For K-12 Public School Teachers ·
What you'll accomplish
By the end of this guide, you'll have EssayGrader set up to score student writing against your rubric and generate specific written feedback for each student — turning a 5-hour grading marathon into a 90-minute review session. You'll still read every essay and add your own personal touch, but the first-pass scoring and generic feedback writing is done for you.
What you'll need
Go to essaygrader.ai → Click "Sign Up" → Use your school email → Verify your email. You'll land on a dashboard with your essay queue.
What you should see: A clean dashboard with an empty essay list and buttons to create assignments.
Click "New Assignment" → Enter your assignment title (e.g., "Argumentative Essay — Unit 3") → Select your grade level → Choose your grading approach: "Use a rubric" is the most useful option.
What you should see: A form asking for assignment details and rubric criteria.
Click "Add Rubric" → Enter each criterion you grade on (e.g., "Thesis Statement," "Evidence," "Analysis," "Counterargument," "Conventions") → Set the point value for each criterion → Write brief descriptions of what strong, proficient, and developing looks like for each. The more specific your descriptions, the more useful the AI feedback will be.
Tip: If you already have a rubric in Google Docs, paste the criteria directly — you don't need to retype everything.
Troubleshooting: If the rubric feels too generic, add one specific example of what you're looking for in the description field (e.g., "A strong thesis names the specific claim AND the 3 reasons the essay will argue").
Click "Add Essays" → You can paste text directly, upload a document, or connect Google Classroom (if your school has this integration). Paste each essay one at a time or use the batch upload if available. Do not include student last names in the submitted text — first name or initials only.
What you should see: A list of uploaded essays ready to be graded.
Click "Grade All" or grade individually. EssayGrader will score each essay on your rubric criteria and generate 3-5 specific written comments per essay — pointing to specific strengths and areas for improvement.
What you should see: Each essay with rubric scores filled in and a feedback section with specific, actionable comments.
Troubleshooting: If feedback feels too generic, go back to your rubric and add more specific criteria descriptions, then re-run.
Read each AI-generated score and feedback. Your job now is: verify the score feels right, add one personal observation that only you would know (something about this specific student's growth, effort, or classroom participation), and adjust any feedback that doesn't reflect the actual essay. This takes 3-5 minutes per essay vs. 8-15 minutes from scratch.
Export feedback as a PDF, copy into Google Docs comments, or paste into your LMS (Google Classroom, Canvas) as a private comment on the assignment.
If EssayGrader's feedback feels thin, open ChatGPT alongside it and use these:
Read this student essay and identify the 3 most specific strengths and 2 most specific areas for revision. Reference exact sentences or phrases from the student's writing in your feedback. [Paste essay here.]
This student essay scored 2/3 on "use of evidence." Write one specific, encouraging sentence explaining what strong evidence looks like and how their current evidence could be improved. Do not say "good job" or use generic phrases.
Write a closing comment for this student essay that acknowledges the student's growth since their last piece (which focused on [prior skill]) and points toward their next step as a writer.