The recent Harvard report on grading practices has drawn a lot of attention from colleges and universities across the country, particularly for its claim that grade inflation remains a critical issue. The rising number of A grades assigned to students has prompted calls to return to traditional in-person exams and other lecture components, such as calling on students. However, much of the public perception regarding Harvard students’ large proportion of A’s, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education’s Beth McMurtrie, is “unsympathetic, painting Harvard as a college full of easy graders and entitled students.”

McMurtrie’s article title in the Chronicle, “Grading Is Broken,” perfectly summed up this dilemma. One point in her article that really stood out to me was her mentioning that many Harvard students believe that if they put in diligent effort on their assignments, then they should automatically receive an A. McMurtrie explains that current research on teaching and learning has encouraged both K-12 teachers and college professors to incorporate more “active learning strategies” and “creative projects.”

She goes on to explain that the COVID-19 pandemic ushered in these pedagogical changes, as professors had to “scale back” course requirements during the shutdown, and elementary, middle and high school teachers adopted “no-fail policies” that allowed students to pass even if their coursework did not meet the assignment criteria. It seems we are now at a point of no return, as many students expect their college courses to have the same leniency as they did when learning on Zoom five years ago.

From my own experiences as an English professor post-COVID-19, I am fortunate that my composition classes allow me to spend valuable one-on-one time with students to help them improve their writing and rhetorical skills. The fall semester composition course I teach requires my students to attend peer tutoring, so they receive feedback from peers in addition to my corrections and comments on their papers.

While this does take considerable time, I do believe most of my students feel I invest in them and don’t just randomly assign grades. I also made it clear to them at the beginning of the semester that I would be grading their essays and not AI tools. I encouraged them to use AI responsibly for research and essay outlining, and I explained how to use Microsoft CoPilot to help design PowerPoint slides. Thus far, none of my students has used CoPilot as they prepare for their research essay presentations, and many have told me they wanted to do this project without AI assistance.

The time that I have spent with students working on their essays and research presentations proves that some of what we call the “old-school” way of teaching is still effective.

McMurtrie asserts that we are at a crossroads with grading. Some alternative-grading proponents believe that the assessment system we have used for decades is broken and needs to be revamped. Others say that grading can be tweaked with creative assignments to engage students more in learning. I have been using an innovative, Gen Z-centered theme in my English classes, and I have found that having students write about issues affecting their generation has motivated them.

Dr. Jessica A. Johnson is a lecturer in the English department at Ohio State University’s Lima campus. Email her at smojc.jj@gmail.com. Follow her on X: @JjSmojc.