Grading Template

A reusable template for grading student submissions with Claude Code. Provides substantive feedback that teaches clear thinking and effective writing.

FERPA Compliance

Enabling Canvas Anonymous Grading before downloading submissions reduces identifiable information in filenames. However, full FERPA compliance when using AI grading tools depends on your institution's policies, vendor agreements, and whether submissions contain identifying information in their content.

The grading workflow functions correctly with either anonymized or standard Canvas filenames.

Quick Start

1. Copy this folder to your assignment location
2. Replace assignment.md with the actual assignment instructions
3. Replace rubric.md with your grading rubric
4. Place student submissions in the submissions/ folder
5. Ask Claude to grade the submissions

Folder Structure

Grading-Template/
├── CLAUDE.md              # Instructions for Claude Code (don't modify)
├── assignment.md          # ← REPLACE with your assignment instructions
├── rubric.md              # ← REPLACE with your grading rubric
├── submissions/           # ← PUT student files here
├── turnitin/              # ← OPTIONAL: Turnitin similarity reports
├── skills/
│   └── grading/
│       ├── SKILL.md       # Detailed grading workflow (don't modify)
│       ├── scripts/       # Text extraction utilities
│       │   ├── extract_submission_text.py
│       │   ├── render_xlsx_excel.py
│       │   └── render_xlsx_quicklook.py
│       └── references/
│           ├── economical_writing_principles.md  # Writing evaluation guide
│           └── course_concepts.md                # ← OPTIONAL: course-specific concepts
└── README.md

Setup Details

Required Files

assignment.md - The assignment instructions students received

• Include all required sections/components
• Include formatting requirements
• Include any resources provided to students

rubric.md - Your grading rubric

• Define each criterion with point values
• Describe what excellent, competent, and poor work looks like
• Include total points and grade scale if applicable

Optional Files

turnitin/ - Turnitin similarity reports

• Place exported Turnitin reports here (or in submissions/ with "turnitin" in the filename)
• The grading agent checks for reports and incorporates findings into feedback
• Feedback explains what matches mean (benign vs. concerning) and teaches proper citation practices
• If no reports are present, grading proceeds without Turnitin integration

skills/grading/references/course_concepts.md - Course-specific concepts

• Key terminology and definitions
• Frameworks students should apply
• Common errors to watch for
• Delete this file if not needed

Submissions Folder

Put all student submission files in submissions/. Supported formats:

• PDF documents
• Word documents (.docx, .doc)
• Excel workbooks (.xlsx, .xls)
• Plain text files

Dependencies

Install these before grading:

# Python package for old Office formats
pip install olefile

# PDF text extraction and rendering
brew install poppler

# OCR fallback for image-based PDFs
brew install tesseract

Usage

Open Claude Code in the assignment folder and ask:

Grade the submissions in the submissions folder

Or use the grading agent directly:

Use the grading agent to evaluate all student submissions

What the Grading Agent Does

1. Extracts text from all submission files (including OCR for scanned PDFs)
2. Renders Excel charts as images for visual review
3. Checks for Turnitin reports and incorporates similarity findings if present
4. Evaluates against the rubric with scores for each criterion
5. Provides teaching-focused feedback:
   • What the student did well
   • 2-3 issues with explanations of WHY they matter
   • Writing quality feedback (clarity, active verbs, concreteness)
   • Turnitin review with citation guidance (if reports provided)
   • Required revisions prioritized by impact
   • Optional enhancements for excellent work
6. Writes a grading report as a timestamped markdown file

Feedback Philosophy

The grading agent writes feedback as a demanding but generous mentor would:

• Explains WHY issues matter, not just that they exist
• Connects errors to conceptual gaps so students understand what they're missing
• Treats writing quality as a professional skill, not pedantic grammar policing
• Prepares students for tough questions if they'll present their work
• Prioritizes concrete fixes so students know exactly what to improve

Writing Evaluation

All feedback applies the principles from economical_writing_principles.md:

• Active verbs over nominalization
• Concrete examples over abstractions
• Plain language over jargon
• Natural voice over bureaucratic prose

Writing feedback focuses on WHY clear writing matters professionally—unclear writing suggests unclear thinking to employers, clients, and colleagues.

Customization

Adding Course-Specific Concepts

Edit skills/grading/references/course_concepts.md to include:

• Key terminology from your course
• Frameworks students should apply
• Common misconceptions to address

Modifying the Feedback Format

Edit skills/grading/SKILL.md to:

• Change the output format
• Add or remove feedback sections
• Adjust the mentor voice

Adjusting Writing Standards

Edit skills/grading/references/economical_writing_principles.md to:

• Emphasize different writing principles
• Add discipline-specific writing guidance
• Adjust the level of writing feedback