Thinking About Thinking

Last year, when I was a member of Tony Winger’s grading project, I decided to realign my grading categories to more closely reflect what my students were actually doing in class. One of the decisions I made was to have a “Thinking Skills” category, because I believe that pushing students to develop higher level thinking should be a part of every class. This is the description of that category on my class guidelines for my English 10 class:

Thinking Skills (18%)
1. Apply higher level thinking skills to reading, writing, speaking, and listening:
• synthesize and evaluate information
• make inferences and draw thoughtful conclusions
• use accurate, relevant details from text to support generalizations
• analyze for themes in literature
• judge quality based on a set of criteria

(The wording for all these goals is taken directly from the LPS district language arts curriculum.)

And ever since I established that category, it’s been driving me crazy. Do I record two grades for every assignment, a completion grade and a thinking grade? Do I design tasks that I will grade purely on thinking skills, without worrying about things like mechanics? Am I better off assuming that every assignment has a higher level thinking component, and that to get an “A” on any given assignment the student has to display higher level thinking?

I tried to prepare my students by introducing Bloom’s Taxonomy, asking them higher level questions about “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” (How are the bears in the story different from bears in the zoo? [analysis]; How would the story be different if it were “Goldilocks and the Three Fish? [synthesis]; Was Goldilocks a victim of circumstance, or a vicious little homewrecker? [evaluation]). On a couple of assignments I gave the students a completion grade, plus feedback on the level of thinking their questions represented. I showed the class examples of their classmates’ good thinking on the classroom projector. But I still wasn’t sure how I was going to record all this fine thinking they were going to be doing.

Finally, as we began our Fahrenheit 451 unit, I took another look at my grading criteria, and an idea occurred to me. Why not keep a separate running record of the thinking the students displayed for any activity or assignment we did while reading the book. Whether it was discussion, a reading journal, a sticky note, or a blog entry, when a student showed higher level thinking, I would make note of it, and give them the feedback that they had “hit the mark.” I wouldn’t necessarily record a grade for every student every time, but only for those who showed good inferential thinking, suggested creative alternatives to story lines, or reached profound conclusions. Suppose I were to use a nine point scale to rate good thinking – a 4 or 5 for some pretty good analysis, a 6 or 7 for posing and then answering a probing “what if?” question, an 8 or 9 for a knock-your-socks-off, original insight. When we finish the unit, I could look back over my notes and determine an overall thinking grade. Maybe Student A consistently logged 6s and 7s, showing good thinking on virtually every task; meanwhile, Student B only spoke up in discussion three times, but every time was a mind-boggling 9; perhaps Student C never said anything in discussion, but then went home, thought about it, and wrote several killer blog entries – all three might be deserving of a good thinking grade for the unit. Of course, it will be my job to provide the students plenty of opportunities to display their thinking skills, and to encourage those who aren’t thinking deeply to stretch themselves.

I introduced this idea to the students this week, so we’ll see how it goes. And this post is getting pretty long, so I’m going to sign off and grade some essays now. Your suggestions are appreciated.