Last year was my first time teaching Spanish AP Language and Culture and I’m back this year for Round 2. I tried a LOT of things that didn’t work out so great last year, but one thing that I’m really proud of are these AP Peer Scoring Sheets. They’re nifty little sheets that are carefully crafted for each of the AP Language and Culture Tasks (in Spanish and Italian!), that take the guess work out of the College Board’s expectations in a highly scaffolded way, designed to make those expectations crystal clear to our Little Darlings. Here’s the FREE download of the Argumentative Essay Peer Scoring Sheet, and if you love it, be sure to check out the rest of the bunch, on sale now (along with everything else at The Chase Place!) I’ve been playing with these and improving them for about a year now and I have to say, they are super helpful for my students and myself! The great Kara Jacobs agrees, “Hey, that peer edit doc was excellent!…Students did such a great job because they had **specific** things to focus on.”

While I created these originally to use for Peer Scoring (to give them feedback, save me hours of grading time AND to familiarize them with what College Board is looking for) this year I’ve discovered a few other ways to use this tool:

Teaching the task requirements:

Print out (or cue up) a previously released student sample, published by College Board. Print out the corresponding “Peer Scoring Sheet” and give students the task of scoring the student sample. I like to pair students up for this activity. First they’ll individually listen or read the sample, then working together, they’ll go through the check list, rating how the student did in each category, by marking a check for each descriptor:

Then, after completing the front side of the AP Peer Scoring Sheet, they flip the paper over for the AP Rubric, and circle one descriptor from each column, that best aligns with the checkmarks they assigned on the other side. They take a look at which column has the most circled descriptors to assign an overall score to the sample. After an enthusiastic drum roll, reveal the AP score that the sample actually received, then work together as a class through the Scoring Sheet and Rubric.

Peer Scoring:

Assign any AP Free Response Task to your students. For a written task, I like them to use paper and pencil. For oral tasks I prefer using FlipGrid, but any recording app will work, as long as other students can access the recordings.

The following class (or whenever you get around to it!), pass out the corresponding “Peer Scoring Sheet” and a peer’s work to score to each student.

For the emails, I ask my TA to make 1 copy of each student’s work, and I ask students to score 2 different emails, since they’re short and the scoring goes pretty quick. I pass out one email to every student (of course making sure that no one gets their own!). As students finish, they staple the Scoring Sheet to the email, give it to me, then I hand them the next email for them to score. Since the essays are longer and take more time to get though, I don’t bother to make copies, I just pass out the written essays randomly.

For the oral responses, everyone logs into Flipgrid, and I assign everyone a another student to peer review. Once they complete the Scoring Sheet and submit it to me, I assign them a different student to listen to and peer score.

I collect them so my TA can jot down their peer scores (even though they’re not going into the gradebook, I like to record their scores on a clipboard, so at a glance I can see how things are looking as a class and monitor individual progress), then I pass them back to the students to keep in their binders.

Teacher Scoring:

These hardworking sheets help me out too! I use them when I grade their work to help me dial into the important elements that College Board is looking for. On the example below, for the email task, I type in the specific questions the email asks, to help me make sure they’ve answered all the questions.

When I know that they’re writing (or recording) something that I will grade (which let’s be honest, isn’t very often because I hate grading with the white hot intensity of a thousand suns) I’ll ask them to tell me the kind of feedback they’d prefer, inspired by the One and Only Meredith White. Not only does this cut down my grading time considerably, it’s the kind of thing administrators LOVE. Our school is ALL ABOUT Student Voice and Choice, and this fits the bill nicely:

What’s not to love?! Students get really familiar with what the College Board is looking for by reading each other’s work and then I don’t have to feel guilty for not grading much. The give each other feedback and I don’t take home mountains of grading. What’s more, they’re working hard peer-scoring each other’s work while I get a minute to catch your breath and sip some tea. Win-Win-Win-Win! And to sweeten the deal even more…everything is 25% off at The Chase Place Nov 28 and 29! Grab them while they’re hot!