7 Hacks For Grading In ELA
As an English Language Arts teacher, you constantly have a million responsibilities on your plate, and your time is valuable. Because of the myriad of writing assignments in this discipline, grading is a task that often takes up a significant amount of time, especially because you must try your best to grade objectively rather than subjectively. Here are effective hacks to make grading easy, efficient, and stress-free!
Grading Methods That Are Not Percentages
To save time (and your sanity!) reserve
the use of percentages for essays and assessments. For small-scale assignments, try these grading
systems instead:
- Complete / Incomplete
- Check Plus / Check / Check Minus
- Points (such as out of four points)
Vocab Practice
It is vital for students to enhance
their command of the English language, which is why vocabulary work is helpful. When assigning vocabulary, ask your students
to look up the part of speech and definition for each word, as well as write a
creative sentence for each word.
Reading every student’s work for every
vocabulary word would be extremely time consuming. You can save time by meticulously reading perhaps
only one-quarter or one-third of the assigned work, and skim over the rest. The grading system of “Complete / Incomplete”
works well for this assignment.
Let’s say there are 12 vocabulary words. You may want to examine the work for two of
the words at the beginning of the list and two at the end to see that the
assignment is being completed with care and accuracy. If the four words you examined are done
properly, grant that student full-credit with a score of “Complete”; if not,
perhaps partial credit and a conversation with the student are justified with a
score of “Incomplete.”
Do Now/Bell Work
The warm-up assignment (often referred
to as the Do Now or Bell Work) that is completed in the first few minutes of
class is typically ungraded. Once in a
while, without notice, you can collect and grade this assignment to remind
students to take this work seriously.
The grading system used will depend on the type of assignment given.
Journal entries can easily be graded
using the method of “Check Plus / Check / Check Minus.” Create a rubric that incorporates both the quantity
and the quality of the writing, with criteria in each of the three possible scores.
Grammar practice or recollection of information
from the previous class (such as asking students to define “figurative language”
and include two examples of it) can simply be scored with the system of “Complete
/ Incomplete.” Students who complete or
at least put effort into the assignment receive full-credit, while those who do
not put in effort earn only partial-credit.
Short Answer Responses
Open-ended questions that require detailed
responses, such as a paragraph in length, are best to grade using points. Since these answers are typically composed of
text evidence and explanations, students can earn varying point values
depending on what elements are included in each response.
The answers can be graded on a scale of
one to four points. Content and grammar should
also be taken into consideration. For
example, a student who provides a well-crafted answer but forgets to include an
explanation of the selected text evidence might score three out of four points.
Essays
The grading of essays is most efficient
when using rubrics. Categories on the
rubric may include these five: development of ideas; organization; word choice;
mechanics, usage, and grammar; format.
Point values are best if on a scale of one to four. This set up gives the rubric a total value of
20 points. When finalizing the grade of the
essay, simply multiply the student’s score by five to get a percentage out of
100.
As far as the actual reading and grading
of an essay – this might be considered a sin by some teachers, but – skim wherever
possible. Here are key elements to look for in a five-paragraph essay:
- Introduction: well-crafted thesis to be proven
- Body paragraphs: properly cited text evidence and explanations for each piece of text evidence
- Conclusion: thesis restated, tying together all points included in the essay
In all likelihood, whether you read
every word in the entire essay or just look for the key elements mentioned above,
the score will be the same. If a student
believes that his/her grade should be higher, you should then absolutely read
every word from start to finish, on the off-chance that the original score is
not accurate. You should follow-up the
re-read with conversation with the student, regardless of whether or not you re-score
the essay.
Assessments
Since assessments are the culmination of
knowledge obtained from a particular text or unit, it is fair to grade using
percentage. Even if the assessment is a
combination of multiple-choice questions and open-ended responses, the total
score can still be out of 100 percent. Also,
since students are accustomed to receiving grades out of 100, there will be no
confusion about each student’s score on the assessment.
Projects
Depending on the weight of a project, it
can either be graded using a percentage or using the “Check Plus / Check /
Check Minus” system. Regardless of the
method used for scoring a project, be sure to provide a rubric so that students
understand the reasoning behind their scores.
Ultimately, your method of grading
should be one that works well for you and is fair to your students. Of course, discretion should also be
used. For example, if a student does a
poor job completing a vocabulary assignment and it is clear that the student
struggled, you may want to work with that student and give him/her an
opportunity to re-do the assignment for full-credit.
What suggestions do you have for
grading? Leave a question, comment, or
suggestion below, in the Comments Section!
Please visit my Teachers Pay Teachers store to purchase an affordable essay rubric, as well as a variety of resources for all grades and subjects!
Peace. Love.
Reading & Writing.
💗 Miss M
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