Suggested Scoring Guide for Essays (Grades 7-8)

6 98-100

Well developed and well organized; organization is organic, that is, the organization flows from the topic and purpose is not imposed from without.

Clearly illustrates and develops key ideas; demonstrates awareness of audience and the kind of writing appropriate for that audience.

Sentences and syntax: Good variety of sentence structures. Excellent sense of subordination. Sentences flow smoothly.

Grammar and mechanics: Virtually free from errors in mechanics, usage, sentence structure.

Diction: Vitality in word choice. (Often a sense of play in word choice and mechanics.)

5 83-97

Generally well developed, though occasional minor flaws in focus or organization; illustrates and develops key ideas; ideas less interesting or less fully developed than in a 6; solid awareness of audience and some effort to adapt writing to that audience.

Sentences and syntax: Some syntactic variety and subordination.

Grammar and Mechanics: Generally free from errors in mechanics, usage, sentence structure.

Diction: Appropriate word choice; words used properly; less vitality than a 6.

4 70-82

Adequate development; organization tends toward mechanical; some of the key ideas illustrated; overall less development than a 5; some awareness of audience but little specific evidence of an attempt to adapt to that audience. Adequacy and competence characterize a 4.

Sentences and Syntax: Sentences well formed but not much variety; tendency toward “safe” writing. Many subject-verb-object sentences. Errors creep in when writer attempts to vary sentence patterns.

Grammar and Mechanics: Adequate, but more frequent errors than in a 5 or 6; errors generally of a proofreading variety; no evidence of pattern errors.

Diction: Generally appropriate, but either limited or displaying a tendency to misuse some words; some use of clichés.

3 65-69

Major weakness in one or more of the following areas:

· weak development or organization; rambling or very mechanical (five-paragraph format without relation to content); tendency simply to respond to a topic rather than to organize the response. Paragraphing often vague.

· little sense of audience

· failure to illustrate to develop key ideas; essay often scattered

Sentences and Syntax: Many errors in sentence formation or merely very safe, short sentences.

Grammar and Mechanics: tendency toward obvious errors such as run-on sentences or fragments.

Diction: little variety in word choice.

2 50-64

Several of the weaknesses mentioned in 3; little sense of purpose or audience; often hard to follow exactly what point the writer is trying to make; failure to address the specific assignment–for example, substitution of description where persuasion is called for by the topic. The main hallmark of a 2 is the absence of any controlling idea or purpose.

Sentences and syntax: Many sentences with garbled syntax.

Grammar and Mechanics: Many errors in conventions of Standard Written English, especially with sentence boundaries.

Diction: Little variety, misuse of fairly common words.

1 0-40

Complete incoherence or lack of development; often a very short essay or one which changes topic with each sentence; no focus on topic or audience.

Sentences and Syntax: lack of organization displayed in lack of coherent sentences.

Grammar and Mechanics: So many errors in conventions of Standard Written English that it is difficult to understand the passage.

Diction: Little variety.

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PROOFREADING STANDARDS FOR GRADE 8

An essay with two of these errors will receive a D or lower.

An essay with three or more of these errors will receive an F.

1. one run-on sentence

2. one sentence fragment

3. five misspellings

4. two subject-verb disagreements

5. two miscopied quotations

6. two garbled syntax

OTHER PENALTIES

No Quotations -10

No Works Cited Page -10

Failure to follow MLA Format -10

One Day Late -10

Two Days Late -20

Three Days Late -100