Alternative Assessment Ecologies
Welcome back to article two of the Disability and Alternative Assessment Practices in Composition Classrooms series. In this article, I discuss ungrading, labor-based contract grading, and engagement-based contract grading alongside cripistemologies, crip time, and radical flexibility.
Frameworks and Practices at a Glance
This article discusses several alternative assessment practices, including ungrading, labor-based contract grading, and engagement-based contract grading. Cripistemologies, crip time, and radical flexibility are also given space for discussion and general definition.
Disability as a source of knowledge production.
Bringing cripistemology into the composition classroom allows students to approach the writing process in ways they know work for them, giving them more agency in how they engage with the composition curriculum (Hawkins 10).
“[A] flexible approach to normative time frames” (qtd. in Wood 264).
“It’s not just about more time; it’s about flexibly managing, negotiating and experiencing time” (Wood 278).
Agency in negotiating time and labor.
Giving the students most affected agency over how they negotiate time and labor is significant in creating an assessment ecology that works for each individual student (Wood 278).
A holistic approach to qualitative learning.
Ungrading considers students’ goals, desires, and needs while valuing “the dynamic—and ultimately unquantifiable—experience of learning itself” (Bailey and Wilkinson 8–9).
Agency in engagement and assessment.
Replacing labor with engagement and introducing crip time gives students more agency in how they engage with a course and how they are assessed (Carillo 61).
Cripistemologies, Crip Time, and Radical Flexibility
Crip time and radical flexibility go hand in hand. Alongside cripistemology, these frameworks challenge “normative” assumptions about knowledge, time, and labor while creating more room for student agency in the composition classroom (Hawkins 10; Wood 264–78).
Cripistemology
A cripistemological approach allows for knowledge generation that is more diverse and robust than current “normative” epistemological approaches (Hawkins 10).
Crip Time
Crip time deconstructs the “normative” expectations surrounding the time and labor required to complete something (Wood 264–78).
Radical Flexibility
Giving the students most affected agency over how they negotiate time and labor is significant in creating an assessment ecology that works for each individual student (Wood 278).
Cripistemology
Cripistemology can be best conceptualized within a larger tradition that emphasizes disabled voices and experiences in the production of first-person knowledge about topics that concern disabled people and communities (Hawkins 10).
Disabled People as Knowledge Producers
Higher education has historically positioned disabled individuals as objects of study rather than recognizing disability as a source of critical knowledge production (Hawkins 10).
Preexisting Ways of Being and Knowing
Cripistemological frameworks “enable disabled individuals to know and work from their preexisting ways of being and knowing” (Hawkins 10).
Why It Matters in Composition
In academia, a cripistemological approach allows for knowledge generation that is more diverse and robust than current “normative” epistemological approaches. Bringing cripistemology into the composition classroom allows students to approach the writing process in ways they know work for them, giving them more agency in how they engage with the composition curriculum (Hawkins 10).
Crip Time
Crip time and radical flexibility go hand in hand. Crip time deconstructs the “normative” expectations surrounding the time and labor required to complete something.
A Flexible Approach to Time
Crip time is a concept in disability culture that “refers to a flexible approach to normative time frames” (qtd. in Wood 264).
More Than More Time
“It’s not just about more time; it’s about flexibly managing, negotiating and experiencing time” (Wood 278).
Time and Labor
Neurodiverse and disabled students may negotiate the time and labor required to complete a course or assignment differently from neurotypical, nondisabled students (Wood 264–78).
Radical Flexibility
Crip time and radical flexibility go hand in hand. Neurodiverse and disabled students may negotiate the time and labor required to complete a course or assignment differently from neurotypical, nondisabled students (Wood 264–78).
Such pedagogical designs should be negotiated with disabled students, not simply for disabled students. (Wood 278)
An Assessment Ecology for Each Student
Giving the students most affected agency over how they negotiate time and labor is significant in creating an assessment ecology that works for each individual student (Wood 278).
Ungrading
Ungrading is an interesting concept, one I had never heard of before the start of the Summer 2026 term.
Goals, Desires, and Needs
Bailey and Wilkinson explain that ungrading attends to the affective underpinnings of assessment and asks instructors to consider students’ “goals, desires, and needs” while suspending familiar habits of disembodied judgment (8–9).
The Experience of Learning
Bailey and Wilkinson move toward what they call “qualitative learning,” which considers “the dynamic—and ultimately unquantifiable—experience of learning itself” (9).
An Umbrella and a Practice
Ungrading can function as an umbrella term encompassing many forms of alternative assessment ecologies. It can also function as an assessment ecology itself, as Bailey and Wilkinson use it in their narrative-based approach (9–10).
Narrative-Based Ungrading
Bailey and Wilkinson describe their assessment ecology broadly as ungrading, but more specifically as a narrative-based approach. It asks students to conceptualize themselves as individual learners and signals that students are trusted to take control of their own learning process and progress (Bailey and Wilkinson 10).
01
Self-Concept
The approach asks students to “conceptualize themselves as individual learners,” opening new possibilities for learning (Bailey and Wilkinson 10).
02
Trust and Agency
Narrative-based ungrading signals that students are trusted to take control of their own learning process and progress (Bailey and Wilkinson 10).
03
Classroom Culture
The approach seeks to “recontextualize assessment within a radically holistic, ungraded classroom culture and process” (Bailey and Wilkinson 10).
Students Do Not Exist in a Vacuum
I found Bailey and Wilkinson’s ungrading practice particularly relevant for neurodiverse and disabled students because it assesses learning holistically, valuing the negotiations of time and labor that students engage in as part of the assessment ecology. Although this narrative-based approach does not specifically address disability, it recognizes that students do not exist in a vacuum where one course is their only responsibility or priority.
Engagement-Based Contract Grading
A notable approach is engagement-based contract grading, which has developed as a cripistemological response to labor-based contract grading. In The Hidden Inequities in Labor-Based Contract Grading, Ellen C. Carillo presents engagement-based contract grading as an alternative to labor-based contract grading.
Willingness ≠ Ability
"Replacing labor with engagement and introducing crip time into the classroom would allow for the decoupling of willingness and ability because a student’s chosen form of engagement is not bound to normative conceptions of time." (Carillo 61)
Agency in Engagement and Assessment
This decoupling gives students more agency not only in how they engage with a course, but also in how they are assessed (Carillo 61).
From Labor to Engagement
Carillo presents engagement-based contract grading as a cripistemological response to labor-based contract grading. Replacing labor with engagement and introducing crip time allows willingness and ability to be decoupled because a student’s chosen form of engagement is not bound to normative conceptions of time (Carillo 61).
Central Measure
Labor-Based Contract Grading
Labor
Engagement-Based Contract Grading
Engagement
Relationship to Time
Labor-Based Contract Grading
Labor may remain connected to normative conceptions of time.
Engagement-Based Contract Grading
A student’s chosen form of engagement is not bound to normative conceptions of time.t
Willingness and Ability
Labor-Based Contract Grading
Willingness and ability may remain coupled.
Engagement-Based Contract Grading
Willingness and ability are decoupled.
Carillo (61)
Greater Student Agency
This decoupling gives students more agency not only in how they engage with a course, but also in how they are assessed (Carillo 61).
The Curriculum Question
The Question
How does the instructor balance the requirements of a curriculum with the needs of students?
I found that I needed to broaden what I defined as composition and recognize the different ways people compose and write in their daily lives. Taking a more holistic approach to course engagement does not detract from the composition curriculum; it creates a more diverse and robust definition of being a writer.
Engagement Can Take Many Forms
Carillo lists several possible forms of engagement in a composition classroom, including discussion-board posts, oral participation in discussions, simulations, collaborative note-taking, and a choice between alphabetic and multimodal responses to assignments (57).
Discussion-Board Posts
Oral Participation in Discussions
Simulations
Collaborative Note-Taking
Alphabetic or Multimodal Responses
Agency Through Choice
Engagement and knowledge generation can happen through many different forms. By allowing students agency in their choice of engagement and offering radical flexibility, we can learn more than “normative” standards would allow (Carillo 57; Wood 278).
A More Diverse and Robust Definition of Being a Writer
Taking a more holistic approach to course engagement does not detract from the composition curriculum; it creates a more diverse and robust definition of being a writer.
Engagement and knowledge generation can happen through many different forms. By allowing students agency in their choice of engagement and offering radical flexibility, we can learn more than “normative” standards would allow (Carillo 57–61; Wood 278).
Works Cited
Bailey, Austin, and Caroline Wilkinson. “Ungrading the Composition Classroom.” Journal of Basic Writing, vol. 42, no. 2, 2023, JSTOR, pp. 6–34.
Carillo, Ellen C. The Hidden Inequities in Labor-Based Contract Grading. Utah State University Press, 2021. DOI.org (Crossref), https://doi.org/10.7330/9781646422678.
Hawkins, Kelsey. “Beyond Retrofitting: Crip Engagement, Radical Flexibility, and Alternative Futures for Writing Assessment.” Journal of Writing Assessment, vol. 19, no. 1, May 2026. DOI.org (Crossref), https://doi.org/10.5070/W4.JWA.46603.
Wood, Tara. “Cripping Time in the College Composition Classroom.” College Composition & Communication, vol. 69, no. 2, Dec. 2017, pp. 260–86. DOI.org (Crossref), https://doi.org/10.58680/ccc201729419.
Read Grace’s Complete Article
Read the complete long-form version of Alternative Assessment Ecologies, including MLA parenthetical citations and Works Cited.
Implementing Alternative Assessment Practices
Continue to the final article, which moves into classroom practice through the first day of ungrading, Critical and Creative Captioning, One-Minute Papers, and Narrative Self-Evaluations.