Great question. Assessment was/is something I think about carefully. Formally, the school I was at expected more traditional grades/assessments. Before that and now at my current school, a balanced literacy approach was/is accepted. I'll admit that it does make grading much easier (and authentic!), but I'll share my quick tip on easing stress for you and your parents. Balance in a little of both. One "alternative" grade and one "traditional". This might mean you'll use one grade through a rubric and the other can be on a certain feature, such as identifying the plot of a story.
I also wrote a post about this last year. It's about focusing your time on assessments that will help YOU, more than worrying about grades that will be sent home:
Hello Beth,
Great question. Assessment was/is something I think about carefully. Formally, the school I was at expected more traditional grades/assessments. Before that and now at my current school, a balanced literacy approach was/is accepted. I'll admit that it does make grading much easier (and authentic!), but I'll share my quick tip on easing stress for you and your parents. Balance in a little of both. One "alternative" grade and one "traditional". This might mean you'll use one grade through a rubric and the other can be on a certain feature, such as identifying the plot of a story.
I also wrote a post about this last year. It's about focusing your time on assessments that will help YOU, more than worrying about grades that will be sent home:
http://blogs.scholastic.com/3_5/2009/03/the-workshop-model-assessment-strategies-that-work.html
Hope that helps...
Angela