Perceptions of Fairness in Summer Bridge Classrooms with Contract Grades
Abstract
This narrative explains how a summer bridge student turned writing fellow effectively communicated peers' comments about fairness in grading to her former professor as she prepared to teach her summer bridge writing course again. Co-authored by the instructor and undergraduate student, this reflection explores both undergraduate understandings of fairness in the context of contract grading as well as the teacher-student relationship. Both teacher and student advocate for the use of contract grading in summer bridge writing classrooms. However, they argue that systems of grading need to be clarified and contextualized for pre-college students who sometimes express confusion about college standards and/or may overextend lessons learned during their first college course to their fall semester when not all professors will use contract grading.
Keywords: fairness, summer bridge, writing fellows, revision, contract grading