The Options

Since Molissa has so clearly and precisely articulated the actual information and process, I have deleted everything preceding it, since it will only serve to confuse people who come to this late.

-- AndrewCase - 02 Apr 2009

Confession: I am making a post during class (ironically, while we are discussing Ritalin). Explanation: I wanted to write this down before all of us, with our short and degraded memories, forget Eben's explanation.

We WILL have a third assignment. The question is about how to evaluate/grade the third assignment. There is a rule that all electives base the majority of the grade (over 50%) on an anonymously-graded assignment. We can chose to do away with this rule entirely and submit a third assignment that will be graded with our names attached, we can choose to violate the spirit of the rule but not the letter, or we can chose to follow the rule to a T. The decision process will happen in two stages.

Stage One: We vote on whether to do away with the rule altogether. This process will happen by email to Eben within the next 24 hours. If you want to get rid of the rule, you don't have to email. If you want to veto the rule, you DO have to email. Your votes will be anonymous. Complete abandonment of the rule must be 100% unanimous.

If we abandon the rule, our third assignment will be graded as our others have been - with our names attached, and with individualized feedback based on who we are.

Stage Two: If there is a veto of the rule abandonment, then we will vote on how we want to follow the rule. We can either:

• Follow the letter of the rule but not the spirit by having our third assignment graded anonymously, but agreeing that Eben will give us all the same grade. The third assignment will thus fall out of our final grades because we all got the same thing, and our actual "grade" will be based on our individualized assignments.

• Follow the letter of the rule by having our third assignment graded anonymously, with all of us getting different grades.

This second vote will be a majority-rules vote.

-- MolissaFarber - 02 Apr 2009

Thanks for clearing the brush, Andrew. I'm adding back a few of the posts that related to the relative merits of one choice or the other, as opposed to those that asked for clarification regarding the options.

-- MolissaFarber - 02 Apr 2009

The Discussion

Given that this will come up in Thursday's class, let's start the discussion.

I was not at all uncomfortable with being graded blindly in any of my classes last semester. However, after hearing Eben discuss the grading possibilities for our third writing assignment in class today, I found myself prickling at the idea of being graded "with a bag over my head." This prospect is particularly prickly since we happen to have a professor who seems to be investing a great deal of effort in individualizing the learning process. In the class following Theo's HowToFixHealthcare post, Eben explained that his responses to Theo were engineered to best help Theo learn and develop his piece. The discomfort for some of the rest of us had come from the fact that we learn and are motivated differently, but could still see Eben's comments. I was struck by this explanation because not only did it make sense, but it seemed to be effective. Having gotten to know Theo a bit over the poker table, I suspected it was true that he would step up his game if challenged in the way that Eben challenged him. Given his re-write of the topic, it seems that he did just that.

If we were talking about grading options for one of my typical 1L classes, I might lean more towards blind grading; I haven't been to any of my professors' office hours this semester, and would feel at a disadvantage compared to those students who have become BFFs with the professors. But we're not talking about a typical 1L class, we're talking about this class. In this class, I think I have the faith to take the bag off.

-- MolissaFarber - 31 Mar 2009

I think you make some great points, and I tend to agree with your positions overall. I actually would prefer more anonymity with regard to most classes, as many professors now have the ability to partially increase or decrease grades based on their own evaluations of your in-class performance. Even this small amount incentivizes frequent but banal contributions in many classes, which have the effect of distracting the class while someone merely gets their daily word in.

I think this course is an exception to a general preference for anonymity, not just due to the individualized assessment, but because of the challenge Professor Moglen will issue to those on either side of an argument. One thing I realized quite quickly was that this was not a concept that he just paid lip service to, which I suspect is a unique characteristic among the classes we will end up taking here.

-- AaronShepard - 31 Mar 2009

To be taken with the seriousness that individualized criticism requires is, especially in this degree program, an invaluable and all-too-rare opportunity. I say to hell with the anonymous grading rule.

-- MichaelHolloway - 01 Apr 2009

Given Eben's assurances that nothing truly "bad" will come from disregarding this rule, I agree with Michael. This is my first opportunity for individualized feedback on my writing since my freshman year of college. I'd like to take advantage of it.

-- KeithEdelman - 01 Apr 2009

I'm with Keith and Michael on this. Although it is painful sometimes, I think the individually tailored feedback is really valuable. I don't think we should pass up another opportunity to get some.

-- PatrickCronin - 01 Apr 2009

I genuinely feel that I am at a point of actually developing in some way with/from this class. A lot of loose ends are coming together for me, and I hope that I can reflect that in another assignment. Additionally, let's not forget that Eben has offered to allow revisions up until the last point before his grades are due. It might be really interesting to see how themes continue to develop during our respective experiences in "the real world" this summer.

-- JonathanFriedman - 01 Apr 2009

[Alex is discussing the "Letter-not-the-spirit" option to grade the third paper anonymously, but all get the same grade] This basically alleviates any "stress" that comes with writing a good paper, which may or may not detract from the overall quality of the papers. But remember, that means that the grade an individual receives will be determined by everything NOT the final, which may not be good for those that want to demonstrate improvement, effort, and commitment with the final paper. [...] with anonymity, we have less stress, but less opportunity for learning, thinking, and/or demonstrating the three pillars of this class. With the other option, we actually have to work (and stress and edit), but we will have something to learn from/show for it, along with demonstrating our growth and development over the semester.

-- AlexHu - 01, 02 Apr 2009

I agree with Keith and Michael’s early post… “The hell with anonymous grading” in this instance. Assuming that no one sends a veto, I do not think that we are truly breaking the rule if we agree to follow it in form but not in spirit. I fail to see the value in writing a blind paper that we all will get the same grade on. That to me is a waste of time as well as an inconvenience and does not directly address why the class does not want to follow the rule. If the consensus is that the rule is incompatible with the grading system that we have followed the entire term, then the only way to assert our bargaining power over the administration is to not follow the rule at all. Now that Professor Moglen has assured the class that nothing bad will happen to him( a concern that I find somewhat comical for students to have) the only way to truly say “fuck the rule” is by not following it at all. Instead we should continue what we started and have a third paper in the same form as our first.

-- WilliamKing - 04 Apr 2009

I’m struck by the fact that there don’t seem to be any posts that disagree with breaking the rule. I don’t remember seeing that in the deleted posts, and I tried to look back at them to make sure—I’m not quite a master of the wiki yet so I could be missing something, but I didn’t see them there either.

Surely not everyone agrees 100%? Even if there does not end up being a veto, I just can’t imagine that we were all as for breaking the rule as the opinions here. I think that breaking the rule gives us the best opportunity to demonstrate effort, commitment, and improvement, but it’s not often that 60 people in a room agree entirely with me or everyone else for that matter. So, I’m more curious about why the opinions expressed are only those that seem to be in-line with what the majority of our classmates and our professor are in favor of, without any dissenters or even half-committed questioners.

I realize that we disagree all over the wiki with each other and with Professor Moglen, but, when it comes to disagreeing about something as important to law students as grades, are we all really in unison or just too pressured to go with the perceived norm of what people other than ourselves seem to want? Isn’t this to some extent the same reason that we still have the current CLS grading system in our other classes?

-- EllaAiken - 04 Apr 2009

Ella: I can only speak for myself, but I, while being perfectly fine with anonymous grading in general and not opposed to the rule, am also fine with breaking it and with non-anonymous grading in this instance. Unlike apparently everyone posting on this thread, I do think teacher favoritism is a problem that you can't get around just by "hiring teachers you trust" as Moglen put it in class.

But, while I don't have some greatly higher level of trust in Professor Moglen than I do in other professors, I also see no reason to think I or anyone else will get a terrible grade that they otherwise wouldn't if he switches to non-anonymous grading. The same goes for an exceptionally good grade. I don't imagine for one moment that Prof. Moglen won't make assumptions about who the "anonymous" papers belong to, and let that influence his grading and his comments. So, from the viewpoint of influencing what grades people finally end up with, I think it's a wash.

And from the viewpoint of learning and developing, it's obvious to me that individualized comments are generally better. So I'm happy to go along with it if that's what everyone wants. To answer your question, Ella, probably some people are be scared to say anything against group consensus. But there also may be more like me who don't have strong opinions on one system versus the other, and who see the merits of what most people are clamoring for and so are okay with doing it.

-- AnjaliBhat - 05 Apr 2009

Ella: I can only speak for myself, but I, while being perfectly fine with anonymous grading in general and not opposed to the rule, am also fine with breaking it and with non-anonymous grading in this instance. Unlike apparently everyone posting on this thread, I do think teacher favoritism is a problem that you can't get around just by "hiring teachers you trust" as Moglen put it in class.

But, while I don't have some greatly higher level of trust in Professor Moglen than I do in other professors, I also see no reason to think I or anyone else will get a terrible grade that they otherwise wouldn't if he switches to non-anonymous grading. The same goes for an exceptionally good grade. I don't imagine for one moment that Prof. Moglen won't make assumptions about who the "anonymous" papers belong to, and let that influence his grading and his comments. So, from the viewpoint of influencing what grades people finally end up with, I think it's a wash.

And from the viewpoint of learning and developing, it's obvious to me that individualized comments are generally better. So I'm happy to go along with it if that's what everyone wants. To answer your question, Ella, probably some people are be scared to say anything against group consensus. But there also may be more like me who don't have strong opinions on one system versus the other, and who see the merits of what most people are clamoring for and so are okay with doing it.

Besides, there is that anonymous e-mail veto option for those who really hate it but don't want to say so.

-- AnjaliBhat - 05 Apr 2009

Eben recently updated the home page to indicate that nobody exercised their veto power, so we will be getting individualized comments on our non-blindly-graded third paper. I'm a bit surprised that there was nobody silently waiting in the wings during this conversation who wanted to veto, but nonetheless I'm very happy with the result.

-- MolissaFarber - 05 Apr 2009