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GSI Teaching & Resource Center
University of California, Berkeley

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The Grading Process

The process of assigning grades can be broken down into stages.

1. Establish a set of criteria (or understand the criteria given to you by your department or the professor of the course) by thinking about what students must do to complete the assignment successfully, and weighting each criterion accordingly with respect to the final grade. If there is more than one GSI for the course, try to establish the criteria jointly to ensure consistency.
2. To make criteria easier to keep in mind when grading, divide them into areas such as clarity of expression, understanding of material, and quality of argumentation (or whatever areas are relevant to your field and the assignment).
3. Read through all the papers quickly. Try to pick out model papers, for example a model 'A' paper, a model 'B' paper, and so forth. This will give you a good overall sense of the quality of the assignments.
4. Read through the papers more carefully, writing comments and assigning preliminary grades. Write the grades in pencil in case you want to change them later.
5. Sort the papers by grade range and compare them to make sure that you have assigned grades consistently; that is, that all of the B papers are of the same quality, that all of the A papers are of the same quality, etc. Write the final grades in pen, or record it in whatever way you are instructed.
6. If there is more than one GSI or grader for your course, you might want to exchange a couple of papers from each grade range to ensure that you are assigning grades in the same way.

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Effective Grading Links:

• Introduction
• Designing Assignments
• Establishing Standards and Criteria
• Assigning Grades
• The Grading Process
• Efficient Grading
• Writing Comments
• Example Papers
  • Paper 1
  • Paper 2
  • Paper 3
• Returning Graded Papers

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Teaching Resources Links:

• Creating Ground Rules for Discussion Sections
• Using Group Work in Discussion Sections
• Strategies for Variety in the Classroom
• Developing Critical Reading Skills
• How to Teach Lab Sections
• Award-winning Teaching Ideas (Teaching Effectiveness Award Essays)
• Theories of Learning
• Dealing with and Preventing Academic Dishonesty
• Grading Students' Written Work
• Understanding & Using Instructional Technology
• Five Ways to Improve Your Teaching
• How to Write a Letter of Recommendation
• Campus Resources
• FAQs

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