Does grading violate the freedom of speech?

Discrepancies?

From: Larna MacHutchin
Newsgroups: nwu.school.speech.class.comm-studies.c30
Subject: discrepancies?
Date: Thu, 20 Feb 1997 18:15:29 -0500

At the art discussion on Wednesday Michael pointed out something to me that makes this whole grading issue even more complicated. I didn't know that different TA's graded different students. This is clearly the largest discrepancy in my mind concerning the possibility of unfairness in the grading standard. There is no way, no matter how clearly Professor Goodwin describes the criteria, that different people are going to interpret it in the same way. That is part of our INDIVIDUALITY, that the graders are trying so hard to make a point of. This is, therefore, contradictory. If the evaluation system acknowledges how different people are and then has different people judging us we are going to bee evaluated differently and maybe mistakenly feel either poorly or great about ourselves. Does that make any sense? Think of it in terms of legal issue. When the Supreme Court passes an ambiguous rule of law that the states are supposed to follow, the vagueness leaves room for individual interpretation, which is bound to take place. In this circumstance, something illegal in Tennesse may be legal in California under different readings of the same federal law. We have witnessed the cases transform over the years to become more and more precise in their wordings and definitions, even as they have often become more liberal in terms of protection. The Court acknowledges that they cannot leave room for too much manipulation of the statutes to occur.

Another point: I think the new grading system is still too vague. Dana said that she was told her participation was satisfactory and she submitted once a week. Well, my evaluation wasn't much different, and I felt I participated often as well. However, what do you think about this. Somebody, who I have found out was graded by a different TA, who only submitted three times before the midterm, received a grade two grades higher than I did. This is perfect proof of the aforementioned discrepancy. Now I understand that this is going to change and that we were graded harder the first time. My point is not about the grade, which frankly I care about but not that much. My point is about the adverse affect that this discrepancy in evaluations may have on the various students' speech. Whereas I may have been "chilled" (although not likely because I am a loudmouth), but somebody in my situation may have been, the person who received a better grade with less effort than me may have continued such lazy participation. Then what we have is a very weak public forum with little true deliberation, all because of the infamous "GRADING"....

THOUGHTS?

LARNA

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Does grading violate the freedom of speech?

Discrepancies?

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