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7.4: Grading Standards

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    WHAT ARE GRADING STANDARDS?

    As Skyline College’s English instructors created a rubric to set clear criteria and standards for essays, they have also created a shared set of standards which explain the grades used to score essays.

    WHY ARE THEY IMPORTANT?

    Grading standards help to…

    • give grades meaning by creating a clear set of standards others can reference to know what set of skills and abilities are connected with that grade.
    • create fairness and consistency between English courses as all students are being graded by the same criteria.
    • teach people to measure the quality of their own writing.
    • promote self-sufficiency because how to achieve high quality work is clearly defined.
    • give students clear goals as they write and give teachers clear ways to assess that writing.

    Here are the Essay Grading Standards for the Skyline English Department:

    "A" essay: 98-100=A+, 93-97=A, 90-92=A-

    Excellent: Essay is an enlightening, unified, convincing, and original response with larger implications/significance.

    • Assignment Fulfillment: Thoroughly and effectively meets all requirements.
    • Thesis: Makes a clear, complex and enlightening argument about the text(s).
    • Organization: Presents a seamlessly fluid and unified structure that supports a central idea/thesis.
    • Development and Support: Provides logical, original, well-developed, and relevant evidence and analysis.
    • Use of Text and MLA Guidelines: Skillfully integrates relevant textual evidence demonstrating a deep use of the text(s) using proper format and documentation.
    • Sentence Style and Grammar: Demonstrates sentence skill, clarity, and variety with few, if any, grammatical or proofreading errors.

    "B" essay: 87-89=B+, 83-86=B, 80-82=B-

    Good: Essay is a thought provoking, focused, persuasive response with larger implications/significance.

    • Assignment Fulfillment: Meets all requirements.
    • Thesis: Makes a focused, direct, and thought-provoking argument about the text(s).
    • Organization: Presents an effectively unified structure that supports a central idea/thesis.
    • Development and Support: Provides logical, well-developed, and reasonable evidence and analysis.
    • Use of Text and MLA Guidelines: Skillfully integrates relevant textual evidence using proper format and documentation.
    • Sentence Style and Grammar: Demonstrates sentence skill, clarity, and variety with few grammatical or proofreading errors.

    "C" essay: 77-79=C+, 70-76=C

    Adequate: Essay contains one or more of the following: is clear but somewhat simplistic, loosely unified, has adequate but at times inconsistent development, and/or analysis of the larger implications/significance is present but could be more developed.

    • Assignment Fulfillment: Meets nearly all requirements.
    • Thesis: Makes a clear argument about the text(s) but may be simplistic or formulaic.
    • Organization: Presents a loosely unified structure that supports a central idea/thesis but may have gaps in logic.
    • Development and Support: Provides some evidence and analysis that is well-reasoned but other points may be illogical and/or too general.
    • Use of Text and MLA Guidelines: Adequately integrates textual evidence using proper format and documentation but may have some lapses in correct usage.
    • Sentence Style and Grammar: Demonstrates solid sentence skill but may have some choppiness, minimal variety, and lapses in logical connections with some grammatical or proofreading errors.

    "D" essay: 67-69=D+, 63-66=D, 60-62=D-

    Needs Work/Unsatisfactory: Essay contains one or more of the following: is unfocused, poorly organized, underdeveloped, and/or lacks analysis of the larger implications/significance.

    • Assignment Fulfillment: Does not meet all requirements.
    • Thesis: Is unfocused or vague or the thesis may not respond to the text(s).
    • Organization: Contains poor organization and may not be clearly unified around one clear argument.
    • Development and Support: Provides illogical reasoning and summaries or generalizations may lack relevant supporting evidence and analysis.
    • Use of Text and MLA Guidelines: Lacks adequate textual evidence and may neglect to properly integrate, format and/or document textual evidence.
    • Sentence Style and Grammar: Sentences may either be overly simplistic or confusingly worded. Sentences may not be joined logically to show relationships between ideas and/or lack variety with frequent errors in grammar, usage and spelling.

    "F" essay: 59-0=F

    Not acceptable/Failing: Essay contains one or more of the following: is off topic, is missing many of the essential essay elements such as thesis, organization, development, and/or the sentences are confusing with excessive errors.

    • Assignment Fulfillment: Essay does not respond to the assignment and/or fails to fulfill the requirements.
    • Thesis: Thesis may be missing or the thesis may not respond to the text(s).
    • Organization: Essay has no clearly defined or apparent organization.
    • Development and Support: Does not provide clear, reasonable or related evidence and analysis.
    • Use of Text and MLA Guidelines: Fails to include textual evidence and/or lacks proper formatting.
    • Sentence Style and Grammar: Sentences may be hard to understand with excessive errors in grammar, usage and spelling.

    This page titled 7.4: Grading Standards is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Skyline English Department.

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