A note on speech grading forms

There are various ways to provide the students feedback on their speeches. For years, I used a standard paper form and covered it with comments by hand. This type of grading was taking more than 20 minutes per form. A couple of years ago, I developed a computer form using Microsoft Word. The computer form still provided detailed comments but dropped my grading time to 8 minutes per speech by having frequent comments already inserted. The form can be saved as a .pdf before sending to students so it will be easy for them to access but difficult for anyone who may try to change items on the form.

The form has three parts:

• The checklist. The column to the left is a simple checklist — if the goal is completed, I can check it off.
• The dropboxes. The middle column contains dropboxes with preloaded answers. For example, under “sources” there is a range of numbers and I can click the dropbox and select the correct option. There are also brief comments there — “good”, “keep working on this”, etc. Each section also has a set of checkboxes to assess it on a scale from + to -. I use these checkboxes when calculating the score.
• The comments. The final column has open boxes for personal comments and room for an explanation. In addition, the bottom of the form has an open box that can also be used for comments that will not fit in the boxes.

The feedback from the students was positive. They found the forms gave them the detailed information they needed and were much easier to read than my rushed handwriting. During the speech I was still making written comments but would then would translate them to the form to send to students. Someone more tech-savvy might be able to enter the comments straight into the electronic document but I never reached that point.

It would not be difficult to design a version of this form on your own, but if you would like them ready-made, I have made three different versions of the form available for $1 each at teacherspayteachers.com. The forms are easy to alter to add your own categories or dropbox comments and I have included instructions on how to do so.