Exhausted by Essays? 5-Minute Essay Grading System – Reclaim Your Weekends!

You want your students to receive meaningful feedback on their papers and grow as writers. You also, though, need to have time to recharge on weekends and holidays without the burden of endless essay stacks hanging over your head.

With my five-minute-per-essay grading system, you’ll zip through your stacks of papers, saving HOURS of time. Before I created this system, it took me 15-to-20 minutes to grade an essay. Now, with the use of a detailed coding system and a content rubric that’s laser-focused on the writing issues that matter most, I’m able to mark an essay in just under five minutes. Really.

Look, grading papers is part of the gig. We signed up to be English teachers; there’s no getting around the fact that we’re going to have to spend some time with the grading pen. The amount of time we spend on those papers, though, needs to provide a fruitful yield of learning for our students without breaking our spines.

This product includes:

• 25-page “5-minute Essay Grading System” e-book (PDF) with detailed directions, visual examples, and TONS of tips to help you slay your paper-load dragon

• 4 Essay Corrections student handout sheets (in both print-and-use PDF and editable MSWord format, so 8 total pages) that include the ten most common grammar/mechanics errors in teen writing and the most common content issues on four different modes of writing:
Expository/Argumentative
Literary Analysis
Narrative
Research/Informational

• 4 Essay Content Rubrics (in both print-and-use PDF and editable MSWord format, so 8 total pages) that include the top areas of focus on each of the following writing modes:
Expository/Argumentative
Literary Analysis
Narrative
Research/Informational

• 1-page Grammar/Mechanics Correction Tally Sheet (PDF) to help students chart their improvement over the school year

• 1-page Teacher Coding Cheat Sheet (in print-and-use PDF or editable MSWord format, so 2 pages total) to help speed along your use of the codes as you grade papers

• 1-page S.A.T.-style grading rubric (PDF) featuring the 4-3-2-1 system used by the College Board as of March 2016 (an alternative rubric for Expository/Argumentative writing assignments) and a 1-page S.A.T.-style grading rubric (PDF) featuring the 6-5-4-3-2-1 scale used prior to March 2016

• 6-page S.S.R. (Sustained Silent Reading) Program notes and student handouts (PDF) to help you set up an in-class reading program that won’t require extra paper grading by you (Note: These S.S.R. Program materials are available free in my shop. Just click HERE.)

Download includes: 25-page ebook (PDF); 26 more pages of handouts & support materials (PDF & Microsoft Word)