We grade this assignment (the practice essay) for effort and engagement—we consider whether it seems you are making a careful and good faith attempt to tackle a practice essay to the best of your ability—and not according to the rubric we use for the final exam itself. However, I have attached below the rubric we use for the final exam essays for your information. We will give you some brief and focused feedback on your practice essay to highlight one or two areas we feel you could target for improvement.
As a last note, and just to reiterate some thoughts from the documents I referenced above: there is no one right or wrong way to write these essays. It’s not even the case that there are two sides to the prompts and you need to pick one. Each prompt could be viewed through many lenses, from many perspectives, under many interpretations—what would be an interesting take on the question being asked? What thought experiments can we consider about the issue? What kind of reader might be curious about this topic? How can you educate and inform them? These prompts are all entirely subjective, but that does not mean we just want your opinion, and it doesn’t mean that your essay has to settle the debate or convince the reader. It doesn’t even have to be your own opinion or perspective! We want essays that present well-reasoned, clear, and thoughtful perspectives—if we wanted to see the question from a particular perspective, how could we help the reader to understand that perspective? Why might reasonable people disagree on the topic, and how can we illuminate and respect those disagreements in a clear and productive way? Think about your style, your goal, and your audience. Your approach may be different than another student’s approach. That’s normal and exciting! Have fun with it!
