How to Grade a Middle School Essay Before It’s Even Written
Have you ever felt overwhelmed with a pile of essays that just seems impossible to grade?
We’ve all been there.
Grading essays has to be the most tedious type of grading, even if you really love the topic!
Over the last few years, I have started to take a build-an-essay approach to essay-writing because it allows me to grade each essay as it is written.
Here’s how you do it:
Have your kids write their thesis statement. Make a simple yes/no rubric so you can grade the thesis statement quickly on a few important points (like “thesis statement includes an arguable claim” or “thesis statement avoids first-person and second-person language” — whatever your kids need to get right.
Next, tell your kids to write their topic sentences — their reasons for making their claim. Again, use a quick yes/no rubric to grade them as soon as they are done. It’s super fast!
Have your students write their support for each topic sentence next. If this is a research paper, they should include their quotes.
The next step is to have your students explain the support they provided.
Finally, ask your students to sum up their paper in a short conclusion paragraph. I have my students write one sentence to restate their thesis and reasons, one sentence to summarize their support, and one final mic-drop sentence with six words or fewer. By this time, the students really have the hang of the process, so this paragraph is usually the quickest to grade of all!
The key is to make very simple—yet very specific—yes/no rubrics for each step of the paper.
With the right rubric, I can usually grade 2-3 students per minute. With about 95 students, I can grade the whole class in a 45-minute prep period.
Then each student has the feedback they need before they move on to the next step.
By the time my students finish writing their papers, they already have all of my feedback, and the only thing left is the editing phase.
Instead of grading their final drafts on all of the same requirements again, I have my students review the feedback I gave them, make those changes, and type a simple list of edits they made. I then assess the changes they made according to whether or not they improved the paper.
It saves me SO much time.
Last year, I prepped all of the yes/no rubrics for our research paper ahead of time. The kids investigated the unsolved Gardner Museum heist and attempted to find the thieves responsible for the stolen art work. They had so much fun, and I graded their papers in record time. You can check out all of the assignment sheets and rubric here!
This research paper went so well with my seventh grade class that I decided to prepare instructions, examples, and yes/no rubrics for ALL of the essays we write throughout the school year.
Looking for a little more clarity on how to cut down on your grading time?
This video was taken from my live masterclass, “30-second Essay Grading.” Watch for my favorite essay-grading tips!