Grading Rubric ANTELOPE VALLEY COLLEGE LANGUAGE ARTS DIVISION ENGLISH 101 RUBRIC Your successful college-level essay goes through many stages before it reaches your instructor. You must first carefully read and understand the assignment prompt, asking the instructor for any needed clarification. You must then generate ideas (for example through brainstorming), evaluate these, and decide on a focus that will be the basis of your thesis. When choosing a thesis, you should consider the audience for your essay—which includes you, your instructor, and the larger academic culture of a college environment—and realize that clichés or commonplace knowledge have little or no argumentative value. You should choose and develop your thesis with care and through critical thinking; in other words, by analyzing ideas (or breaking apart and freshly explaining them), making connections, recontextualizing, and offering new perspectives on given topics. You must also structure, proofread, and format your essay in a way that acknowledges critically-thinking academic readers. Your instructor will evaluate your essay based on the following categories: AUDIENCE AWARENESS From its title on, the essay reveals a willingness to engage readers in an academic environment, one characterized by open intellectual play, pursuit, and inquiry. Successful college writers adopt a tone in which they do not lecture or sermonize to readers. They do not offer unexamined opinions, personal reviews, or emotional reactions. Instead, critical thinking animates their writing. THESIS The essay has a clear point to it, a claim about the topic that challenges readers to think and to understand more than they already know about the topic. DEVELOPMENT The essay responds not only in focus, but also in length and scope, to the assignment. Paragraphs continue long enough to make ideas clear, interesting, and convincing. The writer not only provides clear support for the essay’s main point, but also breaks that support into different parts and approaches, in order to constantly engage and persuade readers. A successful college writer uses specific terms, fresh details, and concrete examples. Diction—or word choice—is also developed. STRUCTURE An essay that is well-organized demonstrates the writer’s attention to structure: it flows easily and logically from one sentence to the next, from paragraph to paragraph, and from start to finish. The writer uses transitions and sets up quotations with signal phrases, always relating parts to the thesis by direct statement or clear implication. While an essay may go through formal planning or outlining stages, its organization should not be so simplistic or didactic that it ends up insulting readers. GRAMMATICAL CONTROL The essay reveals the successful college writer’s ability to control phrasing, spelling, punctuation, and sentence boundaries, as well as to edit and to proofread carefully, with outside readers in mind. ACADEMIC CONVENTIONS The rubric’s guidelines are most applicable to a typed essay that incorporates research. MLA format is required for the quoting and citation of sources, as well as for document design. THE A ESSAY In English 101, an A essay meets and even exceeds the reader’s expectations. The essay may first command attention with its adept and original title, but it sustains this interest with its clarity, surprise, and persuasive force. Specifically, the A essay: • • • • • • reveals a clear sense of voice and/or a mature understanding of its audience engages the reader with its insightful, well-crafted thesis develops that thesis in dynamic ways that both support and extend its relevance unfolds subtly and successfully, its diverse elements organized to achieve a boldly persuasive effect tends to exhibit expert rhetorical and grammatical control, providing a compelling, near-seamless read incorporates all cited sources expertly, as it explores and illuminates its well-chosen evidence THE B ESSAY B work is noticeably above average, not only satisfying the assignment and connecting with its audience, but doing so with an extra measure of expression or control. Perhaps more detailed in its claims or extensive in its support, the B essay embodies a constant ambition for excellence. Specifically, the B essay: • • • • • • matches argument to audience from the first paragraph on presents a relevant, effective, and purposeful thesis develops that thesis through sustained and unified paragraphs that vary their examples and details organizes content with a degree of dexterity and a sense of useful transitions controls and also varies phrasing and sentence elements incorporates all cited sources skillfully and effectively THE C ESSAY C work clearly represents standard college-level writing as measured by audience awareness, thesis, development, structure, grammatical control, and academic conventions. The C essay is substantial and complete, able to satisfy the assignment and convincingly reach its audience. Specifically, the C essay: • • • • • • shows appropriate and respectful attention to audience presents a relevant thesis which is reasonable and worth exploring or considering develops its thesis in sustained and unified paragraphs organizes paragraphs efficiently, including transitions controls phrasing, punctuation, and sentence boundaries incorporates all or most cited sources correctly, avoiding dropped quotations THE D ESSAY D work is substandard for any of several reasons, including being off-topic, poorly reasoned, or inadequately developed, often despite a student’s best effort. It might not connect with the reader because sentence and format errors create too much static, or because its argument does not cohere. Specifically, the D essay: • lacks sufficient audience awareness • • • • • often has an inadequate, trivial, or off-topic thesis, derailing the content many times cannot maintain developed, unified, contiguous paragraphs, even if its thesis has potential may present ideas out of order or have no clear structure often lacks grammatical control, distracting the reader cites and/or quotes from sources incorrectly or unclearly THE F ESSAY Significantly below college-level writing, an F essay fails for any of several compelling reasons: flawed logic, paltry development, limited or missing audience awareness, or a lack of facility with standard written English. In addition, plagiarized work always takes an F. Specifically, the F essay: • • • • • aims for the wrong audience or no audience at all presents many theses, no thesis, or a glaringly irrelevant one has extremely weak development with little or no evidence or academic discussion contains chaotic or indiscernibly constructed paragraphs, with no overall sense of direction reveals constant, various, and/or severe grammatical errors • uses sources haphazardly or not at all MLA Documentation MLA Handbook, 8th Edition 2016 Why Do We Need MLA Formatting? ▪ MLA format dictates how the essay is formatted and sources cited. ▪ Any information that is not your own, including but not limited to quotes (words), ideas, facts, statistics, graphs, charts, and examples, need to have credit given to whomever deserves it. We do this by using in-text citation and a works cited list. ▪ To avoid plagiarism, anything that is not your own needs to be cited and punctuated correctly. Basic Formatting of the Essay In-Text Citation ▪ When using sources, you need to cite each one in your essay (with in-text citation) and on the works cited page. ▪ In-text citation includes the author’s name and a page number, when available. Use title if author is unknown. ▪ Avoid dropped quotes by including signal phrases, and always use quotation marks for language that is not your own. ▪ Example 1: Reading is “just half of literacy” (Baron 194). ▪ Example 2: According to Naomi Baron, reading is “just half of literacy” (194). ▪ Example 3: The MLA Handbook states that “identifying the source in your text is essential” (57). ▪ Example 4: Common knowledge is the one exception to citation (MLA Handbook). Works Cited Page ▪ The second place you will cite your sources is on the Works Cited page. ▪ The citations on the Works Cited page are only the works you used in your paper. ▪ The Works Cited page is a page by itself, at the end of the essay. ▪ The citation format follows what is now called “containers,” which means you include the information available in the order prescribed. Not every source needs every aspect of the container. ▪ The list is alphabetized and double spaced, and it uses hanging indents. Basic Book Citation Hawkins, Paula. • Author The Girl on the Train. • Title of Source Riverhead Books, • Publisher 2015. • Publication Date Rosen, Meghan •Author “Misfires in the Gun Control Debate.” •Title of Article Science News •Title of Container Vol. 189, •Version Issue 10 •Number May 14, 2016, •Date pp. 16-21. •Location EBSCO, •Title of 2nd Container www.ebscohost.com. •Location Citation for an article found on Ebscohost How Examples Would Look on a Works Cited Page Works Cited Hawkins, Paula. The Girl on the Train. Riverhead Books, 2015. Rosen, Meghan. “Misfires in the Gun Control Debate.” Science News, vol. 189, issue 10, May 14, 2016, pp. 16-21. EBSCO, www.ebscohost.com. Punctuation Reminder Last Reminders ▪ Generally speaking: – Titles of books, magazines, newspapers, and movies are in italics. – Titles of articles, chapters, works in an anthology, and short stories/poems are in quotation marks. – Exceptions: Scripture, laws, acts, and political documents are capitalized like titles but not in italics or enclosed in quotation marks. This is just a quick overview of MLA format. Always check in the MLA Handbook, 8th edition, for more information. English 101 Rubric English 101 Rubric Criteria Ratings This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeAudience Awareness: Essay demonstrates a willingness to engage readers in an academic environment, one characterized in content, tone, and inquiry. This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeThesis: Essay has a clear point to it, a claim about the topic that challenges readers to think and to understand more than they already know about the topic. 2.0 pts Clear audience awareness 2.0 pts Clear, strong thesis This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeDevelopment: Essay responds not only in focus, but also in length and scope, t the assignment. Paragraphs are fully developed, making ides clear, interesting, and convincing. Clear support is offered for the essay's main point. 2.0 pts Clear essay development This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeOrganization and Structure: Essay is well-organized, demonstrating attention to structure: it flows easily and logically, using transitions, signal phrases, and formal planning. 1.0 pts Well organized This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeDiction, Syntax, and Grammar: Word choice is appropriate, word order is effective, and the spelling, punctuation, and sentence boundary choices all contribute to persuasive meaning. This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeAcademic Conventions: Current MLA format is required for quoting and citation of sources, as well as for document design. Total Points: 10.0 PreviousNext 2.0 pts Clear use of language and grammar 1.0 pts Follows MLA format 1.0 pts Some audience awareness 1.0 pts Thesis, but needs work 1.0 pts Some development 0.0 pts No audience awareness 0.0 pts Thesis is unclear or confusing 0.0 pts Needs further development 0.0 pts Needs work on organization and structure 1.0 pts Word choice average, some grammar difficulties 0.0 pts Word choice and/or grammar needs improvement 0.0 pts Does not cite or format correctly