Tip: Labor-Based Grading
“Little picture” practical questions & “big picture” philosophical questions about labor-based grading.
Last month I shared my thinking about how to articulate a philosophy of grading and shared some resources about ungrading and specs grading. Today the focus is on a third philosophy of grading: labor-based grading, frequently also called contract grading (or labor-based contract grading).
Note: While I have experience as an instructor with ungrading/specs grading, I haven’t personally used labor-based grading, so I am relying on my reading and the personal experience of my research collaborator, Prof. Indigo Eriksen.
What is LBG?
Labor-based grading (LBG) has emerged from writing instruction/composition studies, with its most well-known proponent, Asao Inoue, describing LBG as:
a labor-based grading agreement that is written down, negotiated with the entire class, and renegotiated at mid-point of the term. It uses ONLY labor, or time on task and amount of words read or written, as a way to determine if a student has achieved the designated course grade negotiated. While you still provide formative feedback on all assignments and writing, you don't attach any grades to any writing or assignments, and you don't use the acquisition of grades or points to determine final course grades.
For Inoue, and many others who have adopted or adapted LBG, the heart of the practice is acknowledging grading as an inherently hierarchical practice that reinforces harmful norms, as he explains in the introduction to Labor-Based Grading Contracts: Building Equity and Inclusion in the Compassionate Writing Classroom:
Because all grading and assessment exist within systems that uphold singular, dominant standards that are racist, and White supremacist when used uniformly. This problem is present in any grading system that incorporates a standard, no matter who is judging, no matter the particulars of the standard.
Rather than reproducing harmful norms, Inoue argues for assigning a final course grade based on the labor students do. To get at this labor, Inoue uses a contract and a labor log (you can view/copy the Google sheet here) to help students understand how their final course grade - the only grade they will receive - will be calculated (see table below).
After filling in the labor log - minutes worked, what they worked on, how they felt as they worked - students can view a number of bar graphs plotting their labor in different ways.
Where to start…
If you are new to learning about labor-based grading, Asao Inoue’s resource page highlights websites, articles, and blog posts for both instructors and students. Other resources I have found helpful include:
Where to go next…
Asao Inoue has written extensively on labor-based grading, including two open-source texts: Labor-Based Grading Contracts: Building Equity and Inclusion in the Compassionate Writing Classroom (2019) and Antiracist Writing Assessment Ecologies: Teaching and Assessing Writing for a Socially Just Future (2015). An excellent complement to Inoue’s texts is Ellen Carillo’s text, The Hidden Inequities in Labor-Based Contract Grading (2021).
More questions than answers…
The questions I am still mulling over largely have to do with what labor-based grading looks like in practice - making the jump from the philosophical to the practical.
Practical questions
What’s the “contracted” grade for the course (a B? a C?) and what do you do if a student wants to aim for a higher grade? Does it become less about more labor, and more about a different kind or quality of labor?
How does LBG work with students who haven’t developed the intrinsic motivation to learn and apply themselves in a particular course?
What about courses in a sequence, where “passing” a course needs to mean something about the content and/or skills a student has mastered?
What about students whose labor doesn’t match the expected product? (I realize that the question relies on a premise that there’s an objective standard for “expected product” - which goes against the philosophical foundations of LBG…)
These “little picture” questions do bring me back around to the “big picture” questions about LBG as a grading philosophy.
Philosophical questions
Is labor-based grading a type of specs grading, where the specs address labor rather than accuracy (or another measurable thing)?
Or, is it under an umbrella that is ungrading?
What if the philosophy of LBG just doesn’t resonate with students?
Does a “contract” approach perhaps focus interactions more on grades, rather than less?
Does a labor log’s attempt to quantify work replace one problematic paradigm (that “quality” has an objective, neutral meaning) with another equally problematic one (that quantifying labor has meaning relative to student learning)?
How does focusing on the amount of work - the pages read or hours spent writing - support student learning?
I am sorry to leave you with more questions than answers - I hope to learn more over the next few months, and will probably come back around to this topic next spring.
I would love to hear about your experiences with labor-based or contract grading - particularly from folks outside of English/composition. Please share in the comments!
No experience but I'll share my thoughts...
"ONLY labor, or time on task and amount of words read or written,"
Oh, I don't know about this! This is basically basing a student grade on the degree to which they "engaged" with the course. I DO include "engagement" as a small PART (10%) of a student's grade. But, in the end, aren't final grades supposed to reflect the degree to which students have LEARNED or KNOW/understand the content?
I MIGHT consider basing UP TO HALF of the grade on "engagement" (labor based) but the other half HAS to reflect learning/knowledge/understanding of content. A student who might work really hard and earn an A for engagement but just "not get it" and fail when it comes to quality of work, might still fail the course (they only earn the 50% credit for the labor). A student who comes into the course already knowing much of the material might have to spend very little time/labor "engaged" with the course. That student might earn an A on all work but an F for "engagement". Does this mix of F and A = C for both students? If it fair to dock the "smart" student's grade simply because she did not HAVE to work so hard to do well on the work?
Is it really in keeping with the intent of education to pass a student who fails when it comes to knowledge of the content? To pass them simply due to "effort"?
Harmful norms? Like what is correct? This nonsense does a disservice to students. They deserve honest feedback on their work so that they can improve their performance. We can be corrective without shaming.