What I came to realize with increasing conviction is that it's not quite useful to evaluate essays by using the grading scale as we currently have. It's pretty easy to divide papers into three or four categories: A, B, C, and D. But what's the point of further differentiating them into three sub-sets like A+, A, and A-? It's not like math exams where you can exactly and objectively calculate how many points students earned. I do not deny that humanities education is quantifiable, and probably it should be so to some extent. However, isn't too rigid a grading system harmful not only in humanities but also in any courses where writing essays constitutes the most significant part of learning experience?
