Rieman

Response to Reading Kohn Essay

After youve completed the reading for class, please thoughtfully and thoroughly answer the
following questions. Type up your work, print it out, and bring it to class. You can write this
response in the form of an essay, a letter, a question and answer format. We will use these to guide
class discussion. This work also counts as part of your final grade and will be used in your portfolio.
1. Where did you do this reading? (in your room? the library? etc.) What time of the day? What
about the time and place helped or hindered your reading experience?
2. How did you engage with the text? For example, did you underline, highlight, annotate, take
notes, look up words, research anything you read about, just read? It may be helpful here to
indicate what format your text was inpaper copy or electronic and think about how the mode of
a text influences how you read.
3. What did you learn in reading this text, both about yourself as a reader/writer and from the
content of the piece?
4. What questions do you have after reading this piece? What do you want to/need to explore more
fully?
5. What personal experiences can you relate to this text?
6. What are your suggestions for how we may focus class discussion today? It may be offering a
quote you found interesting or confusing and want to explore more. It may be a concept you think
we should talk about. It could be some tangential idea you want to talk about. Or perhaps its
some guiding question for the class to consider.
7. Why do you think I assigned you this reading for today?

Madeline CizMadia
Responses to the Kohn Reading

1.I read this piece in my room in the late afternoon. The room was quiet with little to no disturbances;
however, I read in pieces and took a few breaks. This did not hinder my reading of the piece as much as
reading it online did. Due to the length of the piece I found it difficult to remember every thought I had
regarding the writers opinion. Ideally, highlighting and annotating the text would have helped me
better focus on what I read.
2. Although I did read this text off of my computer, I still highlighted and annotated where I thought I
needed to. It was harder to engage with the text because I did not completely agree with the authors
viewpoints.
3. I learned that I accept that an author can defend their point very well even if I dont agree with their
opinions. I think that if I were to write a persuasive paper I would write it in much the same way, with
strong diction and an affirmative tone.
4. After reading this piece I question the consequences of de-grading school systems. Giving the
students more control over their grades and not establishing a strong system to assess the students
abilities to learn could potentially destabilize the learning process. Giving the students more control over
their grades could also lead to them wanting more control over other aspects of their education, such as
deciding whether or not they qualify to take a higher level or Advanced Placement class.
5. I can relate to this text because my high school used my graduating class as the first class to not have
rankings. Personally I did not like it because I feel as if knowing my ranking would have pushed me
harder to move up. We only knew our tentative standing by knowing which decile we ranked in.
6. I suggest that class discussion should focus on how exactly written assignments and work should be
evaluated. Those who want to share can bring up ideas on different ways to evaluate work other than
grades or numbers. Another topic to focus on could be In what ways could a de-grading method of
teaching succeed and in what ways could it fail to enrich a learning experience?.
7.I believe that you assigned this text to give you an idea of not only where we stood in our beliefs
regarding grading, but also to see how opinionated we are as a class. Some of us may stand with the
beliefs of this author and some may not. Seeing how we state our opinions and explain why we chose to
respond the way we did can give you insight on how we think and respond to persuasive prompts.

I like my ability to see a writers point here and see that they defend their position well, but I am still
able to keep my own opinion.