I’m currently reading and thinking about The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop: How to Decolonize the Creative Classroom by Felicia Rose Chavez. It’s definitely geared toward the college level writing workshop, but I’m reading it from the perspective of a high school teacher and finding so many ways that it applies. This post will probably become a multi-part series to dig into a few of those ways, but one I wanted to start with has to do with the idea of engagement and accountability.

I am a work in progress as a teacher, and I hope that will always be the case. For years now, I’ve been working on a few connected ideas-Standards Based Learning, Grading for Equity, and even the idea of going gradeless. There has been a push toward all of these things in the schools where I’ve taught, and one connection between all three has been a focus on student learning rather than student compliance. 

That means that I have not enforced strict deadlines or linked attendance to grades in any way for several years. I have really internalized the idea that a student’s ability to comply with a deadline or class start time or anything like that should not be reflected in their English Language Arts grade. That grade (since I’m in a world where I have to give grades) should reflect only their demonstrated proficiency and/or progress on the grade level standards. At least, that’s what I’ve thought for the past few years.

Felicia Rose Chavez has me really thinking about how that may or may not have affected my students’ engagement. In her section on engagement, she asks “How do you make them care?” and then she answers “Start by making them accountable” (53). Specifically, she talks about deadlines and attendance, stating “Your workshop participants of color don’t need you to soften your policies for them. Just the opposite. Try demanding more of them” (53). 

I hadn’t considered the effects that accepting late work without penalty and forgiving tardies or even unexcused absences might have on my students’ engagement. What does it imply when I say they can turn in their essays a week late without penalty? Do some students take that to mean I don’t think they’re capable of doing it on time? Do they think it means that it isn’t important to me, so it doesn’t need to be important to them? How many students have seen my class as a “blow off” over the last few years, specifically because of my flexible deadlines and attendance policies? How many kids are late not because they have a good reason, but because they know I won’t write a detention for it?

The section on accountability and engagement makes me wonder how I can hold these high expectations and make students accountable while also holding to my principles regarding grading. Because I really do believe that grades (if we have to have them) should not reflect compliance. But I also think Chavez is right-that a lack of accountability has led my students to be less engaged, to care less about my class and their progress, and thus to not learn as much as they could. 

My first thought is to make them accountable to their parents or guardians. I could try to consistently email or call home for students when they have missing assignments or multiple tardies. And I really would like to do that-instead of putting a low grade on something, contacting home could open up a conversation that could help get to the root of the problem so that students can do their work on time more consistently.

The problem there is with the time that it might take. That’s always the problem. Giving a lower grade for late work takes less time and is easier to do consistently than contacting home. Even with mass email systems, which are more efficient than individual emails, it takes significantly more time than just marking a lower grade. Not only do I need to send the mass email (and proofread it 15 times even if I use a form letter, because that’s just how I am), but then I have to respond to all of the responses and usually follow up once the work is completed. 

Easier to do doesn’t mean better, of course, but can I consistently email home about missing and late work while protecting my time, my already tenuous work-life balance, and my sanity? Or are there other ways that I can make my students accountable for deadlines while still holding to my beliefs about standards based learning and grading? What about engaging students in a goal setting process where they can also be accountable to themselves? Do I have the class time available to do that? Can I really increase both equity and accountability in my classroom at the same time? Are those two ideas in opposition to each other, as they sometimes seem to be, or might they actually work together more than I thought? Clearly, this has raised a lot of questions for me, and I still have a lot of thinking and reading to do in this area.