BHP Team

Last year, in partnership with the Arizona State University and the University of Michigan, we introduced a new essay scoring service called BHP Score. The service provides BHP teachers with feedback on student writing: BHP Investigations* are scored by trained evaluators at Arizona State University and feedback is aligned with the BHP Writing Rubric. Comments are designed to support student writing development.

We were pleased to see how creatively teachers used the data and personalized BHP Score reports they received last year! Here are some of their comments (compiled from the online BHP Teacher Community):

I received the score reports for my students’ Investigation 2 essays this week and they are great! A report is sent with the students’ grade based upon the BHP Writing Rubric along with individualized comments for each student essay. These comments include praise for what the student performed well on and what the student needs to work on for next time. There is also a report for the class including score averages. Thanks for making this happen!! – Bridgette O’Connor 9/6/2016

I love BHP Score! This is an amazing tool for teachers. I printed all of the scores and the original essays then we reviewed them as a class, explaining what the comments meant— counterclaim, citing sources correctly, and the difference between summarizing and analyzing. We then looked over the rubric together so students could interpret their scores. – Kathy Hays 10/13/2016

BHP Score was great! We were pleasantly surprised with not just getting scores, but also individual feedback. It helped me plan my writing mini-lessons for the next unit. The kids also set personal goals for themselves and are revisiting those goals every time they begin to write something in class. Thanks for this amazing service! – Hajra Saeed 10/13/2016

I love BHP Score. I love it just for the simple fact that my students can use it to set goals for their next Investigation (or any writing for that matter) and they can also use it as a tool to improve their peer editing skills. Our students also loved the individualized feedback. My teaching partner and I thought they would just blow over it, but they truly took the comments to heart and made some pretty fantastic goals because of them. – Jami McLing 10/15/2016

Throughout the year, teachers had the opportunity to interact with members of the Score team by participating in the ASU Writing Exchanges on Yammer. Teachers discussed writing topics and how the service has helped their students:

Thank you for all your hard work it is greatly appreciated and my students get a kick out of receiving feedback from members of a university halfway around the world. It also gives them a different perspective on how they are progressing. – Charles Rushworth 1/13/2017

Thank you for providing such amazing feedback to our students. This has allowed me to show my students that writing is truly a process. Because the feedback and valuable comments are returned so quickly, the students still have the topic fresh in their mind. – Kathy Hays 1/14/2017

Thank you for all of your team’s tireless work. My students appreciate and look forward to your feedback on their investigations. – Michael Skomba 1/23/2017

As teachers prepared for this new school year, they engaged in more discussion about BHP Score in the online BHP Teacher Community. Teachers expressed the benefits of the feedback and their students’ excitement about receiving feedback on their essays:

There is something very special about the process of having students work hard during class, submit their work, and then wait for the scores. The day I told them that “the scores were in,” became a special day the students greatly anticipated. What I found to be the most powerful moments in class was when we celebrated the growth of students across the spectrum. The student who went from a 1.5 to a 2 was celebrated as much as the higher level students, and again something as simple as seeing the bar graph score sheet moving in the positive direction is very encouraging to all students. – Jason Manning 7/12/2017

I think my students have greatly benefited from BHP Score. The consistency of the rubric is so important in developing writing skills. They loved the feedback and it led to great conversations. …[M]y kids looked forward to getting their scores each time. – Kathy Hays 7/12/2017

I loved using BHP Score last year. I at first didn’t know how I was going to grade Investigations and then this service provided such great student feedback for last year’s first Investigation. I was able to grade the other Investigations based on the feedback the students received and my students’ writing did improve over the course. – Alex Ovalle 8/15/2017

Since the introduction of BHP Score, teachers have shared the many ways they’ve used the service to help their students. With a new year ahead, BHP Score remains a valuable resource to help teachers involve their students in the writing process and equip them with writing skills they can take with them beyond the classroom.

*NOTE: Investigations 0, 2, 6, and 9 are all eligible for submission to BHP Score this year. Questions? Check out the BHP Score FAQs or email us at team@bighistoryproject.com.