A Baker’s Dozen Strategies for Grading Final Papers and
Exams
1. Create rubrics or model answers for grading all essays and written
responses.
 With your professor’s permission, distribute these rubrics to
your students in advance so they know what they need to do
to earn the grade they are seeking and so they know the
standards by which their work will be evaluated.
2. For essay or short answer exams grade question by question instead
of going through each student’s exam in its entirety. This will allow
you to compare answers across questions more easily and will give
you a better sense of where each student’s response falls in
relation to others.
 Shuffle papers in between each question so you are not
always grading the same students responses first and last.
3. Use anonymous grading – make sure you can’t see the students’
names when grading.
4. Break up grading into manageable chunks (ie 5 papers a day) instead
of trying to do it all at once. Before starting your grading session
each day, review your rubric and re-read the last paper you graded
to reset your mental frame.
5. If there is more than one TA for your course, work together to
come up with rubrics/answer keys, etc. Meet up to rehearse and
calibrate your grades - read through a few student answers, assign
grades to these, discuss your grades with each other and try to
make sure that your grades are consistent. If you are the only TA,
do this with the professor to make sure you are on the same page.
6. Read several papers before grading any – this allows you to see the
overall quality of the work and if there is any widespread
misunderstanding of test questions or course material.
7. Grade when you are in a good mood. If you start feeling tired or
crabby take a break. Your students deserve your proper
concentration and a fair mindset. If you are grading in chunks try
to grade each set of papers at the same time of day (or with the
same amount of caffeine) so you are more likely to grade
consistently.
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8. Sort papers that you have graded by letter grade. When finished
with all papers go back through piles and check for consistency
(also make sure that grade distributions are not skewed too high or
too low).
9. Start grading using a pencil – only write grades in ink after you are
sure that the grades will not change. This allows you to make
changes after you have read all papers or exams.
10. Decide ahead of time how firm to be on grading policies, and what
constitutes an acceptable exception (talk to the course professor
and other TAs about this).
11. Put problematic papers or tests aside to deal with later. Don’t
spend an inordinate amount of time on any one paper. Get through
the rest of the exams, then come back to the problem ones.
12. When grading final papers even if students will not get them back,
write some notes on each paper about why you assigned the grade
you did. This way you have evidence of grading if a student
challenges his/her grade or if you need to grade norm with other
TAs or the professor.
13. If you suspect a student of cheating or plagiarizing, set the paper
aside and try to ascertain evidence. Let the professor know your
suspicions as soon as possible so the appropriate action can be
taken.
Center for Teaching
310 Calvin Hall
cft.uiowa.edu