For the
past couple of days we have been working on writing an essay for the AP exam. In
class we were given back the essays that we wrote about Mosses. We learned that
we should pre-write before we write our essay and we created a mind map based
on the passage. Then we were given a
packet of other people’s essays about Mosses. We had to read every essay and give
them a grade based on the rubric that is used to grade the essays on the AP
exam. After that we had to create our own rubric based on what the graders are
looking for in the Mosses essay.
Rubrics
are useful because they help you write your essay, but I don’t use it. When I’m
given a rubric on how my project or essay should be I don’t refer to the
rubric. I have seen a number of different rubrics and none of them have helped
me with my writing. In my opinion rubrics are useless and a waste of paper. I
know what my essay needs to have in order for it to get a high score, but when
I write my essays I never get the highest grade. When I read essays that got
the highest grade possible, I know my essays won’t be like that. They write
like five pages in 45 minutes and the way those essays are written it is like a
teacher wrote it.
I don’t
like creating our own rubrics in class because it is difficult. It is hard to
write what a good essay needs compare to an excellent one and a bad one. I also
don’t see the point of us creating our own rubrics. It is not like it is going
to help us write our essays or make us look at rubrics more when we’re writing our essays.
Well, maybe if you start using the rubric, you can start producing better essays. The purpose of having you write the rubric is that you will know it well. It will also be a benchmark, and you should have some idea about where your essay falls before you even turn it in. Then, we will have specific lessons geared to specific portions of the rubric to improve our essays.
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