Why not let them give themselves a grade? I did this last year
for Silent Reading time. I just made a rubric that had the
things I expected the students to be doing during that time. On
Fridays, students filled one out. I translated the rubric to a
weekly grade. I was quite surprised about how honest most of
the students were. When I introduced the activity, however, I
told the students I had veto power and that if I didn't agree
with their results, I could change them. I think I only had to
do that with a few of the students at the beginning of the year.

Good luck!

On 11/06/09, lickety wrote:
> I think you would have to spell out exactly what you mean by
> participation and make sure students are given a rubric or
> something in advance---for example, "raises hand to volunteer=
> five times"---if you want to protect yourself against
> complaints that a grade for participation is too subjective or
> unfairly discriminates against kids (shy, Limited English
> Proficiency, introverted) for whom participating may be more
> difficult or painful. And clearly distinguish your practice
> from an iffier practice of giving a grade for behavior.
>
>
> -On 11/05/09, 2x2 teacher wrote:
>> I would like to start giving a weekly participation grade in
>> my middle school math class. I know though that I will have
>> to be able to justify the grade or the parents will be
>> throwing fits. Can anyone share how they do this,
>> documentation etc.?

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