The essay From Degrading to De-Grading managed to affirm my belief that grades, being nothing more than a supposed

reflection of performance, are largely useless: providing little actual help while delivering harsh judgment with a heavy hand and intimidating posture. In receiving grades growing up, I always remembered differentiating schoolwork and learning. Schoolwork was the thing that I had to do to get As for medical school, and learning was what I did for fun. Reading this article showed me that I wasnt alone. As a matter of fact, it not only showed me I wasnt alone, but gave me conclusive studies showing that assigning letter grades to students decreases their performance in school. This was an interesting article for me, as I have long been averse to grades, on the grounds that they didnt effectively judge a students comprehension of a subject and its concepts, but rather a test of how well the students recalled a group of memorized facts taught by the teacher for the purpose of a test (the bunch o facts approach referenced in the article). On that note, it is completely rational to say that I was not convinced to choose this view by the article, but, rather, my suspicions were validated. Concerning this articles effect on this class, I would recommend implementing some of the strategies, but within reasonable boundaries (since we do actually have to receive a grade). I suppose that, reasonably, we might reconsider adjusting the grading scale so that students didnt have to worry about failing a course, and could instead be free to initiate work without the stress of number/letter-judgment. Also worth considering is the idea of not assigning grades based on performance, but on improvement, or effort. I find the essay to be structured as an argumentative paper, with the most important (most effective) three points being brought up directly after the introduction, and after that, a conglomerate of other (much more opinionated) points. On that note, the effectiveness of the writers essay (in my opinion) is derived from the fluid way with which he transitions from one point to another. Even though the article is set up in a bullet-point format, it did an excellent job of moving seamlessly from one subject to the other. This fluidity comes from the fact that almost all of the bullet points are well put-together structures that can function as their own paragraph. In this way, he keeps the literary integrity of the paper intact, while preserving the clarity and cogency of the bullet-point style of writing. It is this creative blend of two distinct types of writing that the author manages to write an intelligent article in a comprehensible way. Based on the writing style of the author (previously noted as being intelligent, and yet understandable), the audience seems to be those in authority when it comes to deciding whether or not grades are implemented. The paper seems to provide a good amount of evidence to back its point up, signifying that it was written for ei-

ther skeptics or a party that needed convincing proof. Ultimately, I believe that the author did an excellent job of communicating his point in the proper manner, with a great deal of justified evidence and logical reasoning to back his point.