AP Literature and Composition General Rubric

Be a star writer!  Use this rubric to internalize the characteristics of upper level writing!

AP Literature and Composition General Rubric                    

 Ms.  Faulkner                                            SGHS

GRADE	Description
9 100-95	These essays are outstanding. They offer creative and original ideas and insights that are extensively elaborated and refreshing. They go beyond general commentary, referring to the texts, explicitly or implicitly, offering specific details (blending quotes where appropriate) to support their analyses; they offer compelling connections between technique and effect. The introduction grabs the reader’s attention, and the writer makes use of transitional sentences and clauses to navigate ideas. The conclusion discusses the significance of the thesis. The writer makes use of sophisticated vocabulary, sentence variety, parallel structure, modification. The language is concise and lucid, verbs are active, and punctuation is effective.  Essays earning a score of 9 are especially sophisticated in their argument or demonstrate particularly impressive control of language.
8 94-90	These essays are well-focused, and they address the prompt directly and in a convincing manner. An essay scored an 8 combines adherence to the topic with excellent organization, content, insight, facile use of language, mastery of mechanics, and an understanding of the essential components of an effective essay. Literary devices and/or techniques are not merely listed, but the effect of those devices and/or techniques is addressed in context of the passage, poem, or novel as a whole. Although not without flaws, these essays are richly detailed and stylistically resourceful, and they connect the observations to the passage, poem, or novel as a whole. Descriptors that come to mind while reading this essay include: mastery, sophisticated, complex, specific, consistent, and well supported.
7 89-85	These essays are proficient: they provide a clear thesis with organized paragraphs. The ideas are developed, but there may be problems with the textual examples. These essays refer to the texts, explicitly or implicitly, but offer less detailed and/or less convincing explanations. More often, the quotes are not blended into the analysis. The introduction attempts to entice the reader but needs additional work. The writer makes use of transitions, but the transitions may be rudimentary rather than subtle. The conclusion provides more summary rather than insight. Although the essay may be mechanically accurate, more attention should be given to sentence variety, precise vocabulary, active verbs, and focus. The 7 essay is in many ways a thinner version of the 9-8 paper in terms of discussion and supporting details, but it is still impressive, cogent, and generally convincing. It may also be less well-handled in terms of organization, insight, or vocabulary. Descriptors that come to mind while reading these essays include: demonstrates a clear understanding but is less precise and less well- supported than a 9-8 paper.  Essays earning a score of 7 meet the criteria for 6 papers but are distinguished by a more complete or more purposeful argument.
6 84-80	These competent essays comprehend the task set forth by the prompt and respond to it directly, although some of the analysis may be implicit rather than explicit. These essays demonstrate an adherence to the task, but deviate from course on occasion. The mechanics are sound, but may contain a few errors that may distract but do not obscure meaning. Although there may be a few minor misreadings, the inferences are for the most part accurate with no significant sustained misreadings. An essay that scores a 6 is an upper-half paper, but it may be deficient in one of the essentials mentioned above. It may be less mature in thought or less well-handled in terms of organization, syntax or mechanics. The analysis is somewhat more simplistic than found in a 7 essay, and lacks sustained, mature analysis.
5 79—75	These essays may be overly simplistic in analysis, or rely almost exclusively on paraphrase rather than specific, textual examples. These essays may provide a plausible reading, but the analysis is implicit rather than explicit. These essays might provide a list of literary devices present in the literature, but make no effort to discuss the effect that these devices have on the poem, passage, or novel as a whole. Descriptors that come to mind when reading include: superficial, vague, and mechanical. The language is simplistic and the insight is limited or lacking in development.  These essays are acceptable but not impressive. They provide a thesis that contains minimal analysis with little insight (e.g., restating thesis with reasons – no claim). The analysis tends to border on summary, thus the writer offers quoted material in place of analysis. Generally speaking, these essays are superficial. The introduction needs attention – maybe a tighter connection between the strategy and the thesis. The writer has made some attempt at organization, but the organization does not link the ideas with the thesis. The conclusion only summarizes main points and/or the thesis. This writer should focus more on revision: topic sentences, sentence variety, redundancy, punctuation, weak verbs, wordiness, transition, vocabulary.
4 74-70	These essays are unacceptable for a college-bound student. The thesis often restates the question without providing a claim, direction, or organizational pattern. The ideas are not developed and they offer little or no textual evidence (although there may be summary). The essay may be illogical or immature, marked by a less than adequate reading or analysis of the text or subject. This flaw in logic often leads to organizational problems. The introduction does not interest the reader in the topic, and the conclusion, if present, does not advance the idea any further. Although the writer’s ideas may be conveyed, the essay does not demonstrate control of sentence variety, punctuation, vocabulary, or verb choice.  Essays earning a score of 3 meet the criteria for 4 papers but demonstrate less success in support or less control of writing.
3 69-61	These lower-half essays demonstrate significant sustained misreadings, and provide little or no analysis. They maintain the general idea of the writing assignment, show some sense of organization, but are weak in content, maturity of thought, language facility, and/or mechanics. They may distort the topic or fail to deal adequately with one or more important aspects of the topic. Essays that are particularly poorly written may be scored a 3. Descriptors that come to mind while reading include: incomplete, oversimplified, meager, irrelevant, and insufficient.
2 60-51	These essays are unacceptable for high school students. These essays don’t attempt to establish a thesis; they may summarize or make the most general observations about the texts. There is little evidence or textual support, and, if offered, the support does not relate to a clear purpose. The essay may be one paragraph. There is not a clear introduction and/or conclusion. Often these essays are described as “vague” or “simple.” These problematic essays are compounded by serious errors in sentence structure, paragraphing, transition, punctuation, and vocabulary. These essays make an attempt to deal with the topic but demonstrate serious weakness in content and coherence and/or syntax and mechanics. Often, they are unacceptably short. They are poorly written on several counts, including numerous distracting errors in mechanics, and/or little clarity, coherence, or supporting evidence.
1 50-30	Wholly vacuous, inept, and mechanically unsound essays should be scored a 1.
0 (29-0)	No attempt, or a completely off-topic response.

Teacher Comments:

Upper-Half Scores

Rubric Grades 7, 8, 9:  “Effective.”  The 7, 8, 9 essay has fluent prose; sophisticated writing; high-level, appropriate, and well-utilized diction; impressive examples; especially impressive number of examples (comprehensive essay); creative or original examples, voice, or point of view; mature, experienced writing style; excellent critical thinking obvious on the page; fine elaboration/explanation of how examples support the thesis/assertion/main idea of the essay.  Descriptors that come to mind for a 7-8-9 essay include mastery, sophisticated, complex, original, creative, very well supported.  The more impressive the essay is in these regards, the higher the rubric grade.

Rubric Grades 5, 6:  “Adequate.”  The 5, 6 essay has a clearly stated thesis; answers the prompt exactly; provides a sufficient number of examples (I recommend citing at least 4 examples); elaborates on those examples, explaining how they support the thesis/assertion/main point of the essay.  The essay is well organized and cohesive.  The writing style may be less mature or sophisticated, but the writing is “solid.”  There may be minor problems with syntax, diction, grammar or mechanics.  The 5 essay is a “thinner” version of the 6; sometimes referred to as a “fuzzy” 6.  One of the examples may be weaker, or one of the elaborations may be less than sufficiently developed.  For the most part, however, a 5 essay is still well organized.   Descriptors that come to mind with a 6 essay might include less mature writing style or critical thinking, some difficulties, but adequate.  Descriptors that come to mind with a 5 essay might include almost adequate, slightly off point, slightly insufficient.

Factors that Contribute to Lower-Half Scores:   Weak, unclear thesis; simplistic or incomplete analysis, explanations, reasoning, or argumentation; insufficient elaboration on your examples; examples are too general (“specificity is key!”); superficial discussion or a discussion that lacks depth and intelligent commentary/critical thinking; too much “straight summary” or simply listing examples without explaining your reasoning or how the examples support your thesis/assertion/main idea/argument; stating the obvious; ideas that lack originality or are uninspired; essay simply is too short and needs more examples and elaboration; lack of development of ideas; lack of organized structure; digression or “getting off track”; does not completely, accurately, adequately or exactly answer the prompt; writing style is less sophisticated/immature; too many “clutter” words or redundancy; repeating ideas unnecessarily; too many errors in mechanics/grammar/spelling.

Rubric Grades 4-3: “Inadequate.”  The 4 or 3 essay maintains or “gets” the general idea of the writing assignment, shows some sense of organization, but is weak in content, examples, elaboration; lacks maturity/complexity of thought; the facility with language and/or style is weaker; there are problems with mechanics/grammar.  The essay may distort the topic or fail to deal adequately with one important aspect of the topic.  The 3 essay is simply a weaker 4.  Some descriptors that come to mind for both of these essays include incomplete, immature, oversimplified, meager, irrelevant, and insufficient.

Rubric Grade 2: “Little Success.”  A 2 essay attempts to deal with the topic but demonstrates serious weaknesses in content or coherence and/or syntax and mechanics.  It is an unacceptable grade.  There may be some evidence (but very little) of analysis or argumentation. Descriptors include serious misreading, unacceptably brief, and/or poorly written. 

Rubric Grade 1:  A 1 essay is the score given to any on-topic response that has very little redeeming quality.  It may be very brief or very long, but will be scarcely coherent, usually full of mechanical errors or completely missing the focus of the prompt.  Descriptors include incoherent, vacuous, inexact, and mechanically unsound.

Rubric Grade 0: A 0 essay is a response with no more than a reference to the task (perhaps just copying the prompt) or indicates a blank response or one with no reference to the task.

Required of All Essays:  Strong thesis using key words from prompt; excellent appropriate, specific examples (I recommend at least 4) with elaboration/explanation of your reasoning (a few sentences for each specific example); anchoring your essay by quoting key words and phrases from the prompt and/or excerpt; using key words from the prompt (or synonyms for those words) throughout your paper; answering the question/prompt exactly, and not digressing (digression means adding information that is not called for)!

9-8 If you work at this level, you have achieved critical thinking at the synthesis and evaluation levels of Bloom’s taxonomy. This means you put together the literary elements you have broken the piece into (through analysis), and present to your reader a sophisticated, critical understanding of the literature that indicates you have a clearly developed aesthetic or rhetorical sense regarding the piece. Your inferences are well-reasoned and thoroughly developed, demonstrating that you have been “moved” in some way by the piece and have a powerful response to it.

7-6 If you work at this level, you have achieved critical thinking at the analysis level of Bloom’s taxonomy. This means you have broken the material down into its constituent literary parts and detected relationships of the parts and of the way they are organized. However, your inferences are not as insightful and well-developed as an 8 – 9 essay.

5 If you work at this level, you have achieved comprehension of the material and some analysis, but your analysis is not sufficiently developed.

4-3 If you work at this level, you have achieved comprehension of the material but you have not moved into higher level thinking skills. You are not making insightful, developed inferences through careful analysis of the text.

2-1 If you work at this level, you do not adequately comprehend the piece assigned and have not yet begun to work cognitively with this piece of literature.
0
A zero is given to a response with no more than a passing reference to the task.
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The dash indicates a blank response or one with no reference to the task.