Interview post

While researching my issue of the problem with grading, I remembered a story my aunt Sofia once told me.  The story was about an incident that clearly exhibited the subjectivity behind grading.  The story was about her daughter, Penny.

Penny and Robin were neighbors, friends, and eight graders both attending Hinsdale Middle School.  Since English was such an important subject, these students had extended classes for ninety minutes a day.  Penny had English in the beginning of the school day and Robin had English during eight and ninth period.  They shared an honors teacher that had five classes a day with approximately one hundred twenty students. Often, they would work together on their homework.  Both girls were very good writers.  They would write papers together, correcting each other, and checking each other’s grammar and spelling.  That being said, a lot of their work was very similar.  However, Penny would always come home with a slightly better grade than Robin.  If Penny would get a “B”, Robin would get a “B-”; if Penny would get a “B+” then Robin would get a “C+”.  Therefore, one day they decided to test the teacher.  They were assigned a descriptive paper and they wrote the exact paper, word for word.  Penny turned the paper in first period and Robin turned the same paper in during the teacher’s last period.  They got their grades back; again there was a whole grade difference between them.  One paper had one person’s name and the other had another name, the only dissimilarity.  They could not be sure if that influenced the teacher.  They did confront the teacher.  The teacher did not know what to say, except, “A lot of the times I am reading one hundred papers all on the same subject, I get tired, and often I am in a different mood.”  

This story, told to me by my aunt, perfectly illustrates the problem students face.