ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the role of grading as both a motivator for and a detractor from learning. Methods are described to limit grading and to make the evaluation of daily writing one that includes the students, to the benefit of both the student and the instructor. For students who excel at schooling, grading is also a limiter to growth. The surface errors that color both teacher and peer perception of at-risk-students as inferior are invisible, and student thought rises to center stage. By the time students reach secondary school, both the strugglers and the overachievers are well attuned to both the carrots and sticks of schooling. The most difficult to teach are most familiar with sticks in the form of zeroes, low grades, and other embarrassments. In terms of evaluation of student work by the teacher, hearing student thought daily is ideal formative assessment.
