Grading Criteria

Essays

Grading is a difficult and subjective exercise, but in the interest of transparency and providing you with the information you need to succeed, we have developed the following criteria for grading essays.

A Essay: This essay possesses a clear, precise, well-defined and original thesis that goes beyond the ideas discussed in class or the assigned readings. It contains a cogent analysis of the material that demonstrates a command of interpretive and conceptual tasks required by the assignment and the course material. It includes well-chosen examples, persuasive reasoning consistently applied, and solid evidence directly applicable to the thesis. The essay moves easily from one point to the next with clear, smooth, and appropriate transitions, coherent organization, and fully developed paragraphs. Finally, the author employs sophisticated sentences effectively, chooses his words well, and observes all the conventions of English grammar to craft an eloquent essay.

B Essay: This essay presents a clear, specific thesis central to the paper and demonstrates a solid understanding of the texts, ideas, and methods of the assignment. It pursues the thesis consistently, developing a core argument with clear component points and appropriate supportive detail. It employs clear transitions and develops coherent, connected ideas in unified paragraphs. It shows a good command of English with occasional stylistic or grammatical problems—usually awkward syntax or excessive use of the passive voice.

C Essay: This essay has a general thesis central to the essay. It shows an understanding of the basic ideas and information involved in the assignment, though with some errors of fact or confusion of interpretation, and a tendency toward recapitulations or narrations of standard chronology. It suffers from incomplete development of the core argument, weak organization or shallow analysis, insufficiently articulated idesa, or unsupported generalizations. There are some awkward transitions and weak or underdeveloped paragraphs not clearly connected to one another. The essay also has a tendency to wordiness, unclear or awkward sentences, imprecise use of words, grammatical errors, and a vagueness of meaning brought on by the passive voice.

D Essay: This essay presents a vague or irrelevant thesis. It shows inadequate command of course material with significant factual or conceptual errors, and it fails to respond directly to the assignment. It is discursive and undeveloped, a mere narration that digresses from one topic to another. In structure, it is simplistic, tending toward vague summations and digressions from one topic to another. Finally, it suffers from major grammatical problems such as subject-verb disagreement, obscure pronouns, and sentence fragments. the language is married by clichés, colloquialisms, repeated inexact word choices and gross spelling errors.

E Essay:This essay has no discernable thesis. It does not show an understanding of class materials and is not responsive to the assignment. There is little or no development. It merely lists the vaguest generalizations or misinformation. There are no transitions and only incoherent paragraphs. The essay is almost unreadable due to its violation of the basic rules of grammar.

Class Participation

The following constitutes our rule of thumb for grading class participation.

A: You attend class all the time and always make positive contributions.

B: You attend class all the time and often make positive contributions OR you miss several classes but usually make positive contributions when you do show up.

C: You always attend seminar but never speak OR you begin to miss more than several seminars and your participation is adequate when you do show up.

D: You never speak.

E: Please see the attendance policy.

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Copyrighted by Hugh Dubrulle and Meg Cronin, 2006.