How to Score an Essay in One Minute

As English teachers, we spend a lot of time scoring essays, which can be exhausting and stressful - especially with impending deadlines. I've been taught many essay grading techniques, but all of them were time consuming, and the resulting scores varied greatly between teachers. For this reason, I took the official state writing rubric, tweaked it, and came up with a simple scoring process that takes just one minute per 5-paragraph essay.

Start with a Detailed, Quantitative Rubric

To prepare yourself and your students for scoring, start with a detailed rubric that uses quantitative - not qualitative - measurements. This reduces grading bias and means less time spent deciding which score a student deserves. For example, instead of describing a score as "excellent," "good," or "unsatisfactory," get specific with what was there or missing like "all elements used," "a couple elements missing," or "zero elements used."

Under each score description, give them a list of elements or errors they should be looking for (see my 1-Minute Essay Rubric). When used as a checklist, this can allow for speedy and thorough feedback. When used digitally, it gives students a list of what to look for during revisions.

05s - Skim MLA Formatting

If you have experience grading essays in high school, then you can probably tell if the MLA formatting is right with just a glance. This too is my first step. I quickly skim over all of the MLA elements that should be present and correct:

1. Right/Left Headers
2. Font Type/Size
3. Double Spacing
4. In-Text Citations
5. Works Cited

I do not worry about which element is more important. Instead, I concern myself with how many are missing or present. This allows me to mark the score after a quick 5-second skim.

05s - Scan Organizational Elements

Next I check to make sure they understood how to organize a 5-paragraph essay. I do this by simply scanning to make sure each major element is present:

1. Thesis
2. Transitions
3. Quotes
4. 5 Paragraphs Total

Don't stress about close reading these parts right now. You know the 5-paragraph essay structure by heart, and because of this, you should be able to recognize the patterns in these elements with a simple scan.

30s - Close Read Intro & Body Paragraph 1

Now it's time to slow down and check for details by close reading the introduction and body paragraph one. As you do this, you're keeping in mind ideas and content: 

• Is the thesis focused and on topic? 
• Is the claim strong? 
• Is the evidence relevant? 
• Is the commentary analytical? 
• Etc. 

You're also looking for conventions issues:

• Is it error free?
• Are there a couple of minor errors?
• Are there a couple of major errors?
• Are there several major and minor errors?

Some teachers debate as to which errors are major versus minor, but I simply define minor errors as those that do not impede understanding and major errors as those that do.

After close reading, you'll have a general sense of the fluency of the writer. While this is impacted by subject-verb disagreement, faulty parallelism, etc., you don't need to count each of these errors. Instead, listen to how it sounds and flows and decide, like conventions, whether the errors impede the reader or not.

05s - Scan Remaining Commentary

I next take just 5 seconds to scan the commentary in the remaining body paragraphs. Here again I'm checking the ideas and content and comparing it to how they did in their first body paragraph:

• Is it repetitive?
• Is it basic or obvious?
• Did they analyze craft?
• Did they infer author's purpose?

One thing to note is that while I'm scanning and continuing to score other areas, I still keep an eye out in case I notice major flags that might change any of my previously marked scores like conventions or sentence fluency. However, I find that the first two paragraphs normally give me a pretty accurate picture of these categories, so I rarely have to change them.

15s - Close Read Conclusion

To finish out the ideas and content score, I close read the conclusion to make sure they've brought all of their points back together with a solid author's purpose or call to action. I then mark the ideas and content score, and I'm done!

Follow Up with Sentence Error Bingo

If you're like me, then ending with even a detailed rubric might not be enough in terms of feedback, but who wants to spend all of their prep periods marking essays? Luckily, you don't have to. You deserve better!

Instead of using up your prep time, play Sentence Error Bingo with your students and get the essays marked up together during class! I normally play this game with the first two paragraphs of each students' essay and then have them take that editing practice and apply it by peer editing the remaining paragraphs. They love the game, and it works like a charm when it comes to getting them to notice errors in their own writing.

Make it Your Own!

You probably have doubts about this process, but I assure you, as long as your 1-Minute Essay Rubric is detailed, your students will get plenty of feedback on their writing. Also, I challenge you to try it and then compare that batch of scores to the scores you would give them after a standard grading. I tested this several times and was happy to see the same results.

In order for this to be a fast and effective solution for you though, you may need to tweak my rubric and process slightly. Don't be afraid to experiment! Also, it will take practice. I've been teaching for 16 years, so don't give up until you get your grading down to a minute!