How can we characterize contemporary hegemony?

Revised 8/18

Condensed Grading Criteria for Analytic Essays in 355:100, 101, 103, 201, & 301 For extended descriptions of these criteria, visit: http://wp.rutgers.edu/academics/undergraduate/grades

THESIS WORK WITH ASSIGNED TEXTS STRUCTURAL COHERENCE PRESENTATION A

 Articulates original, complex, and specific thesis in essay’s opening

 Confidently acknowledges and incorporates essay’s broader stakes and implications

 May embrace and incorporate questions that complicate or challenge thesis to refine overarching claim

 Confidently close-reads textual evidence to arrive at original interpretive insights

 Clear sense that essay contributes to ongoing intellectual conversation

 May employ unanticipated interpretive contexts to make textual connections

 Compelling progressive development of thesis throughout paragraphs

 Transitions confidently communicate relations between essay’s multiple parts

 Deliberate and effective use of topic sentences and other structural “signposts”

 Exhibits evidence of proofreading

 Includes few citational and/or formatting errors

 May exhibit eloquent prose style

B+

 Articulates original, independent thesis in essay’s opening

 Advances conceptually complex interpretive position

 Begins to acknowledge essay’s broader stakes and implications

 Engages a variety of textual evidence with confidence and authority

 Cites texts to both support and complicate or refine thesis

 Exhibits willingness to take interpretive risks when close-reading and making connections

 Consistent progressive development of thesis throughout paragraphs

 Effective use of topic sentences and transitions

 May begin to incorporate explicit structural “signposts”

B

 Articulates thesis in essay’s opening  Advances clear interpretive position  Thesis may be conceptually limited or

developed in a repetitive way

 Engages a variety of textual evidence  Cites texts to provide support for thesis  Takes some interpretive risks when close-

reading and making connections

 Progressive development of thesis throughout paragraphs

 Structure of essay is deliberate and logical  Clear effort to use topic sentences and

transitions throughout

C+

 Evidence of emerging independent thesis, but not clearly articulated in essay’s opening

 Takes interpretive position at least once, and begins to sustain that position throughout essay

 Thesis may be implicit or underdeveloped

 Includes several moments of close-reading and uses adequate textual evidence

 Begins to engage more complicated ideas in texts

 Connections made within a text or between texts may be implicit or underdeveloped

 Accurate sense of purpose and conventions of a paragraph

 Begins to exhibit progressive development of thesis throughout paragraphs

 Topic sentences and transitions begin to emerge, but may be underdeveloped or inconsistently employed

C

 Takes interpretive position at least once  Thesis may be imprecise or general  Thesis may emerge at end of essay

following discussion of textual evidence

 Makes effort to close-read at least once  Accurate reading comprehension and

appropriate use of textual evidence  Begins to make valid connections within a

text or between texts

 Basic sense of purpose and conventions of a paragraph

 Progressive development between paragraphs may be implicit or unclear

 Some paragraphs may begin to exhibit emerging topic sentences

 Exhibits little or no evidence of proofreading

 Syntactical or semantic errors consistently impede meaning

 Inadequate or missing citation of sources

NP

 No thesis in evidence  Emerging thesis may be overwhelmed by

summary, paraphrase, or generalization  Lacks meaningful connection between texts

and emerging thesis  Demonstrates insufficient revision from

rough draft to final draft

 Little or no evidence of close-reading  Miscomprehends or misinterprets texts  Overgeneralizes about texts  Privileges writer’s opinions, anecdotes, or

extraneous material

 Inaccurate or unclear sense of purpose and conventions of a paragraph

 Minimal or no progressive development between paragraphs

 Employs few or no topic sentences  May rely on “five-paragraph essay” model