When you’re grading a stack of papers, it’s easy to mark mistakes or note negative points and give a grade – nothing more.  But a positive word or two might make a big difference to students.  When you need to point out an error, telling students to “Clarify this” or “Be concise” may be like telling them to “Be tall;” they might not know how to do what you ask.  Consider how you can help students see why they might have made the error, to help them focus their thinking on areas where they need the most work.

John C. Bean in his book, Engaging Ideas, offers four tips for grading essay exams. First, do not look at students’ names when you read the exams, or have students write an ID number on the test instead. In this way, you will be able to eliminate grader bias.  Second, grade the exam one question at a time, rather than reading the whole exam of each student.  This will help with grading reliability.

The third recommendation Bean provides is to shuffle the exams after you complete each question so that you read them in a different order.  Record scores in such a way that you don’t know what a student received on Question 1 when you grade Question 2.  Finally, if time permits you should skim a random sample of exams before you make initial decisions about grades.  Your goal is to establish “anchor papers” that represent prototype A, B, and C grades.  Then, when you come to a difficult essay, ask yourself, “Is this better or worse than my prototype B or C?”

Instead of using “anchor papers” to determine grades, you may find it beneficial to use a scoring rubric to grade essays and papers through Primary Trait Analysis (PTA).  The teacher determines the criteria for each score within the rubric and describes this in a handout given with the assignment or included in the syllabus.  Developing a PTA scale requires four steps:

1. Choose a test, assignment, or group of assignments that you will evaluate.  Clarify your objectives.

2. Identify the criteria or traits that will count in this evaluation.  These are usually words or phrases such as “thesis,” “use of color,” or “use of relevant examples.”

3. For each trait, construct a 2-5 point scale, with each point relating to a descriptive statement; e.g. “A 5 thesis is clear and appropriate for the scope of the essay; it neither repeats sources nor states the obvious.”

4. Try out the scale with a sample of student work and revise as needed. CTE also has samples of rubrics available.

The advantage of using this method is that, rather than writing out extensive comments, you score the essay or assignment using the rubric, making this a timely way of grading written work. Students can refer to it when writing the assignment, as well as use their scored rubric to examine the evaluation of their work’s strengths and weaknesses.  This method also increases inter-grader reliability when multiple individuals are responsible for the grading of these assignments. See Walvoord and Anderson’s Effective Grading (1998) for an in-depth discussion of PTA.

Resources:
Bean, J.C. (1996).  Engaging ideas.  San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.