Grading Strategies for Document Based Essays
This website made a list of grading guidelines for essays written with document based questions. Note that grammatical errors are not mentioned in these guidelines, which I found to be interesting. In a course, such as Social Studies, where literacy and writing are so fundamental, it does not matter if a student has numerous spelling or stylistic errors. But then again, would students concentrate too much on grammar and less on the actual content of the exam if there were grammatical grading guidelines. What do you readers think? Should points be deducted for poor grammar?
EducJohnMast 
kelly heath said,
April 25, 2007 at 3:27 pm
I think students would concentrate to much on grammatical guidelines rather than having to focus specifically on the DBQ. I also feel that if teachers are actually teaching how to write correctly then the issue of grammatical errors, wouldn’t be a problem. I think the most important thing is for the student to actually understand the DBQ and have the substance needed in order to interpret the DBQ. Leave the grammatical errors for the english exams!!!