, I’ll write comments ( or type them) directly on the assignment).
4. Students always, ALWAYS, have a chance to revise and resubmit tasks, right up to the end of the quarter. This keeps the learning loop open, and anytime they ask “What can I do to get my grade up?” there’s usually a pretty clear answer.

How Has This Practice Benefitted My Classroom?

1. It’s made communication about student progress with parents easier. Parents know not just a general score to indicate success, but they know at WHICH tasks their student succeeded on, which ones they need to try again, and which ones they still need to complete.
2. Parents and students have a sense of hope when they contact me because their student will never be in a hole so deep they can’t climb out of it. They know EXACTLY what they can do to improve, and they have the ability to make it happen if the effort is there.
3. EVERY student has EQUITABLE access to success. Not every student is going to complete every task with perfect success – and now their grade reflects their growth throughout the quarter as they take on the material – not every mistake they made from day 1.
4. I get MORE effort from students. Students CRAVE feedback. They WANT to improve. It’s just that the way most grading systems are set up, the cards are stacked against them and the opportunities fade quickly with each score. Students who shut down in other classes often are willing to at least give the work a shot in mine.

Is every student magically succeeding in my classroom? Definitely not. There are still students who are chronically absent who simply haven’t turned work in, students who come to school but never actually complete a task. The students most affected by this new practice are the ones who would be scrambling to get a passing grade by the end of the quarter. Ultimately, though, this practice has changed the climate of my classroom for the better, and I’m not going back!

How do you tackle formative grading in your classroom?