Do you think the school should teach children or society should teach children? What’s your argument and how to support it?

The Writing Program grades holistically by evaluating the student’s essay as a whole, balancing its strengths and weaknesses, in order to arrive at an overall grade.

Grade of A: An essay that earns an A demonstrates a high degree of competence and meets the following criteria:

□ Presents an argument that responds to the writing assignment thoroughly and insightfully

□ Demonstrates a nuanced understanding of the assigned texts

□ Is very well focused, organized, and developed at the essay level, integrating assigned texts and/or research

□ Is very well framed and developed at the paragraph level, including effective assertions, analysis, and textual evidence

□ Demonstrates strong facility with language, using effective vocabulary, syntax, and sentence variety

□ Demonstrates strong control of the grammar, rules of usage, and mechanics of standard English

Grade of B: An essay that earns a B is written in a clearly competent manner and meets the following criteria:

□ Presents an argument that responds to all of the elements of the writing assignment effectively and thoughtfully

□ Demonstrates a solid understanding of the readings

□ Is effectively focused, organized, and developed at the essay level, integrating assigned texts and/or research

□ Is effectively framed and developed at the paragraph level, including appropriate assertions, analysis, and textual evidence

□ Demonstrates good facility with language, using appropriate vocabulary, syntax, and sentence variety

□ Shows good control of the grammar, rules of usage, and mechanics of standard English, but may have some errors

Grade of C: An essay that earns a C demonstrates adequate competence but is limited in one or more of the following ways:

□ Presents an argument that responds to the writing assignment adequately, but may be somewhat limited

□ Demonstrates a competent, though sometimes superficial, understanding of the readings

□ Is adequately focused at the essay level, though the paragraphs could be more effectively organized or explicitly connected and the assigned texts and/or research could be better integrated

□ Is thinly developed at the paragraph level, inconsistent in its inclusion of assertions, analysis, or textual evidence.

□ Demonstrates satisfactory facility with language, but may have limited control of syntax and minimal sentence variety

□ Demonstrates adequate, though sometimes inconsistent control of grammar, usage, and mechanics

Grade of D: An essay that earns a D approaches competence, but has one or more of the following flaws:

□ Presents an argument that is unclear or seriously limited in its response to the writing assignment, or does not present any argument

□ Demonstrates an inadequate reading, or a misreading of the texts

□ Is unfocused, disorganized, or underdeveloped at the essay level

□ Is inadequately developed at the paragraph level, lacking assertions, analysis, and/or textual evidence

□ Demonstrates errors in the use of language or syntax, which may interfere with meaning

□ Demonstrates errors in grammar, usage, or mechanics, which may interfere with meaning

Grade of F: An essay that earns an F lacks competence, since it has one or more of the following flaws:

□ Fails in its response of the writing assignment

□ Is incomplete/severely underdeveloped

□ Contains severe grammatical or syntactical errors that persistently obscure meaning