San Luis Obispo High School students and English department are adjusting to changes made to the Advanced Placement English Language/Literature and Composition Exam. The rubric used to grade the AP essays switched this school year to using a six point scale in order to help students be more successful on the May exams. 

  This change in grading system from a nine point scale to six point scale creates more of a challenge for teachers as they transition from a rubric that has been used for the past twenty years. High schools all over the country are switching to meet these new standards, and it is proving to be difficult. 

  “I don’t feel it [the new grading system] necessarily is an improvement. Based on the College Board’s behaviors in the past, there’s a term called planned obsolescence… where you develop a product that you know will be outdated so you can force the consumer to purchase more material. So by changing the rubric and the format, schools that have already purchased all this material have to buy new material. And rather than necessarily require that students think more critically or have stronger writing skills, it just forces instructors to adapt to a new system so that the College Board can figure out ways to make a greater profit,” said AP English teacher Ivan Simon. 

  The new six point scale provides a detailed outline of how students can earn each point within their essay. Students can receive a point for a reasonable thesis, up to four points for their elaboration of ideas and supporting details, and another point for sophistication. Although challenging for instructors to switch the way they look at and grade papers, students see positives in the change. 

  “It gives students more opportunities to score better on the essays due to specificity of what is looked for with the rubric” said junior AP English student Avery Noblitt. 

  Mixed emotions are expected with the change, seeing as each school and teacher must figure out how to conform to this new way of scoring. 

  Whether the truth behind the change is simply to bring in money for the College Board or truly to help students thrive, the six point scale has officially taken hold in English classrooms across the country. 

Source: thegradenetwork.com