PEARSON
ADULT LEARNING CENTRE
Advanced Composition
How Teachers
Mark Your Essays
March 10, 2005
In tonight's class, we will take a look at
the teachers' marking rubric and discuss the meaning of CFSM.
Each student essay handed in last week has an attached copy of
the marking rubric to help students understand the strengths
and weaknesses of their writing.
How Teachers Mark Your
Essays
To mark your composition, teachers
will look at four areas: Conventions, Form, Style,
and Meaning. Each of these is worth 25% of your total score
on any composition.
The teachers assign a mark for each
area in the same order as given above (C, F, S, M).
Briefly, the four areas are defined
as follows:
Conventions: These
are the basic parts of your writing: the spelling, punctuation,
grammar, and sentence structure. Teachers look for the number of
errors made and, more importantly, to see if these errors make it
hard to understand your writing.
Form: This is the
order of your writing and how easy it is to follow your ideas. In
an essay, for example, teachers examine how well your
introduction, body, and conclusion work together and how logical
your order of ideas is inside each paragraph. (See
class notes with tips for
good essays)
Style: Here, your
sentence variety and knowledge of idiom and vocabulary are very
important. How fluent is your language? Are your sentences
precise? To excel, a student needs a good repertoire of sentence
types, along with a strong vocabulary. (View the
Advanced Composition Worksheet
Archive)
Meaning: Teachers
look here for signs of your developing voice in writing. The more
individual (meaning your ideas are specific to your own experience
and you have conveyed them well) the better. Are your ideas
convincing? Are they mature? Originality counts here. Remember the
rule: Show, Don't Tell! (Worksheet
on Show, Don't Tell)
Composition
Marking Scale
NOTE: Off topic essays are awarded DNP (did not pass)
Visit our 