Draft

Rubric for World Literature Essays

Course Objective 4: "The student should demonstrate the ability to . . . write essays and responses that analyze, evaluate, and reflect on the works read. Formal essays will state a clear thesis, provide ample supporting evidence, follow a logical pattern of organization, and demonstrate reasonable control of Edited American English. Essays will be rated on each of these criteria, and ratings will be used in computing essay grades, but how the ratings are used and how they relate to the grade on the whole assignment is at the discretion of the individual instructor. Student name: CATEGORY Thesis 4 Thesis makes sense and is clear, though it may not be explicitly stated. Course and section: 3 Thesis is plausible and generally clear, though it may not be explicitly stated. Supporting evidence has minor weaknesses in amount or in relevance to the support of the thesis. There is a logical progression of ideas/events and the development is reasonably complete, although minor lapses may be present. Essay has been proofread. It contains a few deviations from EAE, possibly including one or two serious ones. 2 Thesis may be vague and may not be very plausible. 1* Thesis is unclear or confusing, there seems to be no thesis, or the essay is not on the assigned topic. An attempt has been made to add supporting evidence, but it was unrelated or confusing. Ideas/events are presented in a random fashion.

Support

Supporting evidence is related to and supportive of the thesis. Ample support is provided. Organization is logical, suits the topic, and is unified and complete.

Organization

Supporting evidence has major weaknesses in amount or in relevance to the support of the thesis. One or more major lapses in the logical progression of ideas/events is evident.

Control of Edited American English

Essay has been proofread and contains few deviations from EAE (and no serious ones**).

Errors do not appear random, but some seem careless and the paper contains several serious deviations from EAE.

Exhibits MINIMAL CONTROL of grammatical conventions appropriate to the writing task:

* In extreme cases (for example, essays that are totally off-topic or make no effort to provide support), an essay may receive a 0 rather than a 1 in a particular category. **Serious deviations include sentence fragments, run-on sentences, comma splices, errors in agreement, verb tense errors, and errors in pronoun case. Errors in mechanics (including use of capitalization, punctuation, and spelling) are minor unless they appear repeatedly or at random.

ENG 2301-2302

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7/11/2011