Undoing the Grade
Why We Grade, and How to Stop
Grades and assessment are elephants in almost every room where discussions of education are underway. This collection examines the what, why, and whether of grades: When do they fail? What harm do they do and how can we mitigate that harm? Can we construct more poetic, less supposedly objective, models for assessment?
The word “ungrading” means raising an eyebrow at grades as a systemic practice, distinct from simply “not grading.” The word is a present participle, an ongoing process, not a static set of practices. Ungrading is a systemic critique, a series of conversations we have about grades, ideally drawing students into those conversations with the goal of engaging them as full agents in their own education.
This book represents over 20 years of thinking and writing about grades. The work of ungrading is to ask hard questions, point to the fundamental inequities of grades, and push for structural change. There are lots of places to begin this work. This book offers a handful of jumping off points, pedagogies and practices to explore to make assessment more equitable.
Jesse Stommel is faculty in the Writing Program at University of Denver. He is co-founder and Executive Director of Hybrid Pedagogy: the journal of critical digital pedagogy. He has a PhD from University of Colorado Boulder. He is co-author of An Urgency of Teachers: the Work of Critical Digital Pedagogy. His research focuses on higher education pedagogy, critical digital pedagogy, and assessment. He’s got a rascal pup, Emily, a clever cat, Loki, and a badass daughter, Hazel.