Assessment works, in part, by proposing that the quality of some piece of work can be described on a continuum—some version of ‘good’ at one end, and some version of ‘fail’ at the other.
What could it mean to grade in the ‘middle’ instead? The objective might not be to maximise quality. Instead, the focus could be on something like ‘harmony’ or ‘balance’ or ‘unity’.
This is quite a different way of thinking about evaluation. There is an implicit assumption, usually, that things on the ‘good’ end of the spectrum tend to exhibit some sort of balance, but grading models tend not to emphasise this—the valuable middle ground is subordinate to the overall emphasis on quality.
What might be the effect of putting the emphasis on quality of balance instead?
*This line of thought was inspired a little by some time spent recently reviewing the Nichomachean Ethics—Aristotle seems to like the idea of middle-ness.
**A later thought: Perhaps an Aristotelian take on learning would put the emphasis on ‘getting to the middle’, as a kind of guiding principle?