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Evaluating the In-class Essay
While the in-class essay may appear to be a simple assignment, requiring minimal effort by the student, to write an outstanding essay will require skill, a skill that can be achieved only after plenty of practice. As for evaluating the in-class essay, the principles applied to the argumentative paper will be also used for the essay. The goal of students is to communicate their ideas clearly and logically, and the role of the evaluator is to ensure that communication has been successful. The following are general principles that apply to all in-class essays, regardless of the course.
Thesis Statement: As usual, the most important sentence in the essay will be the thesis statement. The student should be able to recast the essay question into an acceptable thesis without much struggle. However, the better students will also show some creativity with their thesis statements as evinced in the "A" example of the essay. The thesis statement is always the first sentence in the in-class essay.
Topic Sentences: The student will have at least two, but not more than three topic sentences that give the reasons for the truth of the thesis sentence. These sentences do not have to be very elaborate. However, the topics must be clearly stated and relevant to the thesis statement. The topic sentences will reveal the logical thinking of the student.
Support Sentences: For each topic sentence, the student must provide at least one or two support sentences as evidence for the truth of the topic. The student's grade will be predominately based on his ability to use information from the text and incorporating it into the support sentence with a pleasing style. While there will be no transitions between sentences generally (except at the beginning of the topic sentences), the student should make good use of transitions within the sentence, especially if he uses complex sentences.
Other Considerations: The in-class essay is one paragraph, and one paragraph only. As a paragraph, the in-class essay does not have a conclusion. Therefore, the student does not need to summarize the points or provide "a moral to the story." Also, unlike the argumentative paper, the in-class essay will not have a title. Because the essay question must be written usually within 15 to 20 minutes, such creativity wastes valuable time.
Students should always be permitted to use their notes and texts whenever writing the essay if the essay is about a work of literature. The support sentences require specific quotations, facts, and other evidence. Without the use of the text, the essay will become a series of vague generalizations and nothing specific. While this advice is true with literary topics, essays about questions concerning history and science will not require the use of the text or notes. History is the understanding of the past in order to apply the lessons learned to the present, and necessarily requires a different skill than analyzing literature. As for science, students are required to memorize the cataloged knowledge by regurgitating it on the exam, and thus represents the lowest form of learning.
Most student writing will either be "A" or "C." The difference between the two will be the student's use of support. The "A" students will make a concentrated effort to use specific material for their support. The "C" students will use vague generalities without any specific support to back up their statements. The "B" students are generally those who could be "A" students, but who are careless in grammar.
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