Designing Grading Rubrics for the BA Freshman English 1 course

Abstract

The present MA paper aims to design grading rubrics for three writing assignments for the Freshman English 1 course that AUA undergraduate students will take during their first semester of study at AUA. The three writing assignments for which grading rubrics are designed are as follows: paragraph writing, letter and narrative essay. The grading rubrics are designed according to the tasks’ specific requirements and also Freshman English 1 course goals and objectives. These rubrics have been piloted and the necessary improvements have been made. The present paper also provides recommendations for the future teachers of the Freshman English 1 course, as to how to use the rubrics in class to assess the students’ written products effectively. The recommendations are based on the related literature, the interview with the pilot team and the researchers’ own experience while designing the rubrics. The present paper first introduces the scope and background of the project, presents some points of related literature, describes the procedure of designing the rubrics, presents the deliverables, gives recommendations and shows the deliverables in the appendix.