Mike schmoker school and district improvement, assessment, curriculum and discourage and over. Jul 14, 2014 . grading high school papers intimidates many homeschoolers. write a composition in which you explain how t somewhat rare in students: how to write about an academic topic with their mind focused wholly on t guidelines on how to efficiently grade writing. pamela flash establishing and discussing specific characteristics of success when an assignment is first distributed benefits both students and instructors. Having received the criteria with an assignment, students are able to write toward specific goals. Later, when they look at their grades, they can see at a glance the strengths and weaknesses of their work.

Instructors are able to grade according to customized descriptive criteria that reflect the intention of a specific assignment and won't change according to the hour of night or the amount of effort a particular student is suspected of expending. Rubrics can also save on grading time, as they allow instructors to detail comments on one or two elements and simply indicate ratings on others. Finally, grading rubrics are invaluable in courses that involve more than one instructor, as in team taught or multi sectioned courses, because they ensure that all instructors are measuring work by the same standards. The first step involved in creating assignment specific rubrics is revisiting an assignment's intended outcomes. These objectives can be considered, prioritized, and reworded to create a rubric's criteria. If, for example, an instructor assigns a literature review hoping that students might become skilled at reducing complex texts down to pithy summaries, concise summary can be one of the grading criteria included in the rubric.

Care must be taken to keep the list of criteria from becoming unwieldy ten ranked items is usually the upper limit. In addition, to be usefully translated and used by students, criteria should be specific and descriptive. Criteria like clear, organized, and interesting don't mean much to students when they sit down to revise. When criteria have been identified, decisions are made about their varying importance. Say, for example, that an essay is assigned by a geography professor who intends for students to become skilled at creating concrete and accurate observation based descriptions, practiced in analyzing their data and in devising a land use proposal, and able to create correctly formatted, error free prose. When creating a grading rubric for that assignment, the instructor will need to decide on the relative weight of each criterion. Is the error free prose objective equal to the analysis objective? when the criteria have been set, decisions must be made about an assessment scale.

Many instructors like to limit this section of the rubric to a three point scale weak, satisfactory, strong . Others may prefer to break this down into five or six levels, adding categories like needs extensive revision, or outstanding. When the specific criteria and levels of success have been named and ranked, they can be sorted into a table see samples below and distributed with the assignment. Political science/jsis/lsj writing center tools for tas and instructors grading written assignments the stack of papers on your desk seems bottomless, and mid way through the paper you are reading, you cannot remember what the student is arguing.

On top of this, you are not even sure what constitutes a good and bad paper anymore. Though many of the tips below may appear to be time consuming, they can in fact lead to a reduction in grading time and more importantly, a more productive, fruitful use of that time. Invest your time earlier in the process clearly explain the criteria you will use when evaluating student papers. Writing out your criteria insures consistency and provides a useful point of discussion in student conferences. If possible, provide a model to students, by photocopying an a paper from a previous assignment, for example. Go over it sentence by sentence clarify important terms reword illustrate with examples or ask students to do this. include informal writing about the assignment before the final paper is due see in class writing activities for suggestions.

If time, see each student individually to help them develop and revise their paper. Make your key contribution here put a grade and only minimal comments on the final paper. use peer review see using peer review working through the pile review criteria before grading. Know exactly what you expect of an a paper, and how you will differentiate among a, b, c, d, and f papers see below for suggestions.

Essay on Effects of Technology on Human Life

Set aside one or two representative as, bs, cs, ds which can act as touchstones if you lose focus. Respond as you go is a tough habit to break, but it can interrupt the flow of your reading, creating frustration and comprehension problems. Agonizing over problem papers may disrupt your reading set them aside and go back to them. holistic grading holistic grading involves looking at the paper as an entire document instead of distinguishing content from form.

It might help to write out a description of what constitutes an a, b, and c paper. It addresses the assignment in a way that indicates your comprehension of and control over the assignment itself as well as an understanding of the underlying issues. b. the paper meets, and at times, exceeds the basic requirements of the assignment. The paper indicates that you are beginning, at times, to think through and deal with major ideas in the assignment.