The Elephants Evaluate: Some Notes on the Problem of Grades in Graduate Creative Writing Programs1

Peckham, Rachel, Composition Studies

This article takes up the "special strangeness" of grading practices in the graduate creative writing workshop, based on the author's research, personal experience, and interviews with the faculty of her doctoral creative writing program. Using a structure of notes, the author attempts to make sense of the way grades are understood by both teacher and student at the post-secondary level. First, she considers why the formal evaluation of creative writing continues to be defined by a system of grades, despite the perceived failure of grades to represent the value of such work, and despite educators' historic and ongoing attempts at reforming the system. And secondly, she explores the many …

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Publication information: Article title: The Elephants Evaluate: Some Notes on the Problem of Grades in Graduate Creative Writing Programs1. Contributors: Peckham, Rachel - Author. Journal title: Composition Studies. Volume: 39. Issue: 2 Publication date: Fall 2011. Page number: 79+. © Composition Studies Fall 2008. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All Rights Reserved.

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