đź“ť AI, Grade This for Me: How to Use AI to Score Short Answers & Essays

If grading short answers or essays takes up your entire evening, this is for you. Even if you’ve never used ChatGPT or another AI tool, you can start with something incredibly simple: paste in a student response and ask AI to grade it based on your rubric.

Author

Michael Rice
June 16, 2025

Let’s say you gave a short essay question on the causes of the American Revolution. Here’s a basic prompt you can copy and try:

“Grade this 7th grade history response based on the following 5-point rubric. Provide a score and 1–2 sentences of feedback.”

Rubric:
5 – Accurate, detailed, well-organized, clear argument
3 – Mostly accurate, some detail, some structure issues
1 – Incomplete, inaccurate, little to no organization

Student response:
“The revolution was caused because people were mad about taxes and stuff. They threw tea in the harbor and that made England mad.”

ChatGPT will score it, explain its reasoning, and even offer constructive comments you can copy directly into your grade book.

Quick Tips:

  • Use your rubric. AI isn’t magic—it needs your scoring guide to know what “good” looks like.

  • Keep it simple. Just paste one answer at a time while you get the hang of it.

  • Double-check. AI speeds things up, but you’re still the teacher. Make sure you agree with its judgment.

Even if you grade just 5–10 papers this way, it can cut your workload in half. And the feedback is often more consistent and supportive than we have time to give ourselves.

Try it tonight. You might never grade the same way again.

📸 Bonus Tip: Grade Handwritten Work with Your Phone and ChatGPT

Got stacks of handwritten answers? You don’t have to type them in.

If you’re using the ChatGPT mobile app (free from the App Store or Google Play), you can tap the camera icon to take a photo of a student’s written response. ChatGPT will read the handwriting and convert it into text—then you can ask it to score or give feedback just like you would with typed work.

Here’s how:

1. Open the ChatGPT app.

2. Tap the đź“· camera icon in the message bar.

3. Snap a clear photo of the student response.

4. Type a prompt like:

“Grade this 6th grade science response based on the rubric below. Give a score and feedback.”

This is a game-changer for grading notebooks, exit tickets, or warm-ups—especially if you’re walking around the classroom or on the go.

Just like with typed answers, review the result before recording a grade. But once you try it, you’ll wonder how you ever lived without it.

That’s it for this week.

P.S.

I would love to hear from you!

If there’s a specific challenge you’re facing or a question you have about using AI in the classroom, just reply to this email - I read every message.

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