What criteria does the writing teacher use to evaluate the work of his or her students in a world where number two pencils and bubbles on an answer sheet frequently determine a student’s grade? After all, you can’t simply mark some answers correct and others incorrect and calculate a percentage. The good news is that grading an essay with a rubric can be just as simple and straightforward as grading multiple-choice tests!
What is a rubric?
A rubric is a chart that is used to grade essays, special projects, and other more subjective items. It lists each grading criteria individually and defines the various performance levels within those criteria.
Rubrics are used to score writing samples on standardised tests such as the SAT, and creating one for your own use is simple if you take it step by step. Remember that when using a rubric to grade essays, you can create one rubric to use throughout the semester or modify your rubric as your expectations for your students rise.
How to Grade now?
- Common elements
The essay should be well-written with proper grammar and vocabulary. It should be well-organized, with relevant and effective content. Teachers also consider the piece’s overall effectiveness. When evaluating specific writing samples, you may want to include other essay criteria based on material covered in class.
You may choose to grade your students based on the type of essay they wrote as well as whether or not they followed the specific instructions you provided. You may want to assess their information use and whether they correctly presented the material you taught. You can evaluate anything you think is important about your students’ writing abilities when you create your own rubric.
- We will create a rubric to evaluate students’ essays based on the criteria we chose (grammar, organisation, and overall effect).
The most basic evaluation employs a four-point scale for each of the criteria. Taking each of the criteria one at a time, describe your expectations for an A paper, a B paper, and so on. In terms of grammar, an A paper would be free of the majority of grammatical errors appropriate for the student’s language learning level.
A B paper would have some errors but overall good grammar. A C paper would have numerous grammatical errors. A D paper would demonstrate that the student lacked the grammatical knowledge required for his language learning level. We now incorporate these definitions into the rubric.
The next step is to define success for each of the other criteria, assigning a value to A, B, C, and D papers. The definitions are then entered into the rubric in the appropriate places to complete the chart.
Each of the criteria will earn the essay points. Each description in the first column is worth four points, the second three points, the third two points, and the fourth one point.
- Keep your eyes off the names.
To help with this, some teachers have students write numbers on their essays.
- Be wary of negative influences that can have an impact on essay scoring.
Handwriting and writing style bias, response length, and the inclusion of irrelevant material are examples of these.
What’s the grading process?
Grading the essay is simple now that your criteria have been defined. When using a rubric to grade a student essay, it is best to read the essay once before evaluating for grades. Then, after rereading the piece, determine where the writing sample falls on the scale for each of the criteria.
If the student demonstrates excellent grammar, good organisation, and a good overall effect, he will receive ten points. Divide that by the total criteria, three in this case, and he gets a 3.33, which is a B+ on a four-point scale. Divide the total points scored by five to determine the student’s grade if you use five criteria to evaluate your essays.
After you’ve created your grading rubric, you may want to share it with your students.
If you do, they will understand your expectations and what they need to do to get the grade they want. You could even make a copy of the rubric for each paper and circle where the student falls for each criterion. Each person will know where he needs to focus his attention in order to improve his grade.
The more clear your expectations are and the more feedback you provide to your students, the more successful they will be. You can communicate those standards as well as make your grading more objective with more practical suggestions for your students if you use a rubric in your essay grading. Furthermore, once you’ve created your rubric, you can use it for all future evaluations.
By: Khushi Gupta
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