The authors report that fourteen weeks of contract-required work improves writing quality enough to warrant a B¶
Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · designr1·q1
Currency · newest study 2009 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person
Evidence quality · No study behind this claim is a peer-reviewed article with a DOI: it rests on a source with no registered publication record (a web page, book or unpublished report). It is kept because a design page cites it; treat it as a lead to check, not an established finding.
Subclaims¶
Reading the evidence codes
q is the design tier, i the impact, n the sample, and the kind with its r
the rigour judged within that kind: what each code means.
This claim: no standardized effect is recorded in observations/ for it yet, so no benchmark reading is possible.
q1 i? Completing everything the contract requires over fourteen weeks improves students' writing quality enough to justify the promised B, a claim the authors say began as an article of faith they now see borne out. → Danielewicz 2009
Evidence¶
Danielewicz 2009¶
Danielewicz, Jane and Peter Elbow. (2009). A Unilateral Grading Contract to Improve Learning and Teaching. College Composition and Communication 61(2). https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14394/23309
q1 · i? · design · r1
The authors' experiential report from their own courses, not a controlled study: they say the faith was "borne out" and that portfolios, repeated revision, and reflection help weaker writers improve enough to warrant a B. No measures or data are printed.
"when students spend fourteen weeks doing everything the contract requires (which is a great deal), the quality of their writing improves enough to warrant a B by the end of the semester."
Discussion¶
Learner Variables¶
- Writing Skills — outcome: instruction changes it
Related Claims¶
- A unilateral grading contract guarantees students a course grade of B based solely on completion of specified activities, not on judged writing quality — related
- Contract grading yields more total work from students, especially skilled writers who previously skipped learning tasks — related
- Two writing teachers report that decoupling evaluation from grades under a grading contract lets them give blunter feedback that students can weigh, an account with no data reported — related
- The hybrid grading contract helps resist grade inflation by reserving grades above B for exceptionally high quality — related
Page metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
type |
claim |
id |
fourteen-weeks-contract-work-warrants-b |
title |
The authors report that fourteen weeks of contract-required work improves writing quality enough to warrant a B |
description |
The authors report that fourteen weeks of contract-required work improves writing quality enough to warrant a B |
status |
review |
evidence_strength |
weak |
newest_evidence |
2009 |
generated |
by process:wiki-ingest on 2026-10-14 |
trust |
unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content |
sources |
1 — danielewicz-2009 |
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