3 Hacks For Grading In Electives

When teaching an elective class, it can be tricky to figure out the types of assignments to give and how to grade them.  This can be especially frustrating if you are a core subject teacher who is also teaching an elective, by default, due to scheduling needs.  While your priorities are on your core classes, you still need to find ways for your students in the elective to demonstrate what they have learned.  Here’s how to do that:

 

Projects

Both individual projects and group projects are great to assign in an elective for two reasons: the students will view projects as fun activities rather than work, and the projects will lessen your workload.  Dedicate several class periods to working on the assignment.  While the students are doing this, you can circulate the classroom to get a sneak peak of what they are working on and even ask the students questions about their assignment.

 

When you have a sense of what each group or each individual is creating prior to the due date, there likely will not be any surprises on the day the work is handed in or presented.  This approach will save you time on grading.   

 

Use a rubric to score projects and presentations, if you so choose to incorporate the presentation element.  Include categories for criteria such as organization and creativity.  Having five categories where students can earn up to four points in each one makes the rubric’s total point value 20, an “easy to work with” number.  Also, the rubric can be shared with students so that they understand the rationale of their scores.    

 

Graphic Organizers

The beauty of graphic organizers is that they can be applied to a variety of assignments.  They can be used for note-taking during minilessons, responding to text-related questions in a book or a film, and commenting on peers’ presentations, just to name a few uses. 

 

When grading graphic organizers, there are two methods you can try: “Complete / Incomplete” and “Check Plus / Check / Check Minus.”  If the assignment is to be graded on completion (rather than accuracy) and then reviewed together in class, the “Complete / Incomplete” system works well.  For an assignment that you will collect and carefully read, looking for detailed answers, the “Check Plus / Check / Check Minus” system allows you to grade without overthinking the grading while still providing scores that reflect accuracy and properly structured responses. 

 

Journals

You can have your students use journals for their Do Now / Bell Work activity each day.  Whether the activity is an actual journal entry or simply responding to a question (“What was one fact you learned yesterday about surrealism painters?” or “What are three characteristics of Rock ‘n’ Roll music?”), the journal serves as a record of each student’s work. 

 

If additional grades are needed in the gradebook before the marking period ends, you can do weekly or random journal checks.  Just like with the graphic organizers, use “Complete / Incomplete” when scoring based on effort, but use “Check Plus / Check / Check Minus” if proper responses are the criteria for the assignment.    

While some students may not consider elective courses to be as important as their core subjects, it is beneficial to still assign meaningful work.  That being said, use the grading hacks discussed above to lessen your daily workload.      

 

What suggestions do you have for efficient grading?  Leave a question, comment, or suggestion below, in the Comments Section!    

 

Please visit my Teachers Pay Teachers store to purchase an affordable presentation rubric, as well as a variety of resources for all grades and subjects!

 

Follow me on Instagram: elathemissmway

 

Peace.  Love.  Reading & Writing.

 

💗 Miss M