Anyone who teaches ESL writing knows there comes a time when student papers pile up on the desk and they have to be marked. The hard part, when faced with 30 or more regular submissions, is finding a way to give English writing students meaningful input without spending hours generating feedback.
A writing rubric is one possible solution.
Below is a suggested scoring guide. It is simple, yes. Though I hope it provides useful guidance.
This rubric is suitable for one paragraph writing submissions. In addition, it is useful for classes where the emphasis is on three main elements:
- a strong topic sentence (control sentence)
- several sentences of supporting material (reasons, evidence or details)
- a conclusion
ESL Writing Rubric
This ESL writing rubric uses a 1 to 4 scoring system.
- A well-structured paragraph (clear topic sentence, good support and conclusion). Grammar and spelling errors are present though the meaning of the passage is clear.
- A good topic sentence though the paragraph lacks unity (the main idea is not well supported) or there are too many grammar or spelling errors.
- It looks like a rough draft. The topic sentence is not well formulated, the supporting data is unclear and there are too many errors.
- Incomplete. It is not possible to understand the meaning of the paragraph because key sections are missing or they cannot be understood.