Criteria

A excellent

B competent

C below expectations

Comments

Content

(quality of the information/ideas and sources/details used to support them)

- has clarity of purpose

- has depth of content

- displays insight or originality of thought

-demonstrates quality and breadth of resources

- has clarity of purpose

- has substantial information and sufficient support

- contains some originality of thought

-uses quality resources

- has clarity of purpose

-lacks depth of content and may depend on generalities or the commonplace

- has little originality of thought

-uses mostly quality resources

Structure

(logical order or sequence of the writing)

- is coherent and logically developed

-uses very effective transitions

- is coherent and logically developed

-uses smooth transitions

- is coherent and logically (but not fully) developed

-has some awkward transitions

Conventions

(appearance of the writing: sentence structure, usage, mechanics, documentation)

- has virtually no errors of conventions

- has minimal errors of conventions

- is understandable

but has noticeable problems of sentence structure, usage, mechanics or documentation

Style

(personality of the writing: word choice, sentence variety, voice, attention to audience)

- is concise, eloquent and rhetorically effective

-has nicely varied sentence structure

-is engaging throughout and enjoyable to read

- displays concern for careful expression

-has some variation in sentence structure

-is generally enjoyable to read

- has some personality

but lacks imagination and may be stilted and may rely on clichés

-has little variation in sentence structure

-is not very interesting to read

The weighting of each of the four areas is dependent on the specific written assignment and the teacher’s preference.

Grade