DOUGLAS REEVES
ELEMENTS of GRADING
SECOND EDITION
A Guide to Effective Practice
Copyright © 2016 by Solution Tree Press
Materials appearing here are copyrighted. With one exception, all rights are reserved. Readers may reproduce only those pages marked “Reproducible.” Otherwise, no part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without prior written permission of the publisher.
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Visit go.solution-tree.com/assessment to download the reproducibles in this book.
Printed in the United States of America
19 18 17 16 15 1 2 3 4 5
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Reeves, Douglas B., 1953- author.
Elements of grading : a guide to effective practice / Douglas Reeves. -- Second edition.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-936763-89-4 (perfect bound) 1. Grading and marking (Students)--Handbooks, manuals, etc. I. Title.
LB3051.R3554 2016
371.27’2--dc23
2015029666
Solution Tree
Jeffrey C. Jones, CEO
Edmund M. Ackerman, President
Solution Tree Press
President: Douglas M. Rife
Senior Acquisitions Editor: Amy Rubenstein
Editorial Director: Lesley Bolton
Managing Production Editor: Caroline Weiss
Senior Production Editor: Christine Hood
Copy Editors: Sarah Payne-Mills & Miranda Addonizio
Text and Cover Designer: Abigail Bowen
Mary, to whom this book is dedicated,
cares much more about family, friends, and
animals than she ever will about grades.
May it always be so.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am particularly indebted to leading scholars in this field, including Thomas Guskey, Lee Ann Jung, Bob Marzano, Ken O’Connor, Rick DuFour, and Rick Wormeli.
In addition, the prolific contributors to standards-based learning, teaching, and grading at #SBLChat consistently challenge my thinking on this subject.
Those at Solution Tree, including publisher Douglas Rife, CEO Jeff Jones, president Ed Ackerman, and senior production editor Christine Hood, make every project far better than my original manuscript. If I am the foundation of this town meeting house, then they are surely the walls, roof, and steeple.
—Douglas Reeves
Visit go.solution-tree.com/assessment to download the reproducibles in this book.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
A New Conversation About Grading
Understanding Why Grading Is So Important
Identifying What Influences Grades
Reconciling Experience and Evidence
What’s New in the Second Edition
Effective Grading in a Standards-Based World
What Standards-Based Education Really Means
What Makes Standards-Based Grading Different
How to Separate Policy From Politics
What the Common Core Means for Grading
What the Common Core Says—and Doesn’t Say
How the Common Core Influences Teaching
How the Common Core Influences Assessment