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British & American Literature 1865-1914
Course Guidelines
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“Yet half a beast is the great god Pan,
to laugh as he sits by the river,
Making a poet out of a man . . ." (ll.37-39)
Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "A Musical Instrument" (1860)
rubric / terms
| A =
94-100 A- = 90-93 |
A (18-20 on 20-pt scale, 5.4-6.0 on 6-pt scale): creative, topically focused, tightly structured, supported with the most convincing evidence, and virtually free of grammatical errors |
C+ =
77-79 C = 73-76 C- = 70-72 |
C (14-15.9 on 20-pt scale, 4.2-4.79 on 6-pt scale): a relatively focused essay with clear sense of progression from one idea to the next; argument bolstered by some supporting evidence; distracting number of grammatical errors |
| B+ =
87-89 B = 83-86 B- = 80-82 |
B (16-17.9 on 20-pt scale, 4.8-5.39 on 6-pt scale): topically focused, tightly structured, supported with relevant evidence, and containing just a few stylistic bumps or grammatical errors |
D = 65-69 | D (13-13.9 on 20-pt scale, 3.9-4.19 on 6-pt scale): topic clear but ineffectively argued; evidence provided only tangentially relates to argument; loose sense of structure; profound difficulties w/ grammar |
| F = 0-64 | F (0-12.9 on 20-pt scale, 0-3.89 on 6-pt scale): little evidence of effort, or contains plagiarism |
creative: the essay presents a new and interesting argument not already elaborated during class or office discussion
evidence: the essay backs up every claim it makes with ample evidence--with close reasoning and specific (properly cited) examples drawn from the text--while avoiding vague generalizations.
format: the essay follows MLA guidelines and is double-spaced, surrounded by 1" margins, and constructed with a 12-pt Times New Roman font.
grammatical/mechanical errors: these include problems with punctuation, subject & verb agreement, verb tense choices, etc.
structure: this refers both to the logical ordering of ideas across the entire paper (think clearly about the best order in which to present your central points), and to the ordering of ideas within a given paragraph. In the same way that your essay's ongoing argument should support a clearly stated thesis, each paragraph should support a clearly stated topic sentence (or mini-thesis) that appears somewhere towards the beginning of each paragraph.
stylistic bumps: problems with diction (word choice) that indicate unfamiliarity with the terms employed, odd syntax (the chosen order of words and phrases) which obscures one's meaning, unvarying use of the same sentence structure, etc.
topically focused: a topically focused essay selects a closely defined topic and advances along a narrow path to convince the reader of a very specific argument, instead of attempting to touch only briefly on a number of interrelated ideas. Such an essay relies more on quality than quantity, and works to dissect the frog instead of the elephant.
"The Pet" (1853)
Walter H. Deverell
Dr. Paul Marchbanks
pmarchba@calpoly.edu