The automatic score will be displayed.
- Some essays are scored using ETS’s eRater engine. These essays will display a suggested overall score, but no category scores.
- Some essays (e.g., AP® essays) are not auto-scored.
Automatic scoring is meant to guide teachers in grading student essays. The scoring engine is designed to evaluate writing quality, not content. It has more than a 90% correlation with human graders, but they are no substitute for a teacher. We strongly recommend that teachers read student essays carefully (reviewing specific aspects of content) and award grades the way they would for an essay that is not automatically scored. For this reason, all teachers have permission to grade essays, even those who do not have permission to change system scores for other activities. The system score will not display for students until a teacher has accepted it or awarded a different score.
To accept an essay score, teachers can simply click Accept Suggested Score. To assign a different score, teachers can enter that score into the Manual Score box and click Manual Score. Either action will send the grade to the student. Students will not see category scores.
Writing Comments
Along with a percentage score, teachers can leave comments for students on any or all phases of their writing. To leave comments on any phase, select that phase using the toggles at the top of the essay viewer window. Then type the comments into the comments box at the bottom of the window and click Update Comments. Teachers can leave separate comments on each phase.
Resetting and Allowing Revisions
When the student submits a revision, teachers will be able to view all submitted final drafts. To toggle between multiple drafts, use the numbered buttons that appear just above the essay prompt in the essay viewer window.
Instead of allowing a revision, teachers may also choose to reset the activity completely. This will erase the student’s work in all phases of the writing process, essentially forcing the student to complete the pre-writing, drafting, and revising activities again without access to any previous work. This is not recommended unless there has been evidence of plagiarism. To reset an activity, click the Reset Activity button in the essay viewer window or click Reset Assignment from the Gradebook.
Note that allowing a revision will not require students to go back and submit a new essay, but resetting the activity will.
Also, please note that only the first two final draft submissions will be auto-scored. Any additional submissions will return a score of 0.