IB Rubric Sample Grading

Sample 1

Criteria A. 5/5

Criteria B. 8/10

Criteria C. 3/5

Total: 15/20

The sample that we read today about Richard III, in my opinion, the best example that we have read so far, apart from the ones on the portal page. This author started by introducing the play as well as giving some background on the plot of play before her scene. I felt that she does not have a very strong thesis, as my first thought was that she was analyzing Richard III, not Margaret. This is because she ends her first paragraph with, “This scene shows clearly these aspects of Richard’s personality and the pain he causes people” (1 Sample 1). She jumps into the analysis of the scene in the next paragraph, so there was not a clear thesis. Her literary analysis of her scene is her strongest section, as reflected in my grading. The writer goes into depth, analyzing many lines in her monologue. In addition to including the quote, she includes the emotions involved with the lines and identifies and explains literary features such as syntactical parallelism, paradox, and assonance. It shows that she clearly understood the writing and was able to dig out the importance of several features. After the analysis, she moves on to the performance analysis. At the beginning of this, I felt that she spent a little too much time explaining the group aspect of the project. She uses a long paragraph to introduce others members’ roles in the performance, as well the stage and its layout. Personally, I felt that there only need to be a sentence or two about this. Apart from that, I felt that her analysis of her performance was pretty good. She wrote about where on the stage she spoke her lines, as well as where she chose to interact with the frozen actors on stage as well. She spoke a lot about the delivery of the lines, and I felt that she could add something about the way she held her body or some other aspect of the acting. She mentioned the effect of her acting on the audience multiple times which I thought was very good. Her conclusion (and introduction, for that matter) was a little weak and did not restate her main ideas or thesis effectively.

Sample 2

Criteria A. 4/5

Criteria B. 9/10

Criteria C. 4/5  

Total: 17/20

I think that I take back my previous statement about the best sample. I think that this was the most thorough and direct writing so far. This writing had a very clear structure when writing this paper. She chose to analyze the literary components of each scene first, then move on to the performance aspects of it. I felt that this helped readers because her explanation of scene was still in our minds and that helped us understand her choices for the performance. It is clear through her writing that she understands Shakespeare’s writing and why he chose to do what he did. I think that her analysis of Ophelia in Act II, Scene I was particularly striking. The way that she interpreted the way Ophelia’s description of Hamlet in a previous scene and why Ophelia said what she said in the matter that she did was very interesting to me, having read the play. I felt that her explanation of her performance was pretty good as well. She focused on the lines and how she delivered those a lot. She showed to the readers how she used the punctuation given, and adapted it to her own performance. But, I felt that she could have written a little bit more on the effect that her delivery had on the audience. Another important aspect that she only touched upon was the way she held her body and used it in her performance. While her introduction had a clear thesis, I did not feel that it was reiterated enough in the conclusion, possibly due to the word count limit. Overall, I felt that it was a very effective essay that talked about many important features of her scene.