Grading Criteria * Prof. Karen D. Austin
Grading Criteria, Ten Percent Each:
1. THESIS. Writer creates a thesis that is focused, arguable, original, and clearly stated in the first paragraph. Do not state a topic in place of taking an arguable stance on a disputed fact, value or policy. Do not make your thesis statement the same as the author's thesis statement. Do not create a broad thesis that would need pages to prove. Do not create a divided thesis that combines two or more loosely related topics. Do not put the most focused thesis in the conclusion, leaving the introduction to just state a general topic. Do not shift thesis statements mid-stream. Tell the reader from the very beginning what specific point you are striving to prove and stick to it.
2. COHERENCE. Writer maintains coherence to the thesis by creating a logical PATTERN OF DEVELOPMENT, which is appropriate to the thesis and works in TOPIC SENTENCES that repeat key words, thus creating transitions between paragraphs. When writing about literature, make sure that the paper's organization is NOT the same as the poem, short story, play or novel, unless the paper's argument is specifically about chronology or structure.
3. INTRODUCTION/CONCLUSION. Writer creates an introduction which orients the reader to the topic, foreshadows the thesis, create interest, and implies significance of the topic. The introduction might starts with an attention grabber or with a general observation--but in either case the introduction transforms to a specific observation and ultimately into a specific thesis. Writer creates conclusion that not only summarizes the argument and restates the thesis, but also shares a final insight.
4. READING COMPREHENSION. Writer demonstrates familiarity with the assigned readings and with any additional research. Writer artfully subordinates summary, indirect quotes, and direct quotes to the task of analysis. Writer engages the assigned readings in a substantive and meaningful way that proves to the teacher that the student writer not only read the assigned texts but thought about them. Do not summarize too much, but be sure to discuss (analyze, interpret, respond to) the assigned readings as a key element of the paper.
5. CRITICAL THINKING. Writer demonstrates the ability to interpret and analyze. Critical thinking can be demonstrated by questions of author, style, message or audience. Critical thinking about the author includes evaluating the author's values, assumptions, and motives. Critical thinking about the style includes analyzing the literary or rhetorical techniques employed by the author. Critical thinking about the message includes adding to the knowledge base about the same subject matter that the assigned texts discuss. This can be done by sharing personal experience, original data collection, dialectic thinking, synthesis of research material, etc. Critical thinking about the audience involves analyzing the reception of the author's text and judging the "fit" between the author's motives and the audience's background, needs, values, and opinions. Critical thinkers do a great deal more than summarize the readings. Writers should develop some NEW ideas in direct response to the assigned topic and the reading. If you can move from the obvious to the insightful -- while referring to the assigned reading -- then you are practicing critical thinking. Critical thinking in some ways is like unearthing fossils, meditating, dissecting a cadaver, arguing a legal case, or rebuilding a flawed structure. Critical thinking is not summarizing, paraphrasing, or quoting the ideas of others.
6. EVIDENCE. Writer persuades reader to accept the thesis by choosing apt quotes that are directly tied to the stated thesis AND by introducing and analyzing each quote. Remember to assert, illustrate, and explain. If you just throw in quotes (illustrations of your point) without first explaining what they are trying to prove (assert) and without interpreting the quote to explain how it supports the assertion (explain), then your evidence is unmotivated or insignificant to the point.
7. STYLE. Writer creates compelling sentences through well-connected clauses and phrases as well as appropriate and compelling diction (word choice). Good style practices effective subordination, co-ordination, sentence variety, emphasis and clarity. Make sure that some of your sentences are 10 words are fewer to show drama and to pound key ideas home. Make sure that other sentences are 30 words or more when explaining the relationship among complex ideas. Add introductory words, phrases and clauses to more clearly attach some ideas together. Add these same types of modifiers at the end of other ideas to qualify and amplify them. Convey personality by the way you assemble sentences. Style in writing is similar to style in dress and interior decoration: You need to communicate not only the facts but create a personality or style that reflects the content and your stance to the content.
8. CONTROL. Writer demonstrates knowledge of the "rules" of writing. What is generally termed "grammar" actually refers to punctuation, mechanics, spelling, usage, typographical errors and other little "boo boos." In order to show sentence-level control, writer needs to adopt subject-verb agreement, correct placement of modifiers, absence of fragments, comma splices, and run-on sentences. Learn to use the comma, semicolon, colon and apostrophe correctly. Learn the basic rules for italicizing and quoting titles. Learn to use the correct word when presented with choices such as to, two, too AND their, there, they're--as well as other commonly confused pairs. Use a spellchecker, and ask a friend to read over your paper in an effort to catch obvious errors.
9. FORMAT. Use 10, 11 or 12 point type font. Use a clean, no-nonsense font. Use 1 inch margins on the top and bottom as well on the left and right margins. Put text on one side of the paper (not two sided). Double space text. Indent block quotes by 10 on the left margin, but otherwise keep the same (double space, regular right margin). Type a cover sheet with the paper's title, student name, teacher's name, course name and section number, and date that paper was delivered to teacher. Include a Works Cited page when assigned. Use MLA documentation for in-text documentation as well as for the Works Cited page. Use the Harbrace Handbook, and if you sold it back or never bought one, but another one or borrow someone else's and follow the sample paper for MLA rules. Staple papers.
10. DELIVERY. Writers need to persuade their teachers that they are responsible by turning papers in on time, on quality paper, with dark in and with no wrinkles. Make sure the papers are in the right order and right direction. Remember. NO COMPUTER EXCUSES FOR LATE PAPERS. You must control the technology; don’t let it control you. Papers will lose points for delivery for each day that it is late. If you turn your paper in late, you create a burden for the teacher because it's harder for a teacher to keep track of a stray paper, and it's harder to grade a late paper by the same standards as other papers in the set that have been graded previously.