criteria for grading an essay

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Evaluation Criteria for Formal Essays

Katherine milligan.

Please note that these four categories are interdependent. For example, if your evidence is weak, this will almost certainly affect the quality of your argument and organization. Likewise, if you have difficulty with syntax, it is to be expected that your transitions will suffer. In revision, therefore, take a holistic approach to improving your essay, rather than focussing exclusively on one aspect.

An excellent paper:

Argument: The paper knows what it wants to say and why it wants to say it. It goes beyond pointing out comparisons to using them to change the reader?s vision. Organization: Every paragraph supports the main argument in a coherent way, and clear transitions point out why each new paragraph follows the previous one. Evidence: Concrete examples from texts support general points about how those texts work. The paper provides the source and significance of each piece of evidence. Mechanics: The paper uses correct spelling and punctuation. In short, it generally exhibits a good command of academic prose.

A mediocre paper:

Argument: The paper replaces an argument with a topic, giving a series of related observations without suggesting a logic for their presentation or a reason for presenting them. Organization: The observations of the paper are listed rather than organized. Often, this is a symptom of a problem in argument, as the framing of the paper has not provided a path for evidence to follow. Evidence: The paper offers very little concrete evidence, instead relying on plot summary or generalities to talk about a text. If concrete evidence is present, its origin or significance is not clear. Mechanics: The paper contains frequent errors in syntax, agreement, pronoun reference, and/or punctuation.

An appallingly bad paper:

Argument: The paper lacks even a consistent topic, providing a series of largely unrelated observations. Organization: The observations are listed rather than organized, and some of them do not appear to belong in the paper at all. Both paper and paragraphs lack coherence. Evidence: The paper offers no concrete evidence from the texts or misuses a little evidence. Mechanics: The paper contains constant and glaring errors in syntax, agreement, reference, spelling, and/or punctuation.

Rubric Best Practices, Examples, and Templates

A rubric is a scoring tool that identifies the different criteria relevant to an assignment, assessment, or learning outcome and states the possible levels of achievement in a specific, clear, and objective way. Use rubrics to assess project-based student work including essays, group projects, creative endeavors, and oral presentations.

Rubrics can help instructors communicate expectations to students and assess student work fairly, consistently and efficiently. Rubrics can provide students with informative feedback on their strengths and weaknesses so that they can reflect on their performance and work on areas that need improvement.

How to Get Started

Best practices, moodle how-to guides.

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Step 1: Analyze the assignment

The first step in the rubric creation process is to analyze the assignment or assessment for which you are creating a rubric. To do this, consider the following questions:

• What is the purpose of the assignment and your feedback? What do you want students to demonstrate through the completion of this assignment (i.e. what are the learning objectives measured by it)? Is it a summative assessment, or will students use the feedback to create an improved product?
• Does the assignment break down into different or smaller tasks? Are these tasks equally important as the main assignment?
• What would an “excellent” assignment look like? An “acceptable” assignment? One that still needs major work?
• How detailed do you want the feedback you give students to be? Do you want/need to give them a grade?

Step 2: Decide what kind of rubric you will use

Types of rubrics: holistic, analytic/descriptive, single-point

Holistic Rubric. A holistic rubric includes all the criteria (such as clarity, organization, mechanics, etc.) to be considered together and included in a single evaluation. With a holistic rubric, the rater or grader assigns a single score based on an overall judgment of the student’s work, using descriptions of each performance level to assign the score.

Advantages of holistic rubrics:

• Can p lace an emphasis on what learners can demonstrate rather than what they cannot
• Save grader time by minimizing the number of evaluations to be made for each student
• Can be used consistently across raters, provided they have all been trained

Disadvantages of holistic rubrics:

• Provide less specific feedback than analytic/descriptive rubrics
• Can be difficult to choose a score when a student’s work is at varying levels across the criteria
• Any weighting of c riteria cannot be indicated in the rubric

Analytic/Descriptive Rubric . An analytic or descriptive rubric often takes the form of a table with the criteria listed in the left column and with levels of performance listed across the top row. Each cell contains a description of what the specified criterion looks like at a given level of performance. Each of the criteria is scored individually.

Advantages of analytic rubrics:

• Provide detailed feedback on areas of strength or weakness
• Each criterion can be weighted to reflect its relative importance

Disadvantages of analytic rubrics:

• More time-consuming to create and use than a holistic rubric
• May not be used consistently across raters unless the cells are well defined
• May result in giving less personalized feedback

Single-Point Rubric . A single-point rubric is breaks down the components of an assignment into different criteria, but instead of describing different levels of performance, only the “proficient” level is described. Feedback space is provided for instructors to give individualized comments to help students improve and/or show where they excelled beyond the proficiency descriptors.

Advantages of single-point rubrics:

• Easier to create than an analytic/descriptive rubric
• Perhaps more likely that students will read the descriptors
• Areas of concern and excellence are open-ended
• May removes a focus on the grade/points
• May increase student creativity in project-based assignments

Disadvantage of analytic rubrics: Requires more work for instructors writing feedback

Step 3 (Optional): Look for templates and examples.

You might Google, “Rubric for persuasive essay at the college level” and see if there are any publicly available examples to start from. Ask your colleagues if they have used a rubric for a similar assignment. Some examples are also available at the end of this article. These rubrics can be a great starting point for you, but consider steps 3, 4, and 5 below to ensure that the rubric matches your assignment description, learning objectives and expectations.

Step 4: Define the assignment criteria

Make a list of the knowledge and skills are you measuring with the assignment/assessment Refer to your stated learning objectives, the assignment instructions, past examples of student work, etc. for help.

  Helpful strategies for defining grading criteria:

• Collaborate with co-instructors, teaching assistants, and other colleagues
• Brainstorm and discuss with students
• Can they be observed and measured?
• Are they important and essential?
• Are they distinct from other criteria?
• Are they phrased in precise, unambiguous language?
• Revise the criteria as needed
• Consider whether some are more important than others, and how you will weight them.

Step 5: Design the rating scale

Most ratings scales include between 3 and 5 levels. Consider the following questions when designing your rating scale:

• Given what students are able to demonstrate in this assignment/assessment, what are the possible levels of achievement?
• How many levels would you like to include (more levels means more detailed descriptions)
• Will you use numbers and/or descriptive labels for each level of performance? (for example 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and/or Exceeds expectations, Accomplished, Proficient, Developing, Beginning, etc.)
• Don’t use too many columns, and recognize that some criteria can have more columns that others . The rubric needs to be comprehensible and organized. Pick the right amount of columns so that the criteria flow logically and naturally across levels.

Step 6: Write descriptions for each level of the rating scale

Artificial Intelligence tools like Chat GPT have proven to be useful tools for creating a rubric. You will want to engineer your prompt that you provide the AI assistant to ensure you get what you want. For example, you might provide the assignment description, the criteria you feel are important, and the number of levels of performance you want in your prompt. Use the results as a starting point, and adjust the descriptions as needed.

Building a rubric from scratch

For a single-point rubric , describe what would be considered “proficient,” i.e. B-level work, and provide that description. You might also include suggestions for students outside of the actual rubric about how they might surpass proficient-level work.

For analytic and holistic rubrics , c reate statements of expected performance at each level of the rubric.

• Consider what descriptor is appropriate for each criteria, e.g., presence vs absence, complete vs incomplete, many vs none, major vs minor, consistent vs inconsistent, always vs never. If you have an indicator described in one level, it will need to be described in each level.
• You might start with the top/exemplary level. What does it look like when a student has achieved excellence for each/every criterion? Then, look at the “bottom” level. What does it look like when a student has not achieved the learning goals in any way? Then, complete the in-between levels.
• For an analytic rubric , do this for each particular criterion of the rubric so that every cell in the table is filled. These descriptions help students understand your expectations and their performance in regard to those expectations.

Well-written descriptions:

• Describe observable and measurable behavior
• Use parallel language across the scale
• Indicate the degree to which the standards are met

Step 7: Create your rubric

Create your rubric in a table or spreadsheet in Word, Google Docs, Sheets, etc., and then transfer it by typing it into Moodle. You can also use online tools to create the rubric, but you will still have to type the criteria, indicators, levels, etc., into Moodle. Rubric creators: Rubistar , iRubric

Step 8: Pilot-test your rubric

Prior to implementing your rubric on a live course, obtain feedback from:

• Teacher assistants

Try out your new rubric on a sample of student work. After you pilot-test your rubric, analyze the results to consider its effectiveness and revise accordingly.

• Limit the rubric to a single page for reading and grading ease
• Use parallel language . Use similar language and syntax/wording from column to column. Make sure that the rubric can be easily read from left to right or vice versa.
• Use student-friendly language . Make sure the language is learning-level appropriate. If you use academic language or concepts, you will need to teach those concepts.
• Share and discuss the rubric with your students . Students should understand that the rubric is there to help them learn, reflect, and self-assess. If students use a rubric, they will understand the expectations and their relevance to learning.
• Consider scalability and reusability of rubrics. Create rubric templates that you can alter as needed for multiple assignments.
• Maximize the descriptiveness of your language. Avoid words like “good” and “excellent.” For example, instead of saying, “uses excellent sources,” you might describe what makes a resource excellent so that students will know. You might also consider reducing the reliance on quantity, such as a number of allowable misspelled words. Focus instead, for example, on how distracting any spelling errors are.

Example of an analytic rubric for a final paper

	Above Average (4)	Sufficient (3)	Developing (2)	Needs improvement (1)
(Thesis supported by relevant information and ideas	The central purpose of the student work is clear and supporting ideas always are always well-focused. Details are relevant, enrich the work.	The central purpose of the student work is clear and ideas are almost always focused in a way that supports the thesis. Relevant details illustrate the author’s ideas.	The central purpose of the student work is identified. Ideas are mostly focused in a way that supports the thesis.	The purpose of the student work is not well-defined. A number of central ideas do not support the thesis. Thoughts appear disconnected.
(Sequencing of elements/ ideas)	Information and ideas are presented in a logical sequence which flows naturally and is engaging to the audience.	Information and ideas are presented in a logical sequence which is followed by the reader with little or no difficulty.	Information and ideas are presented in an order that the audience can mostly follow.	Information and ideas are poorly sequenced. The audience has difficulty following the thread of thought.
(Correctness of grammar and spelling)	Minimal to no distracting errors in grammar and spelling.	The readability of the work is only slightly interrupted by spelling and/or grammatical errors.	Grammatical and/or spelling errors distract from the work.	The readability of the work is seriously hampered by spelling and/or grammatical errors.

Example of a holistic rubric for a final paper

The audience is able to easily identify the central message of the work and is engaged by the paper’s clear focus and relevant details. Information is presented logically and naturally. There are minimal to no distracting errors in grammar and spelling. : The audience is easily able to identify the focus of the student work which is supported by relevant ideas and supporting details. Information is presented in a logical manner that is easily followed. The readability of the work is only slightly interrupted by errors. : The audience can identify the central purpose of the student work without little difficulty and supporting ideas are present and clear. The information is presented in an orderly fashion that can be followed with little difficulty. Grammatical and spelling errors distract from the work. : The audience cannot clearly or easily identify the central ideas or purpose of the student work. Information is presented in a disorganized fashion causing the audience to have difficulty following the author’s ideas. The readability of the work is seriously hampered by errors.

Single-Point Rubric

Advanced (evidence of exceeding standards)	Criteria described a proficient level	Concerns (things that need work)
	Criteria #1: Description reflecting achievement of proficient level of performance
	Criteria #2: Description reflecting achievement of proficient level of performance
	Criteria #3: Description reflecting achievement of proficient level of performance
	Criteria #4: Description reflecting achievement of proficient level of performance
90-100 points	80-90 points	<80 points

More examples:

• Single Point Rubric Template ( variation )
• Analytic Rubric Template make a copy to edit
• A Rubric for Rubrics
• Bank of Online Discussion Rubrics in different formats
• Mathematical Presentations Descriptive Rubric
• Math Proof Assessment Rubric
• Kansas State Sample Rubrics
• Design Single Point Rubric

Technology Tools: Rubrics in Moodle

• Moodle Docs: Rubrics
• Moodle Docs: Grading Guide (use for single-point rubrics)

Tools with rubrics (other than Moodle)

• Google Assignments
• Turnitin Assignments: Rubric or Grading Form

Other resources

• DePaul University (n.d.). Rubrics .
• Gonzalez, J. (2014). Know your terms: Holistic, Analytic, and Single-Point Rubrics . Cult of Pedagogy.
• Goodrich, H. (1996). Understanding rubrics . Teaching for Authentic Student Performance, 54 (4), 14-17. Retrieved from   
• Miller, A. (2012). Tame the beast: tips for designing and using rubrics.
• Ragupathi, K., Lee, A. (2020). Beyond Fairness and Consistency in Grading: The Role of Rubrics in Higher Education. In: Sanger, C., Gleason, N. (eds) Diversity and Inclusion in Global Higher Education. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore.

Essay Rubric

About this printout

This rubric delineates specific expectations about an essay assignment to students and provides a means of assessing completed student essays.

Teaching with this printout

More ideas to try.

Grading rubrics can be of great benefit to both you and your students. For you, a rubric saves time and decreases subjectivity. Specific criteria are explicitly stated, facilitating the grading process and increasing your objectivity. For students, the use of grading rubrics helps them to meet or exceed expectations, to view the grading process as being “fair,” and to set goals for future learning. In order to help your students meet or exceed expectations of the assignment, be sure to discuss the rubric with your students when you assign an essay. It is helpful to show them examples of written pieces that meet and do not meet the expectations. As an added benefit, because the criteria are explicitly stated, the use of the rubric decreases the likelihood that students will argue about the grade they receive. The explicitness of the expectations helps students know exactly why they lost points on the assignment and aids them in setting goals for future improvement.

• Routinely have students score peers’ essays using the rubric as the assessment tool. This increases their level of awareness of the traits that distinguish successful essays from those that fail to meet the criteria. Have peer editors use the Reviewer’s Comments section to add any praise, constructive criticism, or questions.
• Alter some expectations or add additional traits on the rubric as needed. Students’ needs may necessitate making more rigorous criteria for advanced learners or less stringent guidelines for younger or special needs students. Furthermore, the content area for which the essay is written may require some alterations to the rubric. In social studies, for example, an essay about geographical landforms and their effect on the culture of a region might necessitate additional criteria about the use of specific terminology.
• After you and your students have used the rubric, have them work in groups to make suggested alterations to the rubric to more precisely match their needs or the parameters of a particular writing assignment.
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Explore Resources by Grade

• Kindergarten K

English Composition 1

Evaluation and grading criteria for essays.

IVCC's online Style Book presents the Grading Criteria for Writing Assignments .

This page explains some of the major aspects of an essay that are given special attention when the essay is evaluated.

Thesis and Thesis Statement

Probably the most important sentence in an essay is the thesis statement, which is a sentence that conveys the thesis—the main point and purpose of the essay. The thesis is what gives an essay a purpose and a point, and, in a well-focused essay, every part of the essay helps the writer develop and support the thesis in some way.

The thesis should be stated in your introduction as one complete sentence that

• identifies the topic of the essay,
• states the main points developed in the essay,
• clarifies how all of the main points are logically related, and
• conveys the purpose of the essay.

In high school, students often are told to begin an introduction with a thesis statement and then to follow this statement with a series of sentences, each sentence presenting one of the main points or claims of the essay. While this approach probably helps students organize their essays, spreading a thesis statement over several sentences in the introduction usually is not effective. For one thing, it can lead to an essay that develops several points but does not make meaningful or clear connections among the different ideas.

If you can state all of your main points logically in just one sentence, then all of those points should come together logically in just one essay. When I evaluate an essay, I look specifically for a one-sentence statement of the thesis in the introduction that, again, identifies the topic of the essay, states all of the main points, clarifies how those points are logically related, and conveys the purpose of the essay.

If you are used to using the high school model to present the thesis of an essay, you might wonder what you should do with the rest of your introduction once you start presenting a one-sentence statement of your thesis. Well, an introduction should do two important things: (1) present the thesis statement, and (2) get readers interested in the subject of the essay.

Instead of outlining each stage of an essay with separate sentences in the introduction, you could draw readers into your essay by appealing to their interests at the very beginning of your essay. Why should what you discuss in your essay be important to readers? Why should they care? Answering these questions might help you discover a way to draw readers into your essay effectively. Once you appeal to the interests of your readers, you should then present a clear and focused thesis statement. (And thesis statements most often appear at the ends of introductions, not at the beginnings.)

Coming up with a thesis statement during the early stages of the writing process is difficult. You might instead begin by deciding on three or four related claims or ideas that you think you could prove in your essay. Think in terms of paragraphs: choose claims that you think could be supported and developed well in one body paragraph each. Once you have decided on the three or four main claims and how they are logically related, you can bring them together into a one-sentence thesis statement.

All of the topic sentences in a short paper, when "added" together, should give us the thesis statement for the entire paper. Do the addition for your own papers, and see if you come up with the following:

Topic Sentence 1 + Topic Sentence 2 + Topic Sentence 3 = Thesis Statement

Organization

Effective expository papers generally are well organized and unified, in part because of fairly rigid guidelines that writers follow and that you should try to follow in your papers.

Each body paragraph of your paper should begin with a topic sentence, a statement of the main point of the paragraph. Just as a thesis statement conveys the main point of an entire essay, a topic sentence conveys the main point of a single body paragraph. As illustrated above, a clear and logical relationship should exist between the topic sentences of a paper and the thesis statement.

If the purpose of a paragraph is to persuade readers, the topic sentence should present a claim, or something that you can prove with specific evidence. If you begin a body paragraph with a claim, a point to prove, then you know exactly what you will do in the rest of the paragraph: prove the claim. You also know when to end the paragraph: when you think you have convinced readers that your claim is valid and well supported.

If you begin a body paragraph with a fact, though, something that it true by definition, then you have nothing to prove from the beginning of the paragraph, possibly causing you to wander from point to point in the paragraph. The claim at the beginning of a body paragraph is very important: it gives you a point to prove, helping you unify the paragraph and helping you decide when to end one paragraph and begin another.

The length and number of body paragraphs in an essay is another thing to consider. In general, each body paragraph should be at least half of a page long (for a double-spaced essay), and most expository essays have at least three body paragraph each (for a total of at least five paragraphs, including the introduction and conclusion.)

Support and Development of Ideas

The main difference between a convincing, insightful interpretation or argument and a weak interpretation or argument often is the amount of evidence than the writer uses. "Evidence" refers to specific facts.

Remember this fact: your interpretation or argument will be weak unless it is well supported with specific evidence. This means that, for every claim you present, you need to support it with at least several different pieces of specific evidence. Often, students will present potentially insightful comments, but the comments are not supported or developed with specific evidence. When you come up with an insightful idea, you are most likely basing that idea on some specific facts. To present your interpretation or argument well, you need to state your interpretation and then explain the facts that have led you to this conclusion.

Effective organization is also important here. If you begin each body paragraph with a claim, and if you then stay focused on supporting that claim with several pieces of evidence, you should have a well-supported and well-developed interpretation.

As stated above, each body paragraph generally should be at least half of a page long, so, if you find that your body paragraphs are shorter than this, then you might not be developing your ideas in much depth. Often, when a student has trouble reaching the required minimum length for an essay, the problem is the lack of sufficient supporting evidence.

In an interpretation or argument, you are trying to explain and prove something about your subject, so you need to use plenty of specific evidence as support. A good approach to supporting an interpretation or argument is dividing your interpretation or argument into a few significant and related claims and then supporting each claim thoroughly in one body paragraph.

Insight into Subject

Sometimes a student will write a well-organized essay, but the essay does not shed much light on the subject. At the same time, I am often amazed at the insightful interpretations and arguments that students come up with. Every semester, students interpret aspects of texts or present arguments that I had never considered.

If you are writing an interpretation, you should reread the text or study your subject thoroughly, doing your best to notice something new each time you examine it. As you come up with a possible interpretation to develop in an essay, you should re-examine your subject with that interpretation in mind, marking passages (if your subject is a literary text) and taking plenty of notes on your subject. Studying your subject in this way will make it easier for you to find supporting evidence for your interpretation as you write your essay.

The insightfulness of an essay often is directly related to the organization and the support and development of the ideas in the essay. If you have well-developed body paragraphs focused on one specific point each, then it is likely that you are going into depth with the ideas you present and are offering an insightful interpretation.

If you organize your essay well, and if you use plenty of specific evidence to support your thesis and the individual claims that comprise that thesis, then there is a good possibility that your essay will be insightful.

Clarity is always important: if your writing is not clear, your meaning will not reach readers the way you would like it to. According to IVCC's Grading Criteria for Writing Assignments , "A," "B," and "C" essays are clear throughout, meaning that problems with clarity can have a substantial effect on the grade of an essay.

If any parts of your essay or any sentences seem just a little unclear to you, you can bet that they will be unclear to readers. Review your essay carefully and change any parts of the essay that could cause confusion for readers. Also, take special note of any passages that your peer critiquers feel are not very clear.

"Style" refers to the kinds of words and sentences that you use, but there are many aspects of style to consider. Aspects of style include conciseness, variety of sentence structure, consistent verb tense, avoidance of the passive voice, and attention to the connotative meanings of words.

Several of the course web pages provide information relevant to style, including the following pages:

• "Words, Words, Words"
• Using Specific and Concrete Diction
• Integrating Quotations into Sentences
• Formal Writing Voice

William Strunk, Jr.'s, The Elements of Style is a classic text on style that is now available online.

Given the subject, purpose, and audience for each essay in this course, you should use a formal writing voice . This means that you should avoid use of the first person ("I," "me," "we," etc.), the use of contractions ("can't," "won't," etc.), and the use of slang or other informal language. A formal writing voice will make you sound more convincing and more authoritative.

If you use quotations in a paper, integrating those quotations smoothly, logically, and grammatically into your own sentences is important, so make sure that you are familiar with the information on the Integrating Quotations into Sentences page.

"Mechanics" refers to the correctness of a paper: complete sentences, correct punctuation, accurate word choice, etc. All of your papers for the course should be free or almost free from errors. Proofread carefully, and consider any constructive comments you receive during peer critiques that relate to the "mechanics" of your writing.

You might use the grammar checker if your word-processing program has one, but grammar checkers are correct only about half of the time. A grammar checker, though, could help you identify parts of the essay that might include errors. You will then need to decide for yourself if the grammar checker is right or wrong.

The elimination of errors from your writing is important. In fact, according to IVCC's Grading Criteria for Writing Assignments , "A," "B," and "C" essays contain almost no errors. Significant or numerous errors are a characteristic of a "D" or "F" essay.

Again, the specific errors listed in the second table above are explained on the Identifying and Eliminating Common Errors in Writing web page.

You should have a good understanding of what errors to look out for based on the feedback you receive on graded papers, and I would be happy to answer any questions you might have about possible errors or about any other aspects of your essay. You just need to ask!

Copyright Randy Rambo , 2021.

Princeton Writing Program

Grading Writing

Grades are seen by many students as random and subjective, a belief that rampant grade inflation at the college level has helped to reinforce. Yet grades have the potential to be among the most powerful of teaching tools. When standards are announced and consistently applied, grades provide a reasonably objective measure of achievement (and distance to improvement), signaling to students the extent to which they need to challenge familiar ways of thinking and writing. Grades also give written comments an edge they might not otherwise have.

Grading with clear criteria in mind helps to ensure fairness and objectivity. So does another principle of grading: Grade the paper and nothing but the paper — not the person who wrote it, the effort that went into it, or the improvement it shows. This principle dramatically simplifies the task of evaluation by eliminating second guessing; it also guarantees that students are judged on an equal basis. “Grade the paper and nothing but the paper” means grading the entire paper, not just a part of it. Papers bend and swoop and turn, and grades need to be responsive to their sometimes erratic flight patterns. It means grading the actual paper as well. Rather than assigning a grade based on what a paper seems at first glance to be, or what in hindsight it might have been, it’s more fair—and more objective—to grade the paper as it actually is.

You might also consider complementing letter grades for high-stakes assignments with contract grades for class participation or “spec” grades for low-stakes assignments, helping to incentivize students to meet critical benchmarks and to take intellectual risks during the writing process.

In the Spotlight: Writing Program Grading Standards for Revisions (used across all the Writing Seminars to grade the three major essays) 

Three Steps to Determine a Grade

If you wait to decide on the grade until after you’ve written your final comment, the grade you assign is likely to be more accurate and fair than would otherwise be true, and the decision-making process will be less agonizing. To determine the grade, try these three steps:

• Re-read your final comment. As you do this, think about the extent to which the paper has met your grading criteria. You might even compose, in your notes or in your mind, a brief description of the paper in terms of these criteria—for example, “Good research question, obvious enthusiasm for the topic, and clear writing, but driven by an observation, not a thesis; use of a listing structure; lack of evidence to ground generalizations; overreliance on the opinions of secondary sources.”
• Determine whether a paper falls above or below “the line.” It’s useful to think of papers as falling above or below an imaginary line in the grading scale—for example, B-/C+. A line set higher on the grading scale (say, at A-/B+) will result in higher grades. Whether a paper falls above or below the line most often depends on how effective the paper’s source use and thesis are: a readable paper with a clear argument grounded in specific sources will usually receive an above-the-line grade; a paper that’s difficult to read, stuck in generalities, and lacking clear argument will usually receive a below-the-line grade. The paper described above would most certainly fall below the line, no matter where the line is set.
• Make fine distinctions. Having determined whether a paper is above or be- low the line, consider why it should receive a particular grade, not something slightly higher or slightly lower. If the line is set at B-/C+, then the paper described above would probably earn a C, because its weaknesses make a C+ too generous, and its strengths in the making suggest a C- or lower would be too harsh. If the line is set at A-/B+, the paper would probably get a B. As you can infer, disagreements over grades are often actually disagreements over where the line is set.

Although grading a piece of writing will never be an exact science, implementing the simple techniques discussed above can make the process less subjective and even less agonizing. 

University Writing Program

• Collaborative Writing
• Writing for Metacognition
• Supporting Multilingual Writers
• Alternatives to Grading
• Making Feedback Matter
• Peer Review
• Responding to Multilingual Writers’ Texts
• Model Library

Written by Arthur Russell

Just about every discussion of rubrics begins with a caveat: writing rubrics are not a substitute for writing instruction. Rubrics are tools for communicating grading criteria and assessing student progress. Rubrics take a variety of forms, from grids to checklists , and measure a range of writing tasks, from conceptual design to sentence-level considerations.  

As with any assessment tool, a rubric’s effectiveness is entirely dependent upon its design and its deployment in the classroom. Whatever form rubrics take, the criteria for assessment must be legible to all students—if students cannot decipher our rubrics, they are not useful.  

When effectively integrated with writing instruction, rubrics can help instructors clarify their own expectations for written work, isolate specific elements as targets of instruction, and provide meaningful feedback and coaching to students. Well-designed rubrics will draw program learning outcomes, assignment prompts, course instruction and assessment into alignment. 

Starting Points

Course rubrics vs. assignment rubrics.

Instructors may choose to use a standard rubric for evaluating all written work completed in a course. Course rubrics provide instructors and students a shared language for communicating the values and expectations of written work over the course of an entire semester. Best practices suggest that establishing grading criteria with students well in advance helps instructors compose focused, revision-oriented feedback on drafts and final papers and better coach student writers. When deploying course rubrics in writing-intensive courses, consider using them to guide peer review and self-evaluation processes with students. The more often students work with established criteria, the more likely they are to respond to and incorporate feedback in future projects.

At the same time, not every assignment needs to assess every aspect of the writing process every time. Particularly early in the semester, instructors may develop assignment-specific rubrics that target one or two standards. Prioritizing a specific learning objective or writing process in an assignment rubric allows instructors to concentrate time spent on in-class writing instruction and encourages students to develop targeted aspects of their writing processes.  

Developing Evaluation Criteria

• Establish clear categories. What specific learning objectives (i.e. critical and creative thinking, inquiry and analysis) and writing processes (i.e. summary, synthesis, source analysis, argument and response) are most critical to success for each assignment? 
• Establish observable and measurable criteria of success. For example, consider what counts for “clarity” in written work. For a research paper, clarity might attend to purpose: a successful paper will have a well-defined purpose (thesis, takeaway), integrate and explain evidence to support all claims, and pay careful attention to purpose, context, and audience. 
• Adopt student-friendly language. When using academic terminology and discipline-specific concepts, be sure to define and discuss these concepts with students. When in doubt , VALUE rubrics are excellent models of clearly defined learning objective and distinguishing criteria.  

Sticking Points: Writing Rubrics in the Disciplines  

Even the most carefully planned rubrics are not self-evident. The language we have adopted for writing assessment is itself a potential obstacle to student learning and success . What we count for “clarity” or “accuracy” or “insight” in academic writing, for instance, is likely shaped by our disciplinary expectations and measured by the standards of our respective fields. What counts for “good writing” is more subjective than our rubrics may suggest. Similarly, students arrive in our courses with their own understanding and experiences of academic writing that may or may not be reflected in our assignment prompts. 

Defining the terms for success with students in class and in conference will go a long way  toward bridging these gaps. We might even use rubrics as conversation starters, not only as an occasion to communicate our expectations for written work, but also as an opportunity to demystify the rhetorical contexts of discipline-specific writing with students.

Helpful Resources  

For a short introduction to rubric design, the Creating Rubrics guide developed by Louise Pasternack (2014) for the  Center for Teaching  Excellence and Innovation is an excellent resource.  The step-by-step tutorials developed by North Carolina State University and DePaul Teaching Commons are especially useful for instructors preparing rubrics from scratch.  On the use of rubrics for writing instruction and assignments in particular, Heidi Andrade’s “Teaching with Rubrics: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” provides an instructive overview of the benefits and drawbacks of using rubrics.  For a more in-depth introduction (with sample rubrics), Melzer and Bean’s “Using Rubrics to Develop and Apply Grading Criteria” in  Engaging Ideas  is essential reading. 

Cited and Recommended Sources

• Andrade, Heidi Goodrich. “Teaching with Rubrics: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.” College Teaching , vol. 53, no. 1, 2005, pp. 27–30, http://www.jstor.org/stable/27559213  
• Athon, Amanda. “Designing Rubrics to Foster Students’ Diverse Language Backgrounds.” Journal of Basic Writing , vol. 38, No.1, 2019, pp. 78–103, https://doi.org/10.37514/JBW-J.2019.38.1.05  
• Bennett, Cary. “Assessment Rubrics: Thinking inside the Boxes.” Learning and Teaching: The International Journal of Higher Education in the Social Sciences , vol. 9, no. 1, 2016, pp. 50–72,  http://www.jstor.org/stable/24718020  
• Broad, Bob. What We Really Value: Beyond Rubrics in Teaching and Assessing Writing . University Press of Colorado, 2003. https://doi-org.proxy1.library.jhu.edu/10.2307/j.ctt46nxvm  
• Melzer, Dan, and John C. Bean. Engaging Ideas: The Professor’s Guide to Integrating Writing, Critical Thinking, and Active Learning in the Classroom . 3rd ed., Jossey-Bass, 2021 (esp. pp. 253-277), https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.proxy1.library.jhu.edu/lib/jhu/detail.action?docID=6632622  
• Pasternack, Louise. “Creating Rubrics,” The Innovative Instructor Blog , Center for Teaching Excellence and Innovation, Johns Hopkins University, 21 Nov. 2014.  
• Reynders, G., et al. “Rubrics to assess critical thinking and information processing in undergraduate STEM courses.” International Journal of STEM Education vol. 7, no. 9, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40594-020-00208-5  
• Turley, Eric D., and Chris W. Gallagher. “On the ‘Uses’ of Rubrics: Reframing the Great Rubric Debate.” The English Journal , vol. 97, no. 4, 2008, pp. 87–92, http://www.jstor.org/stable/30047253  
• Wiggins, Grant. “The Constant Danger of Sacrificing Validity to Reliability: Making Writing Assessment Serve Writers.” Assessing Writing , vol. 1, no. 1, 1994, pp. 129-139, https://doi.org/10.1016/1075-2935(94)90008-6  

Structure and Scoring of the Assessment

The structure of the assessment.

You'll begin by reading a prose passage of 700-1,000 words. This passage will be about as difficult as the readings in first-year courses at UC Berkeley. You'll have up to two hours to read the passage carefully and write an essay in response to a single topic and related questions based on the passage's content. These questions will generally ask you to read thoughtfully and to provide reasoned, concrete, and developed presentations of a specific point of view. Your essay will be evaluated on the basis of your ability to develop your central idea, to express yourself clearly, and to use the conventions of written English. 

Five Qualities of a Well-Written Essay

There is no "correct" response for the topic, but there are some things readers will look for in a strong, well-written essay.

• The writer demonstrates that they understood the passage.
• The writer maintains focus on the task assigned.
• The writer leads readers to understand a point of view, if not to accept it.
• The writer develops a central idea and provides specific examples.
• The writer evaluates the reading passage in light of personal experience, observations, or by testing the author's assumptions against their own.

Scoring is typically completed within three weeks after the assessment date. The readers are UC Berkeley faculty members, primarily from College Writing Programs, though faculty from other related departments, such as English or Comparative Literature might participate as well. 

Your essay will be scored independently by two readers, who will not know your identity. They will measure your essay against a scoring guide. If the two readers have different opinions, then a third reader will assess your essay as well  to help reach a final decision. Each reader will give your essay a score on a scale of 1 (lowest) to 6 (highest). When your two scores are added together, if they are 8 or higher, you satisfy the Entry Level Writing Requirement and may take any 4-unit "R_A" course (first half of the requirement, usually numbered R1A, though sometimes with a different number). If you receive a score less than 8, you should sign up for College Writing R1A, which satisfies both the Entry Level Writing Requirement and the first-semester ("A" part) of the Reading and Composition Requirement.

The Scoring Guide

The Scoring Guide outlines the characteristics typical of essays at six different levels of competence. Readers assign each essay a score according to its main qualities. Readers take into account the fact that the responses are written with two hours of reading and writing, without a longer period of time for drafting and revision.

An essay with a score of 6 may

• command attention because of its insightful development and mature style.
• present a cogent response to the text, elaborating that response with well-chosen  examples and persuasive reasoning. 
• present an organization that reinforces the development of the ideas which are aptly detailed.
• show that its writer can usually choose words well, use sophisticated sentences effectively, and observe the conventions of written English. 

An essay with a score of 5 may

clearly demonstrate competent writing skill. 

present a thoughtful response to the text, elaborating  that response with appropriate examples and sensible reasoning.

present an organization that supports the writer’s ideas, which are developed with greater detail than is typical of an essay scored '4.' 

have a less fluent and complex style than an essay scored '6,' but  shows that the writer can usually choose words accurately, vary sentences effectively, and observe the conventions of written English.  

An essay with a score of 4 may

be just 'satisfactory.'

present an adequate response to  the text, elaborating that response with sufficient examples and acceptable reasoning.

demonstrate an organization that generally supports the writer’s ideas, which are developed with sufficient detail.

use examples and reasoning that are less developed than those in '5'  essays. 

show that its writer can usually choose words of sufficient precision, control sentences of reasonable  variety, and observe the conventions of written English.  

An essay with a score of 3 may

be unsatisfactory in one or more of the following ways:

It may respond to the  text illogically

it may reflect an incomplete understanding of the text or the topic

it may provide insufficient reasoning or lack elaboration with examples,  or the examples provided may not be sufficiently detailed to support claims

it may be inadequately organized 

have prose characterized by at least one of the following:

frequently imprecise word choice

little sentence variety

occasional major errors in grammar and usage, or frequent minor errors  

An essay with a score of 2 may

show weaknesses, ordinarily of several kinds.

present a  simplistic or inappropriate response to the text, one that may suggest some significant misunderstanding of the text or the topic

use organizational strategies that detract from coherence or provide inappropriate or irrelevant detail.

simplistic or inaccurate word choice

monotonous or fragmented sentence structure

many repeated errors in grammar and usage    

An essay with a score of 1 may

show serious weaknesses.

disregard the topic's demands, or it may lack structure or development.

Have an organization that fails to support the essay’s ideas. 

be inappropriately brief. 

have a pattern of errors in word choice, sentence structure, grammar, and usage.

STUDENT:                                                               ESSAY:                                                                    

  There is one clear, well-focused thesis. Excellent command of subject matter. Evidence of independent thought. Supporting arguments relate to main claim & are well organized. Thesis stands out and is supported by details. Relevant, telling, quality details give important information, going beyond the obvious or predictable. Thesis is clear but supporting information is general. A reasonable command of subject matter. A capacity for independent thought, though not fully realized. Sufficent substantiation of claim. Supporting details are relevant, but one or more key issues is unsupported. Vague or unclear thesis. Inadequate command of subject matter. Unexamined, cliched thinking. Inadequate substantiation of claims. Supporting details are a seemingly random collection of information, unclear, or not related to the topic.

Clear Organization. Introduction is inviting, states the thesis, and previews the structure of the paper. Details are in logical order. Conclusion is strong and states the point of the paper. Significant lapses in organization. Introduction states thesis but does not adequately preview the structure, nor is it particularly inviting.  Some details not in logical or expected order and this is distracting. Conclusion is recognizable, but does not tie up all loose ends. Poor, hard-to-follow organization. There is no clear introduction of the main topic or structure of the paper.  There is no clear conclusion, the paper just ends. Little or no employment of supporting evidence - reader left to fill in gaps; thesis meagerly (if at all) established and introduction vague or too brief + weak or non-existent conclusion = seeming total disregard for progression of ideas

Extremely fluent and articulate relation of ideas; effective, powerful tone and language use; quotes, paraphrases and summaries expertly woven into own writing; structural design versatile and complex. Reasonably fluent relation of ideas attempt at tone and language use somewhat effective; quotes, paraphrases and summaries left wholly or partially disconnected, and/or repetitiously or formulaically set up; structure lacks variety and/or complexity. Transitions clearly show how ideas are connected, but there is little variety. Pacing is well-controlled, but there is a lack of elaboration in some areas.  Problematic written voice (possibly halting, blunt, confusing, nonacademic) - ideas unclear; inappropriate and/or mundane tone & language use; quotes, paraphrases and summaries few and not employed properly ("stranded"); no attempt at sentence variability; generally repetitious tone and language. Some transitions work well; connections between other ideas are fuzzy. Pacing is well-controlled, but sometimes the same point is repeated.

 Few errors in spelling, punctuation, capitalization, sentence stucture and grammar. Occasional errors in spelling, punctuation, capitalization, sentence structure and grammar, but meaning is not obscured. 

Essay Rubric: Grading Students Correctly

• Icon Calendar 10 July 2024
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Lectures and tutors provide specific requirements for students to meet when writing essays. Basically, an essay rubric helps tutors to analyze an overall quality of compositions written by students. In this case, a rubric refers to a scoring guide used to evaluate performance based on a set of criteria and standards. As such, useful marking schemes make an analysis process simple for lecturers as they focus on specific concepts related to a writing process. Moreover, an assessment table lists and organizes all of the criteria into one convenient paper. In other instances, students use assessment tables to enhance their writing skills by examining various requirements. Then, different types of essay rubrics vary from one educational level to another. Essentially, Master’s and Ph.D. grading schemes focus on examining complex thesis statements and other writing mechanics. However, high school evaluation tables examine basic writing concepts. In turn, guidelines on a common format for writing a good essay rubric and corresponding examples provided in this article can help students to evaluate their papers before submitting them to their teachers.

General Aspects

An essay rubric refers to a way for teachers to assess students’ composition writing skills and abilities. Basically, an evaluation scheme provides specific criteria to grade assignments. Moreover, the three basic elements of an essay rubric are criteria, performance levels, and descriptors. In this case, teachers use assessment guidelines to save time when evaluating and grading various papers. Hence, learners must use an essay rubric effectively to achieve desired goals and grades, while its general example is:

What Is an Essay Rubric and Its Purpose

According to its definition, an essay rubric is a structured evaluation tool that educators use to grade students’ compositions in a fair and consistent manner. The main purpose of an essay rubric in writing is to ensure consistent and fair grading by clearly defining what constitutes excellent, good, average, and poor performance (DeVries, 2023). This tool specifies a key criteria for grading various aspects of a written text, including a clarity of a thesis statement, an overall quality of a main argument, an organization of ideas, a particular use of evidence, and a correctness of grammar and mechanics. Moreover, an assessment grading helps students to understand their strengths to be proud of and weaknesses to be pointed out and guides them in improving their writing skills (Taylor et al., 2024). For teachers, such an assessment simplifies a grading process, making it more efficient and less subjective by providing a clear standard to follow. By using an essay rubric, both teachers and students can engage in a transparent, structured, and constructive evaluation process, enhancing an overall educational experience (Stevens & Levi, 2023). In turn, the length of an essay rubric depends on academic levels, types of papers, and specific requirements, while general guidelines are:

High School

• Length: 1-2 pages
• Word Count: 300-600 words
• Length: 1-3 pages
• Word Count: 300-900 words

University (Undergraduate)

• Length: 2-4 pages
• Word Count: 600-1,200 words

Master’s

• Length: 2-5 pages
• Word Count: 600-1,500 words
• Length: 3-6 pages
• Word Count: 900-1,800 words

Element	Description
Thesis Statement	A well-defined thesis statement is crucial as it sets a particular direction and purpose of an essay, making it clear what a writer intends to argue or explain.
Introduction	An introduction captures a reader’s interest and provides a framework for what a paper will cover, setting up a stage for arguments or ideas that follow after an opening paragraph.
Content	High-quality content demonstrates thorough understanding and research on a specific topic, providing valuable and relevant information that supports a thesis.
Organization	Effective organization ensures author’s ideas are presented in a clear, well-structure, and logical order, enhancing readability and an overall flow of a central argument.
Evidence and Support	Providing strong evidence and detailed analysis is essential for backing up main arguments, adding credibility and depth to a final document.
Conclusion	A strong conclusion ties all the main numbers together, reflects on potential implications of arguments, and reinforces a thesis, leaving a lasting impression on a reader.
Grammar and Mechanics	Proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation are vital for clarity and professionalism, making a whole text easy to read and understand.
Style and Tone	Correctness in writing style and author’s tone appropriate to a paper’s purpose and audience enhances an overall effectiveness of a particular text and engages a reader.
Citations and References	Accurate and complete citations and references are crucial for giving credit to sources, avoiding plagiarism, and allowing readers to follow up on the research.

Note: Some elements of an essay rubric can be added, deled, or combined with each other because different types of papers, their requirements, and instructors’ choices affect a final assessment. To format an essay rubric, people create a table with criteria listed in rows, performance levels in columns, and detailed descriptors in each cell explaining principal expectations for each level of performance (Steven & Levi, 2023). Besides, the five main criteria in a rubric are thesis statement, content, organization, evidence and support, and grammar and mechanics. In turn, a good essay rubric is clear, specific, aligned with learning objectives, and provides detailed, consistent descriptors for each performance level.

Steps How to Write an Essay Rubric

In writing, the key elements of an essay rubric are clear criteria, defined performance levels, and detailed descriptors for each evaluation.

• Identify a Specific Purpose and Goals: Determine main objectives of an essay’s assignment and consider what skills and knowledge you want students to demonstrate.
• List a Key Criteria: Identify essential components that need to be evaluated, such as thesis statement, introduction, content, organization, evidence and support, conclusion, grammar and mechanics, writing style and tone, and citations and references.
• Define Performance Levels: Decide on a particular scale you will use to measure performance (e.g., Excellent, Good, Fair, Poor) and ensure each level is distinct and clearly defined.
• Create Descriptors for Each Criterion: Write detailed descriptions for what constitutes each level of performance for every criterion and be specific about what is expected at each level to avoid misunderstanding.
• Assign Number Values: Determine a specific range for each criterion and performance level and allocate numbers in a way that reflects an actual importance of each criterion in an overall assessment.
• Review and Revise: Examine a complete rubric to ensure it is comprehensive and clear and adjust any descriptions or number values that seem unclear or disproportionate.
• Test a Working Essay Rubric: Apply a grading scheme to a few sample compositions to see if it effectively differentiates between different levels of performance and make adjustments as necessary.
• Involve Peers for Feedback: Share marking criteria with colleagues or peers for feedback and insights on clarity and fairness that you might have overlooked.
• Provide Examples: Include examples of complete papers or writing excerpts at each performance level and help students to understand what is expected for grading.
• Communicate With Students: Share a complete rubric with students before they begin an assignment and explain each criterion and performance level so they understand how their work will be evaluated and what they need to do to achieve highest marks.

Essay Rubric Example

Organization

Excellent/8 points: A submitted essay contains stiff topic sentences and a controlled organization.

Very Good/6 points: A paper contains a logical and appropriate organization. An author uses clear topic sentences.

Average/4 points: A composition contains a logical and appropriate organization. An author uses clear topic sentences.

Needs Improvement/2 points: A provided text has an inconsistent organization.

Unacceptable/0 (zero): A complete document shows an absence of a planned organization.

Grade: ___ .

Excellent/8 points: A submitted essay shows the absence of a planned organization.

Very Good/6 points: A paper contains precise and varied sentence structures and word choices. 

Average/4 points: A composition follows a limited but mostly correct sentence structure. There are different sentence structures and word choices.

Needs Improvement/2 points: A provided text contains several awkward and unclear sentences. There are some problems with word choices.

Unacceptable/0 (zero): An author does not have apparent control over sentence structures and word choice.

Excellent/8 points: An essay’s content appears sophisticated and contains well-developed ideas.

Very Good/6 points: A paper’s content appears illustrative and balanced.

Average/4 points: A composition contains unbalanced content that requires more analysis.

Needs Improvement/2 points: A provided text contains a lot of research information without analysis or commentary.

Unacceptable/0 (zero): A complete document lacks relevant content and does not fit the thesis statement. Essay rubric rules are not followed.

Excellent/8 points: A submitted essay contains a clearly stated and focused thesis statement.

Very Good/6 points: A paper comprises a clearly stated argument. However, a particular focus would have been sharper.

Average/4 points: A thesis statement phrasing sounds simple and lacks complexity. An author does not word the thesis correctly. 

Needs Improvement/2 points: A thesis statement requires a clear objective and does not fit the theme in a paper’s content.

Unacceptable/0 (zero): A thesis statement is not evident in an introduction paragraph.

Excellent/8 points: A submitted is clear and focused. An overall work holds a reader’s attention. Besides, relevant details and quotes enrich a thesis statement.

Very Good/6 points: A paper is mostly focused and contains a few useful details and quotes.

Average/4 points: An author begins a composition by defining an assigned topic. However, a particular development of ideas appears general.

Needs Improvement/2 points: An author fails to define an assigned topic well or focuses on several issues.

Unacceptable/0 (zero): A complete document lacks a clear sense of a purpose or thesis statement. Readers have to make suggestions based on sketchy or missing ideas to understand an intended meaning. Essay rubric requirements are missed.

Sentence Fluency

Excellent/8 points: A submitted essay has a natural flow, rhythm, and cadence. Its sentences are well-built and have a wide-ranging and robust structure that enhances reading.

Very Good/6 points: Presented ideas mostly flow and motivate a compelling reading.

Average/4 points: A composition hums along with a balanced beat but tends to be more businesslike than musical. Besides, a particular flow of ideas tends to become more mechanical than fluid.

Needs Improvement/2 points: A provided text appears irregular and hard to read.

Unacceptable/0 (zero): Readers have to go through a complete document several times to give this paper a fair interpretive reading.

Conventions

Excellent/8 points: An author demonstrates proper use of standard writing conventions, like spelling, punctuation, capitalization, grammar, usage, and paragraphing. A person also uses correct protocols in a way that improves an overall readability of an essay.

Very Good/6 points: An author demonstrates proper writing conventions and uses them correctly. One can read a paper with ease, and errors are rare. Few touch-ups can make a submitted composition ready for publishing.

Average/4 points: An author shows reasonable control over a short range of standard writing rules. A person also handles all the conventions and enhances readability. Writing errors in a presented composition tend to distract and impair legibility.

Needs Improvement/2 points: An author makes an effort to use various conventions, including spelling, punctuation, capitalization, grammar usage, and paragraphing. A provided text contains multiple errors.

Unacceptable/0 (zero): An author makes repetitive errors in spelling, punctuation, capitalization, grammar, usage, and paragraphing. Some mistakes distract readers and make it hard to understand discussed concepts. Essay rubric rules are not covered.

Presentation

Excellent/8 points: A particular form and presentation of a text enhance an overall readability of an essay and its flow of ideas.

Very Good/6 points: A chosen format has few mistakes and is easy to read.

Average/4 points: An author’s message is understandable in this format.

Needs Improvement/2 points: An author’s message is only comprehensible infrequently, and a provided text appears disorganized.

Unacceptable/0 (zero): Readers receive a distorted message due to difficulties connecting to a presentation of an entire text.

Final Grade: ___ .

Grading Scheme

• A+ = 60+ points
• F = less than 9

Differences in Education Levels

An overall quality of various types of texts changes at different education levels. In writing, an essay rubric works by providing a structured framework with specific criteria and performance levels to consistently evaluate and grade a finished paper. For instance, college students must write miscellaneous papers when compared to high school learners (Harrington et al., 2021). In this case, assessment criteria will change for these different education levels. For example, university and college compositions should have a debatable thesis statement with varying points of view (Mewburn et al., 2021). However, high school compositions should have simple phrases as thesis statements. Then, other requirements in a marking rubric will be more straightforward for high school students (DeVries, 2023). For Master’s and Ph.D. works, a writing criteria presented in a scoring evaluation should focus on examining a paper’s complexity. In turn, compositions for these two categories should have thesis statements that demonstrate a detailed analysis of defined topics that advance knowledge in a specific area of study.

Recommendations

When observing any essay rubric, people should remember to ensure clarity and specificity in each criterion and performance level. This clarity helps both an evaluator and a student to understand principal expectations and how a written document will be assessed (Ozfidan & Mitchell, 2022). Consistency in language and terminology across an essay rubric is crucial to avoid confusion and maintain fairness. Further on, it is essential to align a working scheme with learning objectives and goals of an essay’s assignment, ensuring all key components, such as thesis, content, organization, and grammar, are covered comprehensively (Stevens & Levi, 2023). Evaluators should also be aware of the weighting and scoring distribution, making sure they accurately reflect an actual importance of each criterion. Moreover, testing a rubric on sample essays before finalizing it can help to identify any mistakes or imbalances in scores. Essentially, providing concrete examples or descriptions for each performance level can guide students in understanding what is expected for each grade (Taylor et al., 2024). In turn, an essay rubric should be reviewed, revised, and updated after each educational year to remain relevant and aligned with current academic standards. Lastly, sharing and explaining grading assessment with students before they start their composition fosters transparency and helps them to put more of their efforts into meeting defined criteria, ultimately improving their writing and learning experience in general.

Common Mistakes

• Lack of Specificity: Descriptions for each criterion and performance level are too vague, leading to ambiguity and confusion for both graders and students.
• Overcomplicating a Rubric: Including too many criteria or overly complex descriptions that make a scoring assessment difficult to use effectively.
• Unbalanced Weighting: Assigning disproportionate number values to different criteria, which can mislead an overall assessment and not accurately reflect an actual importance of each component.
• Inconsistent Language: Using inconsistent terminology or descriptors across performance levels, which can confuse users and make a rubric less reliable.
• Not Aligning With Objectives: Failing to align a particular criteria and performance levels with specific goals and learning outcomes of an assignment.
• Omitting Key Components: Leaving out important criteria that are essential for evaluating a paper comprehensively, such as citations or a conclusion part.
• Lack of Examples: Not providing examples or concrete descriptions of what constitutes each performance level, making it harder for students to understand expectations.
• Ignoring Grammar and Mechanics: Overlooking an actual importance of grammar, spelling, and punctuation, which are crucial for clear and professional writing.
• Not Updating an Essay Rubric: Using outdated rubrics that do not reflect current educational standards or specific assignment needs.
• Insufficient Testing: Failing to test a grading scheme on some sample documents to ensure it effectively differentiates between levels of performance and provides fair assessments.

Essay rubrics help teachers, instructors, professors, and tutors to analyze an overall quality of compositions written by students. Basically, an assessment scheme makes an analysis process simple for lecturers, and it lists and organizes all of the criteria into one convenient paper. In other instances, students use such evaluation tools to improve their writing skills. However, they vary from one educational level to the other. Master’s and Ph.D. assessment schemes focus on examining complex thesis statements and other writing mechanics. However, high school grading criteria examine basic writing concepts.  As such, the following are some of the tips that one must consider when preparing any rubric.

• Include all mechanics that relate to essay writing.
• Cover different requirements and their relevant grades.
• Follow clear and understandable statements.

DeVries, B. A. (2023). Literacy assessment and intervention for classroom teachers . Routledge.

Harrington, E. R., Lofgren, I. E., Gottschalk Druschke, C., Karraker, N. E., Reynolds, N., & McWilliams, S. R. (2021). Training graduate students in multiple genres of public and academic science writing: An assessment using an adaptable, interdisciplinary rubric. Frontiers in Environmental Science , 9 , 1–13. https://doi.org/10.3389/fenvs.2021.715409

Mewburn, I., Firth, K., & Lehmann, S. (2021). Level up your essays: How to get better grades at university . NewSouth.

Ozfidan, B., & Mitchell, C. (2022). Assessment of students’ argumentative writing: A rubric development. Journal of Ethnic and Cultural Studies , 9 (2), 121–133. https://doi.org/10.29333/ejecs/1064

Stevens, D. D., & Levi, A. (2023). Introduction to rubrics: An assessment tool to save grading time, convey effective feedback, and promote student learning . Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.

Taylor, B., Kisby, F., & Reedy, A. (2024). Rubrics in higher education: An exploration of undergraduate students’ understanding and perspectives. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education , 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2023.2299330

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Criteria for Grading Essays

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Grading criteria

The documents below (all from Northwestern) provide examples for instructors seeking methods to systematize their grading of papers and to explain their grading criteria to students. The documents illustrate three principles about grading criteria: (1) The criteria depend on the nature of the assignment (e.g., reflective essay, technical report).  (2) The criteria are grouped in categories (e.g., clear purpose, logical organization, grammar/style).  (3) The criteria can be presented to students in different forms (e.g., table, list, etc.). 

Analytical and research paper grading guide Details the criteria--including compelling argument, logical organization, awareness of audience, sophisticated style, and evidence of revision--used to determine grades

Grading criteria for a reflective essay A list of grading criteria distributed to students before they revise their first assignment, a reflective essay.  The handout is intended both to inform students of what I will be looking for in assessing their revisions and to reinforce the general suggestions I gave them in our conferences about their first drafts.

Grading criteria freshman engineering essays (doc) A two-column chart, with evaluation criteria listed in one column and space for specific comments in the other.  Each student receives this chart back with his or her graded essay.

ESL grading symbols What is most useful about this handout on symbols for ESL (English as a Second Language) writers is that it divides the errors into those that interfere with a reader comprehending the writer’s intended meaning and the more superficial errors.  

Criteria for letter grades Grading standards that can be distributed to students and then referred to in giving  students feedback on working drafts so they can understand what they need to do to improve their writing.

Freshman seminar grading chart A chart that explains the criteria (purpose, content, organization, mechanics, and style) used to determine grades.

Freshman seminar grading sheet final essay A detailed checklist of strengths and areas for improvement returned to each student with his or her graded paper.

Freshman seminar assessment rubric A rubric developed by Northwestern's WCAS freshman assessment group to assess how well the freshman seminar program meets its goal of improving student writing.  Instructors may find it a useful way to evaluate each student's writing on individual papers and throughout the course.

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The Beginner's Guide to Writing an Essay | Steps & Examples

An academic essay is a focused piece of writing that develops an idea or argument using evidence, analysis, and interpretation.

There are many types of essays you might write as a student. The content and length of an essay depends on your level, subject of study, and course requirements. However, most essays at university level are argumentative — they aim to persuade the reader of a particular position or perspective on a topic.

The essay writing process consists of three main stages:

• Preparation: Decide on your topic, do your research, and create an essay outline.
• Writing : Set out your argument in the introduction, develop it with evidence in the main body, and wrap it up with a conclusion.
• Revision:  Check your essay on the content, organization, grammar, spelling, and formatting of your essay.

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Table of contents

Essay writing process, preparation for writing an essay, writing the introduction, writing the main body, writing the conclusion, essay checklist, lecture slides, frequently asked questions about writing an essay.

The writing process of preparation, writing, and revisions applies to every essay or paper, but the time and effort spent on each stage depends on the type of essay .

For example, if you’ve been assigned a five-paragraph expository essay for a high school class, you’ll probably spend the most time on the writing stage; for a college-level argumentative essay , on the other hand, you’ll need to spend more time researching your topic and developing an original argument before you start writing.

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Before you start writing, you should make sure you have a clear idea of what you want to say and how you’re going to say it. There are a few key steps you can follow to make sure you’re prepared:

• Understand your assignment: What is the goal of this essay? What is the length and deadline of the assignment? Is there anything you need to clarify with your teacher or professor?
• Define a topic: If you’re allowed to choose your own topic , try to pick something that you already know a bit about and that will hold your interest.
• Do your research: Read  primary and secondary sources and take notes to help you work out your position and angle on the topic. You’ll use these as evidence for your points.
• Come up with a thesis:  The thesis is the central point or argument that you want to make. A clear thesis is essential for a focused essay—you should keep referring back to it as you write.
• Create an outline: Map out the rough structure of your essay in an outline . This makes it easier to start writing and keeps you on track as you go.

Once you’ve got a clear idea of what you want to discuss, in what order, and what evidence you’ll use, you’re ready to start writing.

The introduction sets the tone for your essay. It should grab the reader’s interest and inform them of what to expect. The introduction generally comprises 10–20% of the text.

1. Hook your reader

The first sentence of the introduction should pique your reader’s interest and curiosity. This sentence is sometimes called the hook. It might be an intriguing question, a surprising fact, or a bold statement emphasizing the relevance of the topic.

Let’s say we’re writing an essay about the development of Braille (the raised-dot reading and writing system used by visually impaired people). Our hook can make a strong statement about the topic:

The invention of Braille was a major turning point in the history of disability.

2. Provide background on your topic

Next, it’s important to give context that will help your reader understand your argument. This might involve providing background information, giving an overview of important academic work or debates on the topic, and explaining difficult terms. Don’t provide too much detail in the introduction—you can elaborate in the body of your essay.

3. Present the thesis statement

Next, you should formulate your thesis statement— the central argument you’re going to make. The thesis statement provides focus and signals your position on the topic. It is usually one or two sentences long. The thesis statement for our essay on Braille could look like this:

As the first writing system designed for blind people’s needs, Braille was a groundbreaking new accessibility tool. It not only provided practical benefits, but also helped change the cultural status of blindness.

4. Map the structure

In longer essays, you can end the introduction by briefly describing what will be covered in each part of the essay. This guides the reader through your structure and gives a preview of how your argument will develop.

The invention of Braille marked a major turning point in the history of disability. The writing system of raised dots used by blind and visually impaired people was developed by Louis Braille in nineteenth-century France. In a society that did not value disabled people in general, blindness was particularly stigmatized, and lack of access to reading and writing was a significant barrier to social participation. The idea of tactile reading was not entirely new, but existing methods based on sighted systems were difficult to learn and use. As the first writing system designed for blind people’s needs, Braille was a groundbreaking new accessibility tool. It not only provided practical benefits, but also helped change the cultural status of blindness. This essay begins by discussing the situation of blind people in nineteenth-century Europe. It then describes the invention of Braille and the gradual process of its acceptance within blind education. Subsequently, it explores the wide-ranging effects of this invention on blind people’s social and cultural lives.

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The body of your essay is where you make arguments supporting your thesis, provide evidence, and develop your ideas. Its purpose is to present, interpret, and analyze the information and sources you have gathered to support your argument.

Length of the body text

The length of the body depends on the type of essay. On average, the body comprises 60–80% of your essay. For a high school essay, this could be just three paragraphs, but for a graduate school essay of 6,000 words, the body could take up 8–10 pages.

Paragraph structure

To give your essay a clear structure , it is important to organize it into paragraphs . Each paragraph should be centered around one main point or idea.

That idea is introduced in a  topic sentence . The topic sentence should generally lead on from the previous paragraph and introduce the point to be made in this paragraph. Transition words can be used to create clear connections between sentences.

After the topic sentence, present evidence such as data, examples, or quotes from relevant sources. Be sure to interpret and explain the evidence, and show how it helps develop your overall argument.

Lack of access to reading and writing put blind people at a serious disadvantage in nineteenth-century society. Text was one of the primary methods through which people engaged with culture, communicated with others, and accessed information; without a well-developed reading system that did not rely on sight, blind people were excluded from social participation (Weygand, 2009). While disabled people in general suffered from discrimination, blindness was widely viewed as the worst disability, and it was commonly believed that blind people were incapable of pursuing a profession or improving themselves through culture (Weygand, 2009). This demonstrates the importance of reading and writing to social status at the time: without access to text, it was considered impossible to fully participate in society. Blind people were excluded from the sighted world, but also entirely dependent on sighted people for information and education.

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The conclusion is the final paragraph of an essay. It should generally take up no more than 10–15% of the text . A strong essay conclusion :

• Returns to your thesis
• Ties together your main points
• Shows why your argument matters

A great conclusion should finish with a memorable or impactful sentence that leaves the reader with a strong final impression.

What not to include in a conclusion

To make your essay’s conclusion as strong as possible, there are a few things you should avoid. The most common mistakes are:

• Including new arguments or evidence
• Undermining your arguments (e.g. “This is just one approach of many”)
• Using concluding phrases like “To sum up…” or “In conclusion…”

Braille paved the way for dramatic cultural changes in the way blind people were treated and the opportunities available to them. Louis Braille’s innovation was to reimagine existing reading systems from a blind perspective, and the success of this invention required sighted teachers to adapt to their students’ reality instead of the other way around. In this sense, Braille helped drive broader social changes in the status of blindness. New accessibility tools provide practical advantages to those who need them, but they can also change the perspectives and attitudes of those who do not.

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Checklist: Essay

My essay follows the requirements of the assignment (topic and length ).

My introduction sparks the reader’s interest and provides any necessary background information on the topic.

My introduction contains a thesis statement that states the focus and position of the essay.

I use paragraphs to structure the essay.

I use topic sentences to introduce each paragraph.

Each paragraph has a single focus and a clear connection to the thesis statement.

I make clear transitions between paragraphs and ideas.

My conclusion doesn’t just repeat my points, but draws connections between arguments.

I don’t introduce new arguments or evidence in the conclusion.

I have given an in-text citation for every quote or piece of information I got from another source.

I have included a reference page at the end of my essay, listing full details of all my sources.

My citations and references are correctly formatted according to the required citation style .

My essay has an interesting and informative title.

I have followed all formatting guidelines (e.g. font, page numbers, line spacing).

Your essay meets all the most important requirements. Our editors can give it a final check to help you submit with confidence.

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An essay is a focused piece of writing that explains, argues, describes, or narrates.

In high school, you may have to write many different types of essays to develop your writing skills.

Academic essays at college level are usually argumentative : you develop a clear thesis about your topic and make a case for your position using evidence, analysis and interpretation.

The structure of an essay is divided into an introduction that presents your topic and thesis statement , a body containing your in-depth analysis and arguments, and a conclusion wrapping up your ideas.

The structure of the body is flexible, but you should always spend some time thinking about how you can organize your essay to best serve your ideas.

Your essay introduction should include three main things, in this order:

• An opening hook to catch the reader’s attention.
• Relevant background information that the reader needs to know.
• A thesis statement that presents your main point or argument.

The length of each part depends on the length and complexity of your essay .

A thesis statement is a sentence that sums up the central point of your paper or essay . Everything else you write should relate to this key idea.

The thesis statement is essential in any academic essay or research paper for two main reasons:

• It gives your writing direction and focus.
• It gives the reader a concise summary of your main point.

Without a clear thesis statement, an essay can end up rambling and unfocused, leaving your reader unsure of exactly what you want to say.

A topic sentence is a sentence that expresses the main point of a paragraph . Everything else in the paragraph should relate to the topic sentence.

At college level, you must properly cite your sources in all essays , research papers , and other academic texts (except exams and in-class exercises).

Add a citation whenever you quote , paraphrase , or summarize information or ideas from a source. You should also give full source details in a bibliography or reference list at the end of your text.

The exact format of your citations depends on which citation style you are instructed to use. The most common styles are APA , MLA , and Chicago .

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| | --> by Susan Verner 218,966 views In a world where and often determine a student’s grade, what criteria does the writing teacher use to evaluate the work of his or her students? After all, with essay writing you cannot simply mark some answers correct and others incorrect and figure out a percentage. The good news is that is a chart used in grading essays, special projects and other more items which can be more subjective. It lists each of the grading criteria separately and defines the different performance levels within those criteria. Standardized tests like the SAT’s use rubrics to score writing samples, and designing one for your own use is easy if you take it step by step. Keep in mind that when you are using a rubric to grade essays, you can design one rubric for use throughout the semester or modify your rubric as the expectations you have for your students increase. . The essay should have good and show the right level of . It should be organized, and the content should be appropriate and effective. Teachers also look at the overall effectiveness of the piece. When evaluating specific writing samples, you may also want to include other criteria for the essay based on material you have covered in class. You may choose to grade on the type of essay they have written and whether your students have followed the specific direction you gave. You may want to evaluate their use of information and whether they correctly presented the content material you taught. When you write your own rubric, you can evaluate anything you think is important when it comes to your students’ writing abilities. . , and ) we will write a rubric to evaluate students’ essays. The most straightforward evaluation uses a four-point scale for each of the criteria. Taking the criteria one at a time, articulate what your expectations are for an , a and so on. Taking grammar as an example, an would be free of most grammatical errors appropriate for the student’s language learning level. A would have some mistakes but use generally good grammar. A would show frequent grammatical errors. A would show that the student did not have the grammatical knowledge appropriate for his language learning level. Taking these definitions, we now put them into the rubric. The next step is to take each of the other criteria and define success for each of those, assigning a value to A, B, C and D papers. Those definitions then go into the rubric in the appropriate locations to complete the chart. Each of the criteria will score points for the essay. The descriptions in the first column are each worth 4 points, the second column 3 points, the third 2 points and the fourth 1 point. What is the grading process? Now that your criteria are defined, grading the essay is easy. When grading a student essay with a rubric, it is best to read through the essay once before evaluating for grades . Then reading through the piece a second time, determine where on the scale the writing sample falls for each of the criteria. If the student shows excellent grammar, good organization and a good overall effect, he would score a total of ten points. Divide that by the total criteria, three in this case, and he finishes with a 3.33. which on a four-point scale is a B+. If you use five criteria to evaluate your essays, divide the total points scored by five to determine the student’s grade. Once you have written your grading rubric, you may decide to share your criteria with your students. If you do, they will know exactly what your expectations are and what they need to accomplish to get the grade they desire. You may even choose to make a copy of the rubric for each paper and circle where the student lands for each criterion. That way, each person knows where he needs to focus his attention to improve his grade. The clearer your expectations are and the more feedback you give your students, the more successful your students will be. If you use a rubric in your essay grading, you can communicate those standards as well as make your grading more objective with more practical suggestions for your students. In addition, once you write your rubric you can use it for all future evaluations. P.S. If you enjoyed this article, please help spread it by clicking one of those sharing buttons below. And if you are interested in more, you should follow our Facebook page where we share more about creative, non-boring ways to teach English. Teaching Ideas Classroom Management and Discipline Popular articles like this How to design a rubric that teachers can use and students can understand. How to Evaluate Speaking Faq for writing teachers, but it is clear dealing with the defensive student, do student papers breed in your briefcase 4 methods of managing the paper load, tuning in the feedback 6 strategies for giving students feedback on speaking. Copyright 2007-2021 пїЅ Submit a worksheet Mobile version Grades 6-12 School Leaders Have you seen our latest free teacher workshop? 15 Helpful Scoring Rubric Examples for All Grades and Subjects In the end, they actually make grading easier. When it comes to student assessment and evaluation, there are a lot of methods to consider. In some cases, testing is the best way to assess a student’s knowledge, and the answers are either right or wrong. But often, assessing a student’s performance is much less clear-cut. In these situations, a scoring rubric is often the way to go, especially if you’re using standards-based grading . Here’s what you need to know about this useful tool, along with lots of rubric examples to get you started. What is a scoring rubric? In the United States, a rubric is a guide that lays out the performance expectations for an assignment. It helps students understand what’s required of them, and guides teachers through the evaluation process. (Note that in other countries, the term “rubric” may instead refer to the set of instructions at the beginning of an exam. To avoid confusion, some people use the term “scoring rubric” instead.) A rubric generally has three parts: Performance criteria: These are the various aspects on which the assignment will be evaluated. They should align with the desired learning outcomes for the assignment. Rating scale: This could be a number system (often 1 to 4) or words like “exceeds expectations, meets expectations, below expectations,” etc. Indicators: These describe the qualities needed to earn a specific rating for each of the performance criteria. The level of detail may vary depending on the assignment and the purpose of the rubric itself. Rubrics take more time to develop up front, but they help ensure more consistent assessment, especially when the skills being assessed are more subjective. A well-developed rubric can actually save teachers a lot of time when it comes to grading. What’s more, sharing your scoring rubric with students in advance often helps improve performance . This way, students have a clear picture of what’s expected of them and what they need to do to achieve a specific grade or performance rating. Learn more about why and how to use a rubric here. Types of Rubric There are three basic rubric categories, each with its own purpose. Holistic Rubric Source: Cambrian College This type of rubric combines all the scoring criteria in a single scale. They’re quick to create and use, but they have drawbacks. If a student’s work spans different levels, it can be difficult to decide which score to assign. They also make it harder to provide feedback on specific aspects. Traditional letter grades are a type of holistic rubric. So are the popular “hamburger rubric” and “ cupcake rubric ” examples. Learn more about holistic rubrics here. Analytic Rubric Source: University of Nebraska Analytic rubrics are much more complex and generally take a great deal more time up front to design. They include specific details of the expected learning outcomes, and descriptions of what criteria are required to meet various performance ratings in each. Each rating is assigned a point value, and the total number of points earned determines the overall grade for the assignment. Though they’re more time-intensive to create, analytic rubrics actually save time while grading. Teachers can simply circle or highlight any relevant phrases in each rating, and add a comment or two if needed. They also help ensure consistency in grading, and make it much easier for students to understand what’s expected of them. Learn more about analytic rubrics here. Developmental Rubric Source: Deb’s Data Digest A developmental rubric is a type of analytic rubric, but it’s used to assess progress along the way rather than determining a final score on an assignment. The details in these rubrics help students understand their achievements, as well as highlight the specific skills they still need to improve. Developmental rubrics are essentially a subset of analytic rubrics. They leave off the point values, though, and focus instead on giving feedback using the criteria and indicators of performance. Learn how to use developmental rubrics here. Ready to create your own rubrics? Find general tips on designing rubrics here. Then, check out these examples across all grades and subjects to inspire you. Elementary School Rubric Examples These elementary school rubric examples come from real teachers who use them with their students. Adapt them to fit your needs and grade level. Reading Fluency Rubric You can use this one as an analytic rubric by counting up points to earn a final score, or just to provide developmental feedback. There’s a second rubric page available specifically to assess prosody (reading with expression). Learn more: Teacher Thrive Reading Comprehension Rubric The nice thing about this rubric is that you can use it at any grade level, for any text. If you like this style, you can get a reading fluency rubric here too. Learn more: Pawprints Resource Center Written Response Rubric Rubrics aren’t just for huge projects. They can also help kids work on very specific skills, like this one for improving written responses on assessments. Learn more: Dianna Radcliffe: Teaching Upper Elementary and More Interactive Notebook Rubric If you use interactive notebooks as a learning tool , this rubric can help kids stay on track and meet your expectations. Learn more: Classroom Nook Project Rubric Use this simple rubric as it is, or tweak it to include more specific indicators for the project you have in mind. Learn more: Tales of a Title One Teacher Behavior Rubric Developmental rubrics are perfect for assessing behavior and helping students identify opportunities for improvement. Send these home regularly to keep parents in the loop. Learn more: Teachers.net Gazette Middle School Rubric Examples In middle school, use rubrics to offer detailed feedback on projects, presentations, and more. Be sure to share them with students in advance, and encourage them to use them as they work so they’ll know if they’re meeting expectations. Argumentative Writing Rubric Argumentative writing is a part of language arts, social studies, science, and more. That makes this rubric especially useful. Learn more: Dr. Caitlyn Tucker Role-Play Rubric Role-plays can be really useful when teaching social and critical thinking skills, but it’s hard to assess them. Try a rubric like this one to evaluate and provide useful feedback. Learn more: A Question of Influence Art Project Rubric Art is one of those subjects where grading can feel very subjective. Bring some objectivity to the process with a rubric like this. Source: Art Ed Guru Diorama Project Rubric You can use diorama projects in almost any subject, and they’re a great chance to encourage creativity. Simplify the grading process and help kids know how to make their projects shine with this scoring rubric. Learn more: Historyourstory.com Oral Presentation Rubric Rubrics are terrific for grading presentations, since you can include a variety of skills and other criteria. Consider letting students use a rubric like this to offer peer feedback too. Learn more: Bright Hub Education High School Rubric Examples In high school, it’s important to include your grading rubrics when you give assignments like presentations, research projects, or essays. Kids who go on to college will definitely encounter rubrics, so helping them become familiar with them now will help in the future. Presentation Rubric Analyze a student’s presentation both for content and communication skills with a rubric like this one. If needed, create a separate one for content knowledge with even more criteria and indicators. Learn more: Michael A. Pena Jr. Debate Rubric Debate is a valuable learning tool that encourages critical thinking and oral communication skills. This rubric can help you assess those skills objectively. Learn more: Education World Project-Based Learning Rubric Implementing project-based learning can be time-intensive, but the payoffs are worth it. Try this rubric to make student expectations clear and end-of-project assessment easier. Learn more: Free Technology for Teachers 100-Point Essay Rubric Need an easy way to convert a scoring rubric to a letter grade? This example for essay writing earns students a final score out of 100 points. Learn more: Learn for Your Life Drama Performance Rubric If you’re unsure how to grade a student’s participation and performance in drama class, consider this example. It offers lots of objective criteria and indicators to evaluate. Learn more: Chase March How do you use rubrics in your classroom? Come share your thoughts and exchange ideas in the WeAreTeachers HELPLINE group on Facebook . Plus, 25 of the best alternative assessment ideas .. You Might Also Like What Is Project-Based Learning and How Can I Use It With My Students? There's a difference between regular projects and true-project based learning. Continue Reading Copyright © 2024. All rights reserved. 5335 Gate Parkway, Jacksonville, FL 32256 Creating and Scoring Essay Tests FatCamera / Getty Images Tips & Strategies An Introduction to Teaching Policies & Discipline Community Involvement School Administration Technology in the Classroom Teaching Adult Learners Issues In Education Teaching Resources Becoming A Teacher Assessments & Tests Elementary Education Secondary Education Special Education Homeschooling M.Ed., Curriculum and Instruction, University of Florida B.A., History, University of Florida Essay tests are useful for teachers when they want students to select, organize, analyze, synthesize, and/or evaluate information. In other words, they rely on the upper levels of Bloom's Taxonomy . There are two types of essay questions: restricted and extended response. Restricted Response - These essay questions limit what the student will discuss in the essay based on the wording of the question. For example, "State the main differences between John Adams' and Thomas Jefferson's beliefs about federalism," is a restricted response. What the student is to write about has been expressed to them within the question. Extended Response - These allow students to select what they wish to include in order to answer the question. For example, "In Of Mice and Men , was George's killing of Lennie justified? Explain your answer." The student is given the overall topic, but they are free to use their own judgment and integrate outside information to help support their opinion. Student Skills Required for Essay Tests Before expecting students to perform well on either type of essay question, we must make sure that they have the required skills to excel. Following are four skills that students should have learned and practiced before taking essay exams: The ability to select appropriate material from the information learned in order to best answer the question. The ability to organize that material in an effective manner. The ability to show how ideas relate and interact in a specific context. The ability to write effectively in both sentences and paragraphs. Constructing an Effective Essay Question Following are a few tips to help in the construction of effective essay questions: Begin with the lesson objectives in mind. Make sure to know what you wish the student to show by answering the essay question. Decide if your goal requires a restricted or extended response. In general, if you wish to see if the student can synthesize and organize the information that they learned, then restricted response is the way to go. However, if you wish them to judge or evaluate something using the information taught during class, then you will want to use the extended response. If you are including more than one essay, be cognizant of time constraints. You do not want to punish students because they ran out of time on the test. Write the question in a novel or interesting manner to help motivate the student. State the number of points that the essay is worth. You can also provide them with a time guideline to help them as they work through the exam. If your essay item is part of a larger objective test, make sure that it is the last item on the exam. Scoring the Essay Item One of the downfalls of essay tests is that they lack in reliability. Even when teachers grade essays with a well-constructed rubric, subjective decisions are made. Therefore, it is important to try and be as reliable as possible when scoring your essay items. Here are a few tips to help improve reliability in grading: Determine whether you will use a holistic or analytic scoring system before you write your rubric . With the holistic grading system, you evaluate the answer as a whole, rating papers against each other. With the analytic system, you list specific pieces of information and award points for their inclusion. Prepare the essay rubric in advance. Determine what you are looking for and how many points you will be assigning for each aspect of the question. Avoid looking at names. Some teachers have students put numbers on their essays to try and help with this. Score one item at a time. This helps ensure that you use the same thinking and standards for all students. Avoid interruptions when scoring a specific question. Again, consistency will be increased if you grade the same item on all the papers in one sitting. If an important decision like an award or scholarship is based on the score for the essay, obtain two or more independent readers. Beware of negative influences that can affect essay scoring. These include handwriting and writing style bias, the length of the response, and the inclusion of irrelevant material. Review papers that are on the borderline a second time before assigning a final grade. 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AI in the Classroom can help optimize the grading process.  This blog will explain why grading writing assignments is so valuable and offer tips on making it more efficient. You'll learn how EssayGrader.ai's grading software for teachers can help you save time on writing assignments so you can provide meaningful feedback without the stress. What Is Grading in the Classroom? Grading refers to scoring classroom assignments, tests, or exams to evaluate student performance . It helps students, instructors, and even schools understand how well students learn course material.  The Purpose of Grading: Why Do We Do It?  Grades serve several important purposes in the classroom. First, they evaluate student performance and help identify areas of strength and weakness. In addition, they communicate this information to: Instructors Future employers Grading also helps motivate students to continue learning by creating goals to achieve as they work toward mastering course material. Grades help organize classroom activities by marking transitions in learning and bringing closure to: The Challenges of Grading: Why Is It So Stressful? Grading can be stressful for instructors and students alike. Instructors are pressured to accurately reflect student performance in grades and maintain fairness throughout the grading process. Achieving these goals takes time, and instructors often feel rushed with so many competing priorities.  Students' grades represent their performance and mastery of course material. When students achieve their goals, they can move forward with confidence. If they are disappointed with their grades, it can hurt their: Cause anxiety Common Struggles of Grading Writing First off, letter grades suck. Assigning a single letter grade to student writing is one of the most demoralizing tasks a teacher must face. It doesn’t matter if the student is a good writer or not. Addressing the writing’s mini-lessons, drafts, revisions, edits, and the conversations the student and teacher worked through during the writing process is depressing.  Why? Because all that hard work is forgotten the second the student sees their grade. All that hard work is reduced to a single score. And for many kids, that score is all that matters . It’s depressing for everyone. Why Writing Is Different For Everyone Some students start writing assignments on the high end of the standard spectrum, while others must catch up. Some have lots of support at home and access to technology, while others have no access to technology and can only work in class.  Some take every second afforded them, and some waste every second. Regardless of effort and growth, at the end of the quarter, I have to assign a single grade to each essay based on a rubric . Sure, I don’t think the C papers were C papers. It’s that the student will only see the C. Rules and Regulations They will think all the hard work, growth, conferencing, revising, and editing were for “nothing.” That singular grade does not tell the story of the road to reach that final product. As writers well know, it’s the process of writing that is where we learn and grow, not the product. Why Grades Are So Confusing For Students When I try to emphasize the process, students are confused and upset when the “product” is not an A. They did what they were supposed to and expected a grade for that. They don’t understand that the process and the product are different. Our system only gives credit for the product.  What is the point of having standards if, rather than working with those standards and reporting on the process to master them, kids are given a letter grade that only shows compliance and that they checked boxes on a rubric? That they handed in a product. The Unfairness of Grading Writing Grades need to be clearer and fairer. The current system benefits students of higher socioeconomic status who have access to early childhood education, support at home for homework and reading, are native English speakers, have at least one educated parent who can advocate for them, and have their basic needs met.  It’s unjust, and quite frankly discriminatory, to the kids who do not come to school with the same advantages as others. Related Reading Different Grading Systems How Do Teachers Grade LMS Gradebook Evidence Based Grading Technology In The Classroom Constructive Criticism Examples For Students Digital Gradebook Education Workflow Automation Grading Software For Teachers How Can You Save Time Grading Writing Assignments? Built-In Rubrics: A Simple Yet Effective Time Saver Students write better when they know what is expected of them. This is especially true if they have a rubric handy while writing. Instead of stapling a rubric to the back of an assignment, I like to embed the rubric within the response sheet. Rubric Integration If students write a short response to literature, I’ll create a response sheet with the prompt, a place to write their answer, and a small rubric embedded at the bottom that outlines the criteria on which they will be graded.  Not only does this help students focus on the task at hand, but it also saves time when grading. With a more miniature rubric to assess, I can quickly check for understanding of the skills addressed without getting bogged down with marking every error. Let Students Choose the Graded Response When students practice writing, they often complete multiple drafts of an assignment before submitting a final product. They may write several annotated bibliography paragraphs before the teacher collects them for grading. Instead of grading all the paragraphs to assess students' understanding of the task, ask them to choose one paragraph they would like you to grade.  This helps reduce redundancy in grading , and students are usually relieved they get to choose the one that likely represents their best work. Hold Revision Conferences with Students Hold revision conferences with students instead of marking up every paper to send students on their way to revise. Set a timer for 5 or 10 minutes and meet with each student for that amount of time.  Don’t go over it. During this time, point out what you would like them to revise and have them take notes on what you are telling them. This strategy puts the ball entirely in their court, which is good. Some students are used to teachers doing all the thinking for them. Skim Rough Drafts and Use a PowerPoint for Revisions You can cut back on time spent grading essays by first skimming through the rough drafts. Notice common errors. Make a list. Then, turn it into a PowerPoint or some other visual aid you can use to present the list to students. Include examples (from their papers to make it authentic if you think your students wouldn’t be too embarrassed).  My students LOVE this, except when I tell them I want them to revise their rough drafts. Then they groan. Otherwise, they love it. It works. Here are my revising and editing points for argumentative writing, PowPoint. Limit the Length of the Assignment Do you need a five-page paper to assess the skills you are teaching? If so, go for it! If not, cut back the length of the assignment. In the past, when I’ve given students word limits, I’ve received sass, like, “Is it because you don’t feel like grading more than that?”  More than that, students can’t always write fifteen pages because they don’t know how to be concise. That’s a skill, too. We need to teach students how to say more in fewer words. Sometimes, I only have my students write one paragraph when we are practicing a new skill. Differentiated Instruction When I teach argumentative writing, I differentiate for various ability levels by offering an option to write one solid argumentative research paragraph. My advanced students warm up to argumentative writing with the same lesson. Differentiating expectations appropriately for struggling writers lightens the grading load.  Scaffolding has also helped by front-loading students with smaller-scale assignments, enriching their ability to write quality research papers. Use Comment Codes for Constructive Feedback If you’re anything like me, you find yourself writing the same comments over and over and over and over. Why don’t we just develop a comment-code sheet? Every comment you make regularly can have a number.  Instead of writing “ Run-On ” next to every error, just highlight the correct code and include the comment paper when you hand back the graded piece of writing. I wouldn’t recommend this option with advanced skills you may have just introduced, but for skills students should have mastered, this option will save time, no need to be a hamster on a wheel. Use Goobric and/or Google Docs I don’t always enjoy grading on the computer, but it does beat writing everything out. If you aren’t tempted to check your e-mail, Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook every five seconds, grading on the computer can buy you some time in your day.  If you are interested in this option but don’t know how to use Google features, a quick web search can lead you to some amazingly clear and helpful tutorials. This is not the best recommendation for anyone with social media. Don’t Repeatedly Mark the Same Error As I mentioned earlier…we don’t need to write fragment every time a student forgets a subject or verb. Mark it the first time or two, and after that, just write, “ Please fix the rest of the fragments throughout the essay ,” or something simple like that.  This way, students know there are more similar issues, but the responsibility to edit their work is theirs…which is how they learn anyway. Limit Distractions I’m just as bad about this one as the next person. I’ll start grading an essay, and five minutes later. I wonder if I have any new e-mails? Did anyone like my Facebook post ? Has anyone tweeted anything funny lately? If I don’t check Instagram, I might miss the best giveaway in history ever. You get the picture, I’m sure. I have to put my phone away to get any serious grading accomplished. It might even be necessary to get out of the house completely. Minimize Distractions Sure enough, as soon as I get into the groove, my daughter comes upstairs and needs me to help her go to the bathroom, get a snack, or tell me that her brother did something annoying. Grading essays goes faster when we can focus. Plan to reduce distractions to maximize productivity. Assess One Paragraph at a Time Instead of grading the entire essay individually, try collecting and grading one paragraph at a time. This works best with students motivated to make the corrections you suggested. Assessing one paragraph doesn’t take long, and as long as students take your revision comments seriously, all you should do with the final draft is compare the rough draft paragraph to the final draft paragraph.  Did they make the revisions you suggested? If so, they did the best they could. The final draft may be flawed, but improvement may be enough to earn an A, depending on the skill(s) you assess. Fast Grading Process with EssayGrader Save 95% of your time grading school work with our tool to get high-quality, specific, and accurate writing feedback for essays in seconds with EssayGrader's grading software for teachers. Get started for free today! How To Grade In Google Classroom Automation In Education Magic School AI Technology Tools For The Classroom Standards Based Grading Systems Teacher Apps Google Classroom Alternatives Apps For Teachers AI Tools For Education Grading Writing Online vs. Grading on Paper: Pros and Cons Grading writing assignments online can feel modern and efficient, but there are some pros and cons to consider. The most significant advantage of grading online is that it saves paper. No one likes printer jams, and grading online completely bypasses any printer woes. Another perk to online grading is that comments can be auto-filled. Streamlined Grading This cuts down on repetitive writing, or in this case, typing, and helps to streamline the grading process. You can also make changes inside the document with tracking, so you don’t have to worry about losing your comments if you need to reorganize or move things around. Plus, typing is typically faster than writing comments by hand.  If you use Goobric to grade, you can even leave audio feedback and speak comments into a recorder for students. There’s also the added benefit of dialogue with students via chats in comments about specific essay parts. This opens up new opportunities for personalized, timely feedback. Automated Grading Using a Google Spreadsheet, you can attach a Goobric (Google rubric) to the assignment and quickly enter numerical values for each area of the rubric, which will automatically be printed at the bottom of each assignment when it's returned to students. On the flip side, my students often tell me there are too many comments or corrections, and they get cluttered up on the side margin, making feedback challenging to track. Digital Strain Grading online requires much computer screen time, which can be hard on the eyes. This is especially true if you’ve been staring at a screen all day. Grading online also makes me more inclined to mark everything, which takes me longer.  Grading online means being at the mercy of technology. Our school Wi-Fi often goes out, which can cause massive interruptions in the writing and grading processes. Paper Grading: Why It Can Feel So Good There are some clear advantages to grading writing assignments on paper. First, I grade much faster on paper because I can quickly place checkmarks, which is a hooray moment, and circle items that need further attention. These kinds of marks are challenging to make when grading via Google. Grading by hand also enables me to insert punctuation corrections more quickly.  Grading on Paper Another advantage of grading on paper is that seeing the end helps me to stay motivated when grading essays. With a physical stack of documents, I can see how many are left and set goals to help me get through it. The older-aged me likes to get my eyes off the screen, so reading on paper can help with any eye strain caused by the computer. Printed-out essays and assignments can also be taken anywhere. Recently, I caught up on grading when our family was on a car trip. No computer or internet is needed!  Read and Track Handwritten Comments There are disadvantages to grading writing assignments on paper, too. Handwritten comments can be difficult for students to read and track. I often ask students to use a highlighter to mark off comments as they work through revisions and edits to keep track of changes.  Balancing the Pros and Cons of Paper Grading Grading by paper means you need prominent paper and a printer and that can bring many problems with printers at home and at school. Handwritten comments can take longer to write rather than typing them. General (Though Not Exhaustive) Grading Standards for Academic Papers Students often want to know how their writing assignments are graded—what is an A paper, a B paper, and so on. Generally speaking, there are two basic ways to determine how your papers will be graded. Understand your assignment, which often will include a rubric. Understand the general grading standards professors usually apply to papers. Assignments and What Rubrics Have To Do with Them Virtually every college and graduate-level assignment will include instructions from your professor. Often, rubrics accompany your assignments, which provide criteria for each possible grade you might receive . Some rubrics can be pretty detailed, breaking down the assignment and describing the grading criteria for each requirement. Other rubrics merely provide general writing standards associated with each grade. In either case, the content is your first and best source for understanding the assignment’s grading standards. Understand the Rubric As you familiarize yourself with an assignment and its rubric, keep in mind the following: Prioritize the criteria for a particular assignment over those listed in the section below.  When an assignment comes with a rubric, study it and familiarize yourself. Aside from your professor, this is the best guide to meeting the assignment requirements. Prioritize your professor’s advice above all. College and graduate professors often provide descriptions of their assignments and a list of requirements. Sometimes, these can differ from the accompanying rubric.  If you are ever in doubt about your assignment and its requirements, contact your professor with your questions. Some General Grading Standards for Academic Papers Although each professor and class is unique, some general qualities attach to each grade. The following grading standards may be helpful as you assess your writing, but remember, a number of factors ultimately contribute to your grade, including your specific instructor's: Refer to your assignment or class-specific standards for grading information, and contact your instructor with any questions. The Grade of A The A paper is characterized by outstanding writing marked by superior readability and command of content. The paper thoroughly addresses the assignment prompt.  The paper proceeds in a clear, logical fashion that makes the information accessible to the reader.  The paper’s purpose is clear, followed by details reflecting this purpose.   The style throughout the paper accommodates the reader. The Grade of B The B paper is characterized by distinguished writing and fulfills the assignment requirements; however, the writing contains some of the following weaknesses: The paper is well organized, but the content presentation sometimes needs to be improved. The audience for which the paper is intended sometimes needs to be clarified. The student’s diction, at times, is vague and hinders precise communication.  The student’s grammar, mechanics, and formatting flaws interfere with reading and comprehension. The Grade of C The C paper is characterized by satisfactory writing that is generally effective but contains any one of the following weaknesses: The paper lacks clear organization, or some material is not clearly explained; the paper’s audience and purpose are unclear. The student’s sentences, although grammatically correct, often make information challenging to extract. The student’s diction throughout the paper interferes with readability, but the reader can still glean the meaning; sections of the paper require rereading.  The paper contains repeated errors in grammar, mechanics, or format. The Grade of D The D paper needs to communicate information and contain stronger writing. In a professional work environment, such writing would be considered incompetent because it suffers from any one of the following problems: The paper contains two or more problems listed for the C paper. The paper needs evidence of audience accommodation. The paper needs better diction, such as garbled wording that prevents understanding. The student’s sentences have mechanical errors, such as persistent run‑on sentences and comma splices. The student’s grammar, spelling, or format problems frequently hinder understanding. The Grade of F The paper fails on multiple levels. A failing grade on a writing assignment usually means that your paper contains two or more of the problems listed for the D paper. Can AI Help Teachers With Grading? Grading student writing takes a significant amount of time teachers often don’t have. Automated essay scoring, grammar checks, and feedback generation powered by artificial intelligence can ease this burden. Research shows that AI can help teachers save time and deliver consistent feedback when assessing student writing. AI Writing Coach AI can help students improve their writing skills before teachers see their work.  An AI-equipped platform can help students: Revise essays Each time students submit their writing, the AI generates scores and feedback aligned to specific writing dimensions. This process allows students to receive immediate, unbiased assistance with their writing, and it helps reduce the workload for their teachers. Can AI Tools Replace Teachers in the Grading Process?  The short answer is no. While AI can help automate the grading process, it cannot replace the nuanced understanding that human educators bring to assessing student writing. Teachers can consider the author’s intent when evaluating writing.  If students need help communicating their ideas, an AI might fix the surface-level issues without understanding that the student has an underlying knowledge gap. In this scenario, a teacher can provide targeted feedback to help students overcome challenges. AI-Generated Feedback Doesn’t Always Align with Human Grading Research shows that scoring and feedback provided by AI often differ from those delivered by human teachers. In a study comparing scores and comments given by an AI to those provided by human teachers on 160 essays, the AI scored the essays higher than the teachers. While there were some similarities in Claim & Focus and Support & Evidence dimensions, the AI tended to provide higher scores on more problematic essays.   “ Teachers scored essays lower than the AI , with significant differences in every dimension except for claim & focus, ” the researchers noted. On the other hand, in Organization and Language & Style dimensions, teachers were far more likely to score essays at a 1 or 2 while AI scores were spread across 1 through 4, with many more essays at 3 or even 4. AI Feedback Can Be Hard for Students to Understand In addition to the differences in scoring, the comments provided by AI can be difficult for students to interpret. When human teachers used an AI tool to help grade student writing, they reported that their students struggled to understand the comments generated by the program.  In many cases, students would read a comment but needed clarification on what it asked them to do to improve their writing. On the other hand, teachers could put their comments into developmentally appropriate language that matched their students’ needs and capacities. • How To Grade Students • Grading Management Software • Online Grading System • Grading Software For Schools • Gradebook Software • Automatic Grading • Best Online Gradebook • Free Gradebooks For Teachers 28 Amazing Tools for Grading Writing & Giving Feedback 1. EssayGrader: The Go-to AI Grading Software for Teachers EssayGrader is the most accurate AI grading platform trusted by 60,000+ educators worldwide. On average, it takes a teacher 10 minutes to grade a single essay, but with EssayGrader, that time is cut down to 30 seconds. That's a 95% reduction in the time it takes to grade an essay, with the same results. With EssayGrader, Teachers can: Replicate their grading rubrics (so AI doesn't have to do the guesswork to set the grading criteria) Setup fully custom rubrics Grade essays by class Bulk upload of essays Use our AI detector to catch essays written by AI Summarize essays with our essay summarizer Teacher Trust Our AI tool helps primary school, high school, and college professors grade their students' essays. On our platform, 60,000+ teachers graded over half a million essays. 2. Showbie: A Hub for Assignments, Communication and Feedback Showbie is a platform that combines all essential tools for assignments, communication, and feedback. Showbie has an effective gradebook with many other features. You can: Mark and grade your students’ work using the class listing within the Shared Folders Easily grade student work while viewing it Add grades as a value Audio Feedback You can also add meaningful text with feedback. You also have some room to add text comments. But the real time-saver is adding audio feedback: just hit record! It’s also possible to quickly look at students' grades by: Individually You can export grades in a CVS file, as HTML, or in an email template with an attached CVS file. 3. Viper: A Free Plagiarism Checker Viper is an anti-plagiarism scanner that promises to scan uploaded documents for plagiarism, a serious issue in: Publishing circles It’s aimed at students and is handy for reducing the copying and shopping of term papers and essays. Viper effectively identifies plagiarized passages and notices potentially similar passages, misidentified or misattributed quotes, and other suspicious sentences. 4. ZipGrade: Grade Multiple Choice Tests in Minutes ZipGrade is a grading app that helps you grade multiple-choice tests in minutes. Scan the tests with your smartphone, and the app does the rest. Not everything is about grades. This app only gives grades, and it’s up to you to know what the students need and what questions I have to explain again. Don’t forget to provide some good feedback! 5. BookWidgets: Create Grading Interactive Assignments BookWidgets is a learning platform that allows teachers to create interactive lessons for tablets and computers. The tool has over 40 activities, such as: Other interactive teaching apps Instant Grading Once the teacher has made an assignment, the student can complete it and return it to the teacher. The assignment or test will have already been graded by the time it arrives! You can track progress and give them constructive feedback through the teachers' dashboard.  You can access the platform and download the results anytime, anywhere. Check out BookWidgets’ grading dashboard to discover student analytics, auto-grading, and how you can give feedback to students! 6. Thinkwave: A Comprehensive Grading Tool for Teachers Thinkwave is an app that provides several useful features for teachers and educators. Multiple options, such as a messaging system and custom reports, are available.  Thus, it’s a comprehensive app that simplifies administrative tasks and provides valuable insights into student performance. 7. Alma: Track Grades and Provide Feedback Alma allows you to record and track grades, calculate weighted averages, and generate progress reports. You can provide input, comments, and feedback for each assignment. 8. Gradebook Pro: A Powerful Grading Tool GradeBook Pro is a powerful classroom management tool. Its many features allow teachers to: Categorize assignments and view grades by category Use either weighted or standard grade scales Award extra credit or deduct penalty points Calculate the average score for each assignment Evaluate overall class performance Email grades, attendance, or status reports to students.  9. Flubaroo: Grade Google Forms Assignments Flubaroo is a free add-on to Google Forms/Sheets. It helps you grade and analyze online assignments and assessments. You can also email scores to students! With Flubaroo, you’ll be able to get scores for each student, identify students needing extra help, view the average score and a histogram of scores, and quickly identify questions that most students missed. 10. Formative: Get Real-Time Results Formative lets you distribute an assignment to your students. Students make it, and you get live results. You can follow your students in their learning process of that assignment and give instant grades and feedback.  It is similar to Google Forms, but it is easier to use and has some other essential features that a teacher can’t miss. 11. Edubirdie: A Plagiarism Checker for Students and Teachers Teachers and students can use Edubirdie to check whether they used unique resources in their writings or papers. The plagiarism checker lets you upload a file or paste your text and will give your resources a percentage. This percentage illustrates the uniqueness of your text. 12. Cograder: AI-Assisted Grading from Google Classroom Co-Grader is a popular AI-guided system for grading student work imported from Google Classroom.  Co-Grader supports rubric-based grading aligned with state standards or customized criteria set by the teacher. Teachers can define grading criteria using rubric templates, allowing for consistent evaluation of student work. 13. Canvas: A Learning Management System with Grading Features Canvas is a popular Learning Management System (LMS) with various grading and feedback options.  Canvas provides an array of assessment features . For one, It provides real-time assessment of student responses during a live class or event. It can also automatically grade student assessments and provide detailed reports. Canvas offers analytics dashboards to visualize student assessment results. 14. Smodin: An AI Grader for Essays Smodin’s AI Grader uses artificial intelligence to grade essays based on: Plagiarism detection Grammar checking Readability analysis Content evaluation AI Grader can grade short-answer questions and longer forms of writing such as essays and reports. It can also provide feedback and comments on the student’s work, highlighting the errors and suggestions. Essay Evaluation It gives suggestions on how to make essay writing more effective and checks the essay for: Readability 15. MagicSchool: A Grading Tool with AI Features A former teacher designed MagicSchool, an AI-powered platform offering over 60 tools to assist educators. Included are a series of assessment features for educators.  MagicSchool offers a Rubric Generator and a Diagnostic Assessment Generator for multiple-choice diagnostic assessments on any topic to assist teachers with assessment. 16. Class Companion: Get Real-Time Feedback on Student Writing Class Companion is an AI-powered tool that helps teachers assess student writing and provides real-time feedback on student writing. Teachers craft assignments, students submit their work, and the AI provides: Suggestions Class Companion enables teachers to: Identify areas where students need improvement  Provide targeted feedback Writing Analysis The tool provides feedback on the clarity and coherence of student writing, helping teachers identify areas where students need to improve their writing skills.  It can be used to: Grade assignments Track student progress Generate reports It supports all subjects that have written assignments, including AP-level classes. 17. Feedback Studio: A Grading Tool with Effective Feedback Features Feedback Studio by Turnitin features a vibrant range of feedback and grading tools designed to help teachers deliver efficient and meaningful feedback to students. With Feedback Studio teachers have a comprehensive feedback suite including: Drag-and-drop QuickMarks Written comments Voice-recorded comments Automatic grammar checking Feedback Features Teachers can annotate submitted documents directly on the screen, which includes: Text highlighting Embedded comments Shared remarks (to address prevalent issues) Rubrics (to focus feedback on specific assessment criteria) General comments Audio feedback 18. Enlighten AI: An AI Grading Assistant Enlighten AI is an AI teaching assistant created by teachers for grading, focusing on delivering feedback to students quickly and effectively.  Enlighten AI syncs with Google Classroom to enable teachers to upload documents, see student responses, and then provide feedback generated by Enlighten AI directly to students. AI Feedback Instead of writing detailed and time-consuming individualized feedback for each student, the teacher trains Enlighten AI to understand their pedagogical focus and grading scale so that it can take up the bulk of the feedback process.  19. Happy Grader: An AI Grading Platform for Short Answers HappyGrader is a new AI grading platform created by a veteran math and science teacher. It keeps humans in the loop while automating the process of grading exams after students submit their answers through a Google Form or other online form tool.  HappyGrader uses pattern recognition to recommend that teachers assign full and partial credit to students’ short-answer responses. It also uses AI to predictively score and provide feedback for paragraph responses based on the teacher's rubric. 20. Timely Grader: AI Grading That Supports Students Timely Grader is an AI grading and feedback platform that streamlines the grading process from rubric creation to grade pass back to the LMS. It also empowers students by giving them access to personalized feedback whenever needed. Timely Grader offers robust AI-assisted grading capabilities for various assessments such as essays, term papers, and reports. It also provides instructors with explanations and reasoning for each grading suggestion so they can validate the AI's suggestions. At the same time, it gives instructors first-pass feedback for each student submission. 21. Kangaroo AI Essay Grader: An Up-and-Coming Grading Tool Kangaroo AI is a new AI-powered grading platform in beta mode that offers instant grading.  Kangaroo AI offers instant grading, significantly reducing teachers' time on manual grading while maintaining consistency in grading standards. Teachers can upload customizable rubrics tailored to specific assignment criteria or learning goals, ensuring a personalized grading experience. Technical Support The platform also includes: 24/7 support through RooChat A friendly AI teacher assistant, and operates on a secure platform, ensuring data safety and confidentiality. 22. Vexis: An AI Grading System for Personalized Feedback Vexis is an advanced grading system that uses artificial intelligence to provide the following: Teachers with detailed grading evaluations  Students with personalized feedback Vexis AI aims to streamline and enhance the grading process for educators. Vexis AI's Personalized Feedback feature provides individualized comments on student work, while the Detailed Reports feature provides teachers with a comprehensive overview of student performance. 23. Quick Grader: A Free and Simple Tool This free grading option is fully customizable and features: Half-point values Adjustable grade scales Decimal values plus/minus grading, and it is super user-friendly 24. Grade Grid: Convert Number Grades to Letter Grades Grade Grid can convert number grades to letter grades for free. The grading scale is customizable depending on the assignment. 25. QuickKey: Grade Assignments Without WiFi This freebie allows teachers to grade assignments without WiFi! You can also push out quizzes to students directly if they have devices.  QuickKey syncs with Google Classroom and exports grades into a grade book! 26. JumpRope: A Standards-Based Grading App JumpRope is a free app for standards-based grading only. If your district uses standards-based grading, this one is for you! 27. Edmodo: Innovative Grading Options Edmodo enables teachers to grade innovatively through: Online discussions It’s more than just a free grading app. 28. Teacherease: Communicate with Parents About Student Progress Teachers can use either traditional or standards-based grading to: Communicate with students  Provide feedback on assignments The app also allows parents to see a student’s progress. Teacherease has a fee, but many districts get discounts. Save Time While Grading Schoolwork with EssayGrader's Grading Software for Teachers Wouldn't it be nice to get some of your time back? Grading writing assignments like essays can be fun at first but quickly becomes tedious. Teachers often report feelings of burnout when faced with large stacks of essays to grade, especially when they're under a time crunch.  EssayGrader can help teachers reduce the time it takes to grade essays so they can reclaim their evenings and weekends. With our AI grading tool, you could go from spending hours to just minutes to grade a writing assignment.  Get started for free today! How EssayGrader Works EssayGrader is an AI grading tool that helps educators assess written assignments quickly and accurately. The software uses artificial intelligence to evaluate student essays based on established grading criteria to produce fast, specific, high-quality feedback that educators can use to improve student writing.  Rather than replace educators, our tool helps them lighten their workloads and mitigate grading fatigue. Reduce Subjectivity and Increase Consistency EssayGrade r can reduce the subjectivity often associated with grading writing assignments. Even when teachers use rubrics, there's still some inconsistency when grading student essays because human beings naturally have biases that affect decision-making.   If a teacher knows a student has been struggling, they might unconsciously grade their essay more leniently to give them a boost.  With EssayGrader , you can set your grading rubric, and the AI does the rest, leaving little room for error.  Customizable Grading Rubrics With EssayGrader, you can replicate your existing grading rubrics, so the AI cannot guess how to evaluate the essay. You can also develop custom rubrics from scratch to meet your classroom's or individual students' unique needs. This helps ensure you and your students get the most accurate results possible. Grade Essays in Bulk Instead of grading student essays one at a time, with EssayGrader, you can assess multiple writing assignments at once. The platform allows for easy bulk uploads so you can quickly get to work, reducing your grading time and providing students with the feedback they need to improve their writing skills. Catch AI Written Essays With the growing capabilities of artificial intelligence and tools like ChatGPT, students use AI to generate essays they can submit for class. This raises concerns among educators about the integrity of student work and how to assist students who may be using AI to cheat.  EssayGrader has an AI detector built into the platform, so you can quickly identify any essays written by artificial intelligence. Summarize Essays for Quick Overviews Another great feature of EssayGrader is the essay summarizer. This tool provides educators with a quick overview of the student's paper so they can get a good sense of their work before they dive into grading.  This can help them understand the content before they assess it based on their grading criteria to ensure their feedback is thorough and accurate. Start grading today Save hours by grading essays in  30 seconds or less. Related blogs 61 Top-Rated Apps for Teachers to Simplify Your Workday Streamline grading and reclaim time! Explore apps for teachers and learn how AI tools like EssayGrader.ai can save you hours and boost efficiency. 64 Incredible Teacher Apps for a More Organized Classroom Overwhelmed grading? EassayGrader’s teacher apps solution can save you time and reduce stress! Learn more and reclaim your evenings! What Is Magic School AI & Top 18 Alternatives for the Modern Teacher Struggling with essay assessments? Learn how Magic School AI can help assess writing and free your time to focus on students. Try the EssayGrader solution. 410 IMAGES Essay Grading Guide College Grade Criteria For Grading Essay Grading Rubric Criteria For Marking Essay How to Use a Rubric to Score Writing Essay Rubric Grading Sheet VIDEO Delhi University Minimum Passing Criteria & Grading System Practice Essay Grading Essay 2 Grading Criteria CSS essay marking criteria Essay Grading Tip ✏️ Essay 1 Grading Criteria and Info COMMENTS Evaluation Criteria for Formal Essays Organization: The observations are listed rather than organized, and some of them do not appear to belong in the paper at all. Both paper and paragraphs lack coherence. Evidence: The paper offers no concrete evidence from the texts or misuses a little evidence. Mechanics: The paper contains constant and glaring errors in syntax, agreement ... PDF Essay Rubric Essay Rubric Directions: Your essay will be graded based on this rubric. Consequently, use this rubric as a guide when writing your essay and check it again before you submit your essay. Traits 4 3 2 1 Focus & Details There is one clear, well-focused topic. Main ideas are clear and are well supported by detailed and accurate information. Rubric Best Practices, Examples, and Templates A rubric is a scoring tool that identifies the different criteria relevant to an assignment, assessment, or learning outcome and states the possible levels of achievement in a specific, clear, and objective way. Use rubrics to assess project-based student work including essays, group projects, creative endeavors, and oral presentations. What Is an Essay Grading Rubric & 11 Tools to Streamline Your Grading 1. Criteria. The criteria in an essay grading rubric outline the specific areas that a student's essay will be assessed on. These criteria vary depending on the teacher's goals for the assignment. They may include elements like thesis statement, organization, supporting evidence, analysis, language use, and mechanics. Writing Rubrics: How to Score Well on Your Paper Writing rubrics exist to help you understand the assignment fully and show how you can reach the score you desire. A rubric is often illustrated in a table that includes: Row headings that articulate the requirements. Column headings that show the different scores possible. Boxes inside the rubric that show how each requirement can be achieved ... Essay Rubric Grading rubrics can be of great benefit to both you and your students. For you, a rubric saves time and decreases subjectivity. Specific criteria are explicitly stated, facilitating the grading process and increasing your objectivity. ... an essay about geographical landforms and their effect on the culture of a region might necessitate ... ENG 1001: Evaluation Criteria for Essays According to IVCC's Grading Criteria for Writing Assignments , "A," "B," and "C" essays are clear throughout, meaning that problems with clarity can have a substantial effect on the grade of an essay. If any parts of your essay or any sentences seem just a little unclear to you, you can bet that they will be unclear to readers. Grading Writing Grading with clear criteria in mind helps to ensure fairness and objectivity. So does another principle of grading: Grade the paper and nothing but the paper— not the person who wrote it, the effort that went into it, or the improvement it shows. This principle dramatically simplifies the task of evaluation by eliminating second guessing; it ... Rubrics Rubrics are tools for communicating grading criteria and assessing student progress. Rubrics take a variety of forms, from grids to checklists, and measure a range of writing tasks, from conceptual design to sentence-level considerations. As with any assessment tool, a rubric's effectiveness is entirely dependent upon its design and its ... Structure and Scoring of the Assessment Scoring. Scoring is typically completed within three weeks after the assessment date. The readers are UC Berkeley faculty members, primarily from College Writing Programs, though faculty from other related departments, such as English or Comparative Literature might participate as well. Your essay will be scored independently by two readers ... Essay Grading Rubric: Content, Organization, Style, Mechanics Essay Grading Rubric STUDENT: ESSAY: ... Criteria. CONTENT 40%. 40-33 : Excellent to Very Good: There is one clear, well-focused thesis. Excellent command of subject matter. Evidence of independent thought. Supporting arguments relate to main claim & are well organized. Thesis stands out and is supported by details. Essay Rubric: Basic Guidelines and Sample Template An essay rubric refers to a way for teachers to assess students' composition writing skills and abilities. Basically, an evaluation scheme provides specific criteria to grade assignments. Moreover, the three basic elements of an essay rubric are criteria, performance levels, and descriptors. In this case, teachers use assessment guidelines to ... Writing Resources The essay has few grammatical errors; it is clear, well organized and understandable, if not particularly interesting or exciting; some sentences may be poorly constructed or unclear. C. Theoretical thesis vague at best; evidence only partially tied to thesis; evidence is at very broad and general level. Reader gains general understanding of ... Grading criteria: NuWrite Grading criteria for a reflective essay A list of grading criteria distributed to students before they revise their first assignment, a reflective essay. The handout is intended both to inform students of what I will be looking for in assessing their revisions and to reinforce the general suggestions I gave them in our conferences about their ... PDF Essay Guidelines, Short Grading Rubric, & Corrections Guide II. Short Grading Rubric While the grade you earn on an essay is based partly on your understanding of the course materials, it also depends heavily on how well you follow the above guidelines. The brief grading rubric below shows the numerical grade equivalents based on the standard UW grade scale. For more information, see also the The Beginner's Guide to Writing an Essay Essay writing process. The writing process of preparation, writing, and revisions applies to every essay or paper, but the time and effort spent on each stage depends on the type of essay.. For example, if you've been assigned a five-paragraph expository essay for a high school class, you'll probably spend the most time on the writing stage; for a college-level argumentative essay, on the ... PDF GUIDELINES FOR GRADING ESSAYS Below are listed some guidelines that instructors follow when grading essays. Please use this sheet as a checklist before submitting an essay. is an exceptional essay in all categories of rhetoric, style, and correct usage. It is highly original, extremely well-developed, detailed, fluent, and cogent. It may have one or two surface errors. PDF Essay Grading Criteria Essay Grading Criteria I grade the essays using the nine criteria below. For each criterion, I assign between 0 and 3 points depending on how well the essay meets its requirements, with 0 representing complete failure according to the criterion. The total number of points is 27. 1. Exposition. Is the essay well-organized and free of spelling PDF Argumentative essay rubric Logical, compelling progression of ideas in essay;clear structure which enhances and showcases the central idea or theme and moves the reader through the text. Organization flows so smoothly the reader hardly thinks about it. Effective, mature, graceful transitions exist throughout the essay. 3 Easy Steps to Grading Student Essays If the student shows excellent grammar, good organization and a good overall effect, he would score a total of ten points. Divide that by the total criteria, three in this case, and he finishes with a 3.33. which on a four-point scale is a B+. If you use five criteria to evaluate your essays, divide the total points scored by five to determine ... 15 Helpful Scoring Rubric Examples for All Grades and Subjects 100-Point Essay Rubric. Need an easy way to convert a scoring rubric to a letter grade? This example for essay writing earns students a final score out of 100 points. Learn more: Learn for Your Life. Drama Performance Rubric. If you're unsure how to grade a student's participation and performance in drama class, consider this example. Sample Rubrics for Essays for Elementary Teachers An essay rubric is a way teachers assess students' essay writing by using specific criteria to grade assignments. Essay rubrics save teachers time because all of the criteria are listed and organized into one convenient paper. If used effectively, rubrics can help improve students' writing. Below are two types of rubrics for essays. Tips for Creating and Scoring Essay Tests Avoid interruptions when scoring a specific question. Again, consistency will be increased if you grade the same item on all the papers in one sitting. If an important decision like an award or scholarship is based on the score for the essay, obtain two or more independent readers. Beware of negative influences that can affect essay scoring. Ultimate Guide on Grading Writing Online vs. Grading on Paper On average, it takes a teacher 10 minutes to grade a single essay, but with EssayGrader, that time is cut down to 30 seconds. That's a 95% reduction in the time it takes to grade an essay, with the same results. With EssayGrader, Teachers can: Replicate their grading rubrics (so AI doesn't have to do the guesswork to set the grading criteria) assignment essay homework paper phd report resume review speech thesis