While this book has some helpful framing devices for grading, it can’t combat the fact that it was published in 2000. It discusses emails and online grading as new tools for teachers, which they were 25 year ago, but ANY profession has changed drastically with the internet. This leaves the book as nothing more than antiquated and sometimes even lacking nuance in the wake of the COVID outbreak. I can’t believe a summer course would assign this aged tome.
This is not a four star book for literary merit (obviously), rather it's a meta-analysis that challenges some of our general conceptions of grading. Like many of my education-related books, I bought this beauty for grad school and then never read it. However, this year I finally got fed up with having the "how many points do I need to get (an A/a B/a C/etc)," I broke down an read the book. Not nearly as titillating as most summer reading, but very helpful in formulating grading procedures.
If you're a teacher, you should probably read this. It challenges you (in good ways) to think about the whys and ways you report information about a student's progress/assign grades. I feel the self-reflection piece of this book has made me more effective in working with my students and their parents. Now I just need to get the rest of society to buy into it! :)
Not the most pleasant read, but was insightful about how students are graded in the classroom. The ideas presented in this book seem workable but not feasible. The entire American grading system would have to be transformed. With this in mind, I felt like I was wasting my time reading a theoretical book!