Using Narrative Assessments To Tell A Better Story

In Volume One of this series on “Going Gradeless,” I outlined the WHY behind our decision at Odyssey Leadership Academy to NEVER give a grade to any student, on any assignment…ever!

I also detailed the incredible success our students experience both in the learning environment and in our 100% college acceptance rate!

So, if we do not give grades (letters, numbers, GPA)…then what do we provide students, families, and colleges?

The answer:

NARRATIVES INSTEAD OF NUMBERS

What is a narrative transcript?

A narrative transcript is just what it sounds like:

A narration of the student’s work in a given class. It tells the story of their learning class by class, paper by paper, project by project, learning goal by learning goal.

We assess their learning through a descriptive narrative that highlights what the student learned, how they interacted in class and with assignments, a description of their original thesis papers, and the hands-on projects they created that gives an honest assessment of their academic journey

We do this so that we can brag on our students, champion them, advocate for them, challenge them, push them, and call them farther up and farther into the learning that shapes their lives

We don’t label students with numbers or letters because numbers and letters are far too small and narrow to properly show the whole journey our students undertake at OLA!

By getting to know each individual student, we are able to monitor their progress relationally rather than numerically, thereby furthering our commitment to guide each child’s personal journey towards health and wholeness.

Breaking Down the Narrative Assessment

Our narratives break down in essentially three parts (each about a third of a page in length):

1. A detailed description of the class itself: the topic, readings, and big questions of the given course

2. A detailed description of the work the given student did in the class: the readings, projects, assignments, leading out they engaged + their thesis paper topic and Celebrations of Learning showcase (at OLA, every student writes a thesis paper in every class and every student creates a public exhibition for our quarterly Celebrations of Learning student showcase)

3. A detailed description of how well the student did via their work in the class: we give an honest assessment of how well (or, sometimes, not so well) the student did. If a student grew in intellectual open mindedness, we brag on her. If he failed to turn in multiple assignments, we narrate that with authenticity.

We also create space for the student to give his/her/their perspective on the learning and growth they experienced throughout the course

Here is what that looks like in real time

(excerpts from actual Odyssey narratives with names changed):

"We spent Week One opening ourselves up to childlike wonder"

“Lee Ann continued to show strong critical thinking skills with class work on Thales’ Theorem and our compass and circle work. She worked hard through proving the theorem, and even caught mistakes that we made as we worked through different problems”

“Coming in at twenty-one pages in length, Graces’s original fiction “I iRobot: Do You?’ is a well-constructed story with multiple parts and various elements of the horror genre that ties in the horrors of capitalism, bureaucracy, and Sci-Fi horror in the form of multiple AI robots”

“Will learned about an atom's chemical symbol, its average atomic mass, and its various isotopes, increasing his knowledge as a scientist”

“The one growth I would ask Rachel to step into as she pursues her education is her coursework: Though shown with the correct end result, Rachel’s assignments were more often than not turned in late or with the minimum work required. I would hope that Rachel finds ways to go above and beyond with work in future classes”

“Messiah read upwards of 300+ pages of primary scholarly material and led out in class discussions on such topics as identifying rigor and livor mortis, determining time of death by blue fly pupae instar stages, and making statistical connections between race, gender, and national incarceration rates”

“Miles became a director, dividing up scenes and characters for various students to work on, assigning camera, sound, lighting, and setting, alongside the actors, giving our filmmakers hands-on editing experience and guidance on how to time shot-breaks, avoid dead frames, balance sound effects and dialogue, employ flashbacks, and build a complete and engaging story.”

“Demi's presentation taught her peers about the history of his elements, while also introducing their properties and uses. Unfortunately, Demi’s presentation was done late and lacked the quality that I was expecting from a senior. She did answer all the necessary questions but could have applied a little more work to show the integrity to her work that we expect at Odyssey”

“During this week, Harry studied the layouts of lab reports and how to properly fill them out while conducting his own labs, reviewed the definitions of the different chemical reactions and the applicable terms, and calculated the balancing of chemical equations. Harry then took this and practiced these lessons on a hands-on, two-day lab experiment that tested the reaction rate of various concentrations of yeast and H2O2 (Hydrogen peroxide).”

You can read a full length Odyssey Narrative Transcript here:

CONCERNS: Isn’t a Narrative Assessment too subjective?

Grading is always a subjective experience, with teachers deciding what assignments to give and how to assess those assignments based on the merits of the student's work and understanding.

The fact that we choose to use a narrative rather than a numeric assessment gives our students, families, and college admissions reps a deeper sense of the quality and caliber of the work our students do within their classes.

Whereas other schools use a number to identify their students, what we provide is far more.

We give our readers a full narrative that highlights more than a students “grades”; we offer a full and complete look at our students in authentic honesty.

Every assessment is subjective in its own way, but in our model, we provide the student and family the necessary information for academic growth, and provide colleges a deeper sense of who this person is as a scholar, a learner, and a human being.

We find this is far more valuable than a number as it genuinely reflects the actual story of the student’s maturation over their academic journey

CONCERN: But doesn’t that require more work of the teacher?

Yes, yes it does.

It requires them to do more work in at least two ways:

1. They have to genuinely get to know their students as human beings and not just numbers in the online grading software. They have to spend time getting to know the student in order to narrate their particular journey through each assignment in each class

2. They have to narrate that journey for every student, which is, honestly, a much more time consuming process than running a worksheet through the scantron machine and entering a number in PowerPoint or BlackBoard. Writing a full, one page narrative for each student in each class takes significant work from teachers

BUT…that is why I also argue for smaller class sizes and less courses in a given day (At OLA, we use a quarter system so that students only take one academic course at a time for eight weeks. We do this for many reasons, but one is so that our teachers can go in more depth with each student as an academic Mentor and not just a provider of content).

To do this would require reimagine the structure of schooling in fundamental ways

BUT…if the health and wellbeing of our students is our true North Star, making that shift on their behalf becomes worth it (see this previous newsletter for why we must do this if we are to reverse the trends of student stress, anxiety, depression and self harm)

FIRST STEPS: Steps “traditional” grade-based schools can take to move towards a narrative transcript

→ Hold the actual grade at arm’s length until the learning is accomplished.

One thing I did when I taught in a “grade-based” school is tell the student I would not give the assignment a grade until both sides were pleased with the result. I would then assess the work, give students feedback, tell them what they needed to work on, give the work back, and invite them to rework it. If they did, I would keep doing this until the work came back with excellence. Then we would both decide what grade the work deserved (most of the time, students chose a lower number than I had in mind). That put the emphasis on the work, and not the grade

→ Move to “Pass/No Pass”

Another way to step towards a gradeless system is to essentially make the assessment “Pass/No Pass” meaning if the student worked hard to understand the material and fulfill the assignment, they passed. If they did not, they “did not pass” on that assignment. Again, I would always give them the opportunity to rework the assignment until I felt they were progressing towards the excellence required to pass, holding a very high bar of expectation coupled with an equally high bar of support.

→ Invite student voice into the process

Ask students to narrate their own learning by reflecting on

• What they learned about the learning

• What excited them, what challenged them, what inspired them, and what frustrated them

• What they learned about the larger world (the whys behind the what, how, when, where, who)

• What they learned about themselves as a learner and a human being

Giving students space to narrate their own learning opens the door to creating a narrative portfolio that can follow them, even if you are still required to add a grade at the end

Hopefully, this has been helpful and has inspired you to take the first small steps towards a healthier, more holistic assessment practice

Volume Three will walk out the challenges and opportunities we encounter in real time at OLA using narrative transcripts, including helping colleges navigate the narrative process on behalf of our students.

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If you still need advice, feel free to reach out!

My work exists to help schools tell a better story for students, educators and the world. If I can help in any way—from workshops, consulting calls, professional development, keynotes, or year long cohorts—let me know!

Want direct, one-on-one help on how to go gradeless?

→Check out my website: From one-on-one dream sessions, to consulting with your team, to sharing at your site, I am passionate about helping you reimagine learning in your educational community.

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→ Grab a copy of The Edupreneur’s Field Guide. In this book, I bring to you all the wisdom, struggle, insight, hardships, challenges, obstacles, and opportunities I have learned from starting Odyssey Leadership Academy to help you tell a better story in education!