I don’t know what I was thinking. I promised my father I’d visit him over MLK weekend to make up for missing my winter trip when I had COVID. Then I gave students until the last day of the grading period to turn in an essay, ALL of them. That last day was the Friday before the holiday weekend, and grades were due the next Wednesday. I warned my dad that much of our weekend together would now involve me grading in his den. My dad is a good sport. He once helped me stamp, label and categorize a few hundred books for my classroom library, but this wasn’t welcome news.
Grading Essays Faster
Grading all hundred and ten or so essays took less than 5 hours of our weekend. I wish I could say helping him clean out his garage was that fast! I had finally gotten my essay grading process down. Today I’m sharing it with you.
1. Work Backwards
No, not just starting with a rubric, start with your timeline. You generally have an idea of when you want (or need) a writing project to be done. When you plan out the unit, be aware of where you will be able to give feedback along the way. My school is on a block schedule and my prep is most protected from meetings on Wednesdays, so I will make a part of the essay I need to give strong feedback due on the Tuesday/ Wednesday block so that I know I will be able to turn feedback around by the Thursday/ Friday block. My 8th graders are at their chattiest on Friday afternoons, so I align draft due dates for them to have peer editing time on a Friday. Making sure that students will be getting strong feedback along the way ensures that grading the final pieces is more efficient and fruitful because students were clear on the expectations along the way. And yes, that means having the rubric, and checklists aligned to it, planned out from the beginning.
2. Color Coding Magic
My students learn early in the year to color code their essays. While it may look like they are making absurd formatting decisions to an outsider, their topic sentences are yellow, their evidence is pink, transition words are bolded or circled, etc. This makes grading to my rubric incredibly quick. It also saves lots of time in conferencing with students about their writing. Instead of telling a student who thinks they have a topic sentence to add one, I can help them understand how to adjust it. You will hear me and peer editors alike saying “not enough pink” or “do you think there is a good balance between pink and white?” to address a strong balance between evidence and independent thinking. Download student instructions slide.
3. Grade to the Rubric
A disclaimer on this one~ by the time students turn in a final draft, I have read or conferenced about every essay at least once, so I have a sense of how it is already. When it comes time to give a final grade, I go straight to the rubric. I check each thing that can be looked at on its own, which is much faster with the color coding, and then I scan the essay as a whole for cohesion. This means that evaluating topic sentences and the thesis actually comes last so that I can make sure they do match up to the information presented.
4. Have Students Self-Evaluate First
On the day a writing piece is due, students have time in class to grade themselves on the same rubric I will use to grade them. They go through and circle where they think they are on each criteria. The criteria align to the checklists they’ve used along the way and this isn’t the first time they are seeing the rubric so this goes quite smoothly. Most students are remarkably self-aware.
5. Praise Students Where they are Proud
At the bottom of the rubric where students evaluate their final piece, they are asked to reflect on what they would do differently next time and how they think they have grown. Again, their self awareness is impressive. I love this because then when I give them their grades, I can respond right here and affirm what they are proud of doing work on AND add in something I notice. This really helps me to keep feedback sounding personal without it taking a ton of time.
6. Reference Editing History
Another hack to give more personal feedback quickly, albeit only with Google Docs, is to check the revision history of the document. I can quickly see how their writing evolved to give a specific compliment, I can also see the comments I had made in their document along the way and praise their use of feedback, or call out that the low grade they are getting for one criteria could have been avoided had they listened to my feedback- this tends to nip ignoring feedback in the bud for most writers.
7. Know your Limits
Finally, notice your own patterns in grading. I used to only be able to do about 8 essays before they would start running into each other. Now with these hacks it’s more like 12. Every twelve essays, I stretch, get some water, check my phone for a bit, or go to the bathroom. This is my personal grading Pomodoro method so my feedback stays fresh and I stay on task. Everyone is different, so find your rhythm. Some people break up essay grading over several days, others knock it out with one focused Saturday. There is no right or wrong here, as long as you aren’t letting grading run you ragged. Hopefully with these strategies, it won’t.
If you'd like support in implementing these strategies with rubrics and checklists that are set up for student self-grading and reflection, explore writing supports in my store.
Happy Grading!
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