Let me tell you all a little story, harking back to the long past days of 6th grade. It was the first essay of middle school, about a lovely little book known as Watership Down. I worked really hard on it, I had read the book, taken notes, tried to remember the discussions in class. After proudly turning it in, it was returned to me with a big fat D written in the margins of all my hard work. That was the worst grade I had ever gotten at the time and I cried when I told my parents about it.
Fortunately, I was not the only one to do horribly, and she gave us the option to re-write it. Going over my essay I came across a few key mistakes. My thesis was horrible (in fact I don't think there even was one) and there were several problems with my introduction sentences and what not. That was lesson one. Then I edited it, and would have gotten 100%, had it not been turned in late. Lesson two.
With every bad grade I've gotten, I've learned far more than I have from my best essays. Bad grades sting, but at least you get comments back that help you improve. Good essay's get comments inserting commas and then "Good job" at the end with a smiley face. Bad grades help you get to the good grades and you learn far more from them. Believe me, it makes me happy to get smiley faces, but I don't learn how to be a better writer because I am already there for that essay. Now this would not be a problem at all until it comes time to analyze these writings for a little thing known as coversheets.
This year there is a new rule requiring all portfolio entries to be A's. I think this is a bit ridiculous for a couple of reasons.
Reason One: Not everyone get's A's. Plain and simple. If everyone got an A on every assignment, this would not be a competitive program. So students who did well on the valuable assignments that belong in portfolio's can complete them fairly easily, while the equally smart student who got a B has to search through their less portfolio worthy assignments that they got an A on to find something to use.
Reason Two: B's are still good grades. Ms. Cullen told us at the beginning of the year not to expect A's, that they are something to work for. Mr. Grossman liked to remind us that B's are not the end of the world, and for most students it is a fairly good grade. And what about the student who gets an 89% on an assignment? Clearly they did the assignment well and understood it, and it was only a few points away from being A worthy. Good grade, but somehow not good enough for a portfolio?
Reason Three (and by far the most important reason of all): Students learn from mistakes. Now, it might not be wise to submit a failed essay as a portfolio coversheet, but what if they really did learn from the assignment. Their coversheet would be all about what they could have done differently, how they are going to improve and also focusing on what they did well (however few things that may be) You learn more from why you failed then trying to examine why you did well.
Basically what I am saying is this. The portfolio coversheets are meant to be used as a tool to help us analyze our growth as students and writers. If the point is to document our progress, yet we only include A assignments, then the portfolios are not a very accurate portrayal of our actual growth as students. In order to succeed as writers, we have to understand how and why we failed in the first place. B, C, D and even E grades have a place in our portfolio.
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