five paragraph essay rubric middle school

Essay Rubric

About this printout

This rubric delineates specific expectations about an essay assignment to students and provides a means of assessing completed student essays.

Teaching with this printout

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Grading rubrics can be of great benefit to both you and your students. For you, a rubric saves time and decreases subjectivity. Specific criteria are explicitly stated, facilitating the grading process and increasing your objectivity. For students, the use of grading rubrics helps them to meet or exceed expectations, to view the grading process as being “fair,” and to set goals for future learning. In order to help your students meet or exceed expectations of the assignment, be sure to discuss the rubric with your students when you assign an essay. It is helpful to show them examples of written pieces that meet and do not meet the expectations. As an added benefit, because the criteria are explicitly stated, the use of the rubric decreases the likelihood that students will argue about the grade they receive. The explicitness of the expectations helps students know exactly why they lost points on the assignment and aids them in setting goals for future improvement.

• Routinely have students score peers’ essays using the rubric as the assessment tool. This increases their level of awareness of the traits that distinguish successful essays from those that fail to meet the criteria. Have peer editors use the Reviewer’s Comments section to add any praise, constructive criticism, or questions.
• Alter some expectations or add additional traits on the rubric as needed. Students’ needs may necessitate making more rigorous criteria for advanced learners or less stringent guidelines for younger or special needs students. Furthermore, the content area for which the essay is written may require some alterations to the rubric. In social studies, for example, an essay about geographical landforms and their effect on the culture of a region might necessitate additional criteria about the use of specific terminology.
• After you and your students have used the rubric, have them work in groups to make suggested alterations to the rubric to more precisely match their needs or the parameters of a particular writing assignment.
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5 Paragraph Essay Rubric: Guide for Easy Grading of Academic Papers

Sometimes, professors fail to provide their students with essay grading rubrics - they frequently forget to do so or think it is unnecessary. After all, the information can be found on the internet. Still, some sources are reliable, and some are not, and in some instances, you may run into a 5 paragraph essay rubric that has little to do with reality and the criteria, which will be applied for grading your paper. For you to avoid such unwanted issues, we have prepared this post, which contains the essential information on grading five paragraph essays and the requirements applied for such grading.

A General Five Paragraph Essay Rubric

In your five-paragraph essay, you have to include the following elements:

• Introduction, which contains an attention-grabber, the thesis statements , and an overview of three main points of your essay (optional).
• In your first body paragraph, you will address your first point and tie it to the thesis. This paragraph should show the transition to the next body section.
• In your second body paragraph, you will address your next idea and tie it to the thesis as well.
• The third body paragraph. That requires discussing the third point analyzing the topic from another angle. It should be relevant and well-supported.
• Your conclusion can review your three points made, restate the thesis once more, and evaluate the reasonability of highlighting a chosen subject matter.

So, five main elements for this assignment. But now, let's return to the rubric issue and consider which standards your essays need to adhere to earn a certain grade:

• A. Excellent work. Your superior essay included everything needed for being assessed highly. The strong introductory paragraph which stated the thesis properly included an attention grabber then supporting it with the arguments. There is more elaboration on them in the respective body paragraphs (5), and each of those includes a topic sentence. The structure and formatting are accurate in terms of your academic level. All the arguments are supported with strong evidence and reasonably explained in detail. The essay included a sufficient amount of transitional words and phrases that show the overall coherence of the paper. The language is clear and precise: it doesn't contain colloquialisms, personal subjective opinions, passive constructions, redundancies, etc. Such an essay ends with a strong conclusion which either revisits the arguments and restates the thesis while providing no new information or strengthen the author's main intentions. All the information borrowed from reliable sources cited well, and the paper has got a correctly arranged bibliography page.
• B. Good performance. Such an essay should adhere to the same standards, while it may have a few insignificant grammar mistakes and typos. For instance, an author expressed an interesting idea but didn't support it properly. Or, the structure can be affected a little.
• C. A plain paper. Such a paper has a good introduction, provides reasonable information on the background of the topic, but fails to state a strong thesis or support it with solid arguments. Such an essay might not have significant grammar or spelling issues, but the writer's stance and view on a topic can be irrelevant or weak. Sometimes, a structure in a paper like that is not properly followed, and the references are redundant.
• D. A poorly written paper . In this case, both the introduction and the thesis are weak, too simple, or aren't related to the topic properly. The paper is structured poorly, and a student failed to include evidence and enough proper examples in the paragraphs, which makes it too generalized and plain. The conclusion is either absent or incomplete. The paper contains a significant number of major grammar and stylistic errors, which don't allow one to understand a writer's central idea properly.
• F. An unsatisfactorily written paper that has a weak introduction and doesn't have a thesis. There are errors in mechanics of building the structure and providing examples. In a five paragraph essay, a student might fail to include a sufficient amount of paragraphs or met the word count requirements. Also, there is no elaboration on reason for including particular evidence (if any) in the text. In the F case, the writing does not have a conclusion. The quality of an essay is also poor, and the paper contains a large number of grammar mistakes and typos in each body paragraph, which do not allow one to understand its content well.

We would like to emphasize once more: this is a general case of a 5 paragraph essay rubric. There could be variations implemented by both educational establishments and by professors themselves. Let us consider some of those.

5 Paragraph Essay Rubric: High School

It would be wrong to assume that there exists some sort of a five paragraph essay rubric high school, which is different from a rubric designed for college students or universities. Still, there are certain peculiarities. For example, different word count or a need to refer to particular data sources. Also, keep in mind that when grading a high school paper, a professor can be much less demanding when it comes to formatting citations, the use of academic vocabulary, and even your ability to formulate a stance. Not all of those rules are obligatory, but it does not mean you can neglect them. It is also obvious that a high school student is expected to be much more experienced in academic essay writing and submit assignments on time.

5 Paragraph Essay Rubric: Middle School

The differences one may find in five paragraph essay rubric for middle school are minor. Here, formatting and citations can be paid even less attention to. But usually, the assessment of the essay is based on the same criteria. Thus, the rubric we have offered above is quite a universal one, and you can refer to it when working on your paper as well as proofreading it.

So, you tried to start writing the paper on your own, and our article was the last step you took to make it more understandable. But, the 5 paragraph essay still sounds too complex? Or you simply have got little time and even less motivation for writing another academic paper ? You should always remember: there is a way to sort everything out. We are always ready to help whenever you need us. You may contact our support agents at your earliest convenience and get answers to any questions you may have. On our platform, your work will be written by seasoned authors only. It will be not an average essay but a real masterpiece. Don't hesitate and try using our expert service now - just fill the details of your project in the order form!

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Mastering the Five Paragraph Essay: Middle School Writing Pt.1 *Flex*

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Natural Disaster Five-Paragraph Essay Outline and Rubric for Middle School PDF

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Description

Directions and how-to-use:

Introduce a five-paragraph writing assignment with this Natural Disaster Rubric. Model for students using this sample introduction and conclusion paragraph or collaborate as a class to create an outline with body paragraphs before students begin independently.

This writing assignment is cross-curricular, addressing sixth-grade Writing, ELA, Reading, and Science standards:

ESS2-MS-4-6; ESS2-HS-5-7; ESS2.D

RI 6-10.1; 6-10.2; 6-10.3; 6-10.7; 6-10.8; 6-10.9

W.6-10.2, 6-10.4; 6-10.5; 6-10.6; 6-10.7; 6-10.8; 6-10.9; 6-10.10

L. 6-10.1; 6-10.2; 6-10.3; 6-10.4; 6-10.5; 6-10.6

RST.6-8.1; 6-8.2; 6-8.4; 6-8.5; 6-8.6; 6-8.7; 6-8.8; 6-8.9; 6-8.10

WHST.6-10.2; 6-10.4; 6-10.5; 6-10.6; 6-10.7; 6-10.8; 6-10.9; 6-10.10

Check out my TPT Store for two alternative rubrics that can be used with this assignment for a greater challenge and more creative options!

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