Academic Decathlon Essay Judge Training What Is Academic

Academic Decathlon Essay Judge Training

What Is Academic Decathlon? • • Scholastic competition for high school students Students compete in teams of nine: – Three A Students – Three B Students – Three C Students • Competitors take tests in seven academic areas • and give a speech, write an essay, and give an interview Subjects change every year; this year’s theme is India

The Essay Event • Students write the essay before the competition • Prompts are based on one or more areas of the curriculum – Prompts are not made available beforehand • Competitors have 50 minutes to create a convincing, well-supported essay that addresses the prompt

What We Should Expect • These are not college-level papers, or even the students’ best work • Essays will not be perfect • Essays should – Fully address the prompt – Have a clear thesis – Provide evidence to support thesis – Be written with correct grammar, spelling, and usage

Scoring – The Rubric Focus/Scope, Organization, and Content and Development • Addresses what the essay says and how it is organized • Counts for 80% of the final score Language/Style and Conventions: • Addresses how content is expressed —clarity and correctness of writing • Counts for 20% of the final score

Focus/Scope – Organization – Content/Development Focus/Scope – How thoroughly the student addresses the prompt – How successfully they establish a clear thesis or purpose – The student should make a specific point about a specific topic and should maintain this focus throughout his/her essay

Focus/Scope – Organization – Content/Development Organization – How the student presents his/her ideas to the reader – Clarity, logic, and sequence of the ideas presented and how well these ideas are developed and sustained within and across paragraphs – Quality of the introduction and conclusion

Focus/Scope – Organization – Content/Development – Quality of the ideas in the essay – How well these ideas are developed through facts, examples, details, statistics, reasons, and/or explanations – How relevant the information is to the overall focus of the essay

Language/Style - Conventions – How effectively and appropriately the student uses and arranges of words and sentence structures – Language should communicate ideas clearly and effectively – Word choice, vocabulary, and sentence variety – Correctness of grammar, mechanics (spelling, capitalization, punctuation), usage, and sentence formations

Assigning a Score • Each category asks you to assign a numeric score based on the descriptors provided • Some essays won’t fit perfectly into one category—use your best judgment • Score in increments of 5 (70, 75, 80)

Sample Essays Prompt: Kamala Markandaya makes the setting come to life in Nectar in a Sieve. Describe how the setting (and what it becomes) is like a character in the novel. Support your answer with examples from the novel.

Essay #1 • Has strong, defined thesis • Body paragraph has good detail: specific examples, quotes, and clear explanation • Content links back to thesis • Writing is clear, with only a few small errors

Essay #2 • Thesis is unclear • Examples are vague • Content does not clearly link back to thesis • Writing contains many noticeable errors that distract from content

Off-Prompt Essays • An off-prompt essay completely lacks relevant content • For example: – Kittens – “My Trip to Disneyland” – Apologies for being unprepared • Off-prompt does not mean that the writer addressed only part of the prompt or wrote a bad essay

Prompts • Students must address the prompt and respond to all aspects of it • The response guidelines are just here to help us—they don’t define a good or bad essay