Making the Grade in Section

Last semester's Historical Studies B-61, "The Warren Court and the Pursuit of Justice" granted its teaching fellows a great deal of power-in fact, too much power. in addition to steering section discussions and setting paper guidelines, each section leader was given the authority to determine his own method of grading first-year students. While some section leaders were willing to bend over backward to help the new students, others graded first-years as stringently as seniors. And though both options have merit, this inconsistency across sections of the same class should cease. First-year grading should be standardized across each course, by a consensus of the teaching fellows and the course's professor.

Those in favor of glorifying the accomplishments of first-years a bit more than those of other students have justifiable reasons. In addition to a class's ethnic, geographic and religious diversity, there exists educational diversity as well. Although the college preparatory students from Andover and Horace Mann abound in the class of 2002, they are balanced by students from high schools with academic programs geared toward state schools and vocational training.

For example, in my four years at a California public high school, I was never assigned a research paper, required to study more than one of Shakespeare's plays per year or asked to perform a chemistry lab more complex than using pipettes to observe chemical reactions. Such a secondary school education pales in comparison to that of more rigorous institutions and, accordingly, some teaching fellows recognize this variability in preparation and take it into consideration when determining their grading scales.

Other teaching fellows use the "tough love" approach towards first-years, acknowledging their lack of educational experience but hoping that lower grades will motivate the students to work harder and rise to the level of older students in the section. But even if these teaching fellows opt to neglect class status in their grading policies, they could still provide first-years with extra help in the form of additional review sessions or additional essay critiques-even additional office hours. Not only could this level the playing field between those of different high school backgrounds but also between first-years and those students with two or three Harvard years already under their belts.

Whether teaching fellows embrace inflation or the "survival of the fittest" approach should be left to their and the professor's discretion. My concern is that this standard remains consistent across the entire course.

Even without considering inflated grading policies, there already exist too many factors that detract from the uniformity of a course's sections. Most obvious are the variations among teaching fellows, from the dynamic leaders who draw students into discussions to the meek leaders who allow three or four students to dominate the discussion, from the TFs who could teach the course with more passion than the professor to those dry enough to make students resent ever enrolling in the course.

But while there is much that cannot be controlled in the administration of a course, consistency in grading is one empirical standard to reach for. The option still exists whether to support Darwinism or to embrace the inflation of first-year grades. There is already too much luck involved in nabbing a competent teaching fellow and a supportive section of students-irregular grading scales shouldn't be part of the crap shoot. Such concern applies not just to first-years, though it often seems that we bear the brunt of the burden, but also to every student in a class where grading consistency is ignored.

Too many of us have had a paper returned with a mediocre grade only to see a comparable paper by someone in a different section praised to the skies by a different TF. Indeed, one of the largest problems with the Core is the fear of random assignment into the section of an unfair TF who's grading practices are out of line with the rest of the class. Professors can do much to alleviate this problem, however, by circulating a set of standards and expectations to be evaluated in every paper in exam. Make sure the TFs follow the standards. Make sure the students know what is expected. Communication is the key, and it often will make life a whole lot easier for everyone.

Last semester, "Warren Court" Professor Morton J. Horwitz often lectured about our inalienable, constitutional rights which are immune from the intrusion of state governments. The federal Bill of Rights can not be applied differently in different locales. But even as he preached this gospel, his course's sections, our metaphorical states, employed varying grading standards and thereby denied us equal treatment. Perhaps the next time the course is offered, he-and professors in all large classes-will take his wise advice. Jordana R. Lewis, a Crimson editor, is a first-year living in Thayer Hall.