Your Classroom on Essay

Creating a class

A class contains your students, your assignments, and all of the work they submit together in one place. Create a class for each section you teach.

Your classes

The Teacher workspace sits in the left navigation panel. Click Classes to see all of your classes.

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From the Classes page you can:

1. Create a class
2. Switch between your active and archived classes
3. Edit or duplicate a class, and access the rest of the class actions

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Create a class

Click Create a class and fill in three things.

• Give your class a name. Use whatever you call the course.
• A section is useful when you teach the same course more than once, so you can tell 2nd period from 3rd period.
• Class length sets a start and end date for the term.

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Active and archived classes

Active shows the classes you are teaching now. When a course is finished you can archive it, which keeps the assignments and class information so you can use them again next year.

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The class card

Clicking the class card opens the class page. The actions along the bottom of the card help you manage your class.

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• Edit changes the class information.
• Duplicate copies the class. You can choose whether to copy the students, and the assignments come across with their names, instructions, attached resources and requested submissions. Due dates need to be set again by hand.
• The three dot menu holds Archive and Delete.

The class page

This is where you manage the class, manage students and create assignments.

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1. Your assignments. Each one appears as a card showing its due dates, the number of submissions received, and where you are in the feedback process.
2. Create an assignment. See creating an assignment.
3. Join requests. Approve or deny students asking to join your class through the class link.
4. Your students. See who is in the class at a glance, and go to the full class list.

The class list

Manage who is in your class from the class list page.

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1. The class list table. See the active students in your class, their email address and when they were last active. Switch to the Pending tab to see your join requests.
2. Add students using the button at the top right.
3. Join requests, where you can quickly approve or deny.

Adding students to a class

There are three ways to invite students to your class.

Add students by CSV

Upload a CSV of student email addresses and an invitation to join your class is sent to every address in the file. Each student gets a unique link that only works for their own email address, so they join without needing your approval.

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Add students by email

Add addresses one at a time and send the invitations. As with a CSV upload, each link only works for the address you sent it to, so these students join without needing your approval.

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Add students by class link

Copy the link and share it however you normally share things with your class. Keep Manually approve students joining via link or code switched on and anyone who follows the link lands in Join requests for you to approve, rather than walking straight into the class.

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Creating and managing assignments

Assign your students work, and attach instructions, resources, and templates to work from. You can also split an assignment into milestones, so students hand in their work in stages.

Create an assignment

From the class page, click Create an assignment.

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Add in the assignment details:

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• Give the assignment a title.
• Add a due date. You can also specify a time if applicable.
• Add a length requirement by page or word count.
• Choose a citation style: MLA, APA Student, APA Professional, Chicago NB or Chicago Author-Date. Their essay is formatted to that style automatically, so they spend their time on the argument rather than on the formatting.
• Include a template. Pick from one of your saved templates to give students a starting point, or a specific structure you want them to work from.

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• Include an attachment to add other resources, such as a reading list, rubric, or sample.
• Add instructions. You can include links to direct students to videos and other online resources.

Adding milestones

Switch on Include milestones to split the assignment into stages. Each milestone becomes a separate submission with its own deadline.

• Name the milestone
• Give it its own deadline
• Add instructions specific to that stage, if there are any

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Publish, or save as a draft

Publish it, or save it as a draft to keep it hidden from students. You can publish it when you are ready to assign it.

The assignment page

Once an assignment is published it gets its own assignment page. See who has submitted, who hasn't, and keep track of where you are in the feedback process.

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1. Student submissions. See every student and the status of their work. Clicking one opens the submission viewer, where you review it. Filter the table by student, milestone or status when you want to focus on something specific, such as everything overdue. Switch tabs at the top of the table to read the assignment instructions.
2. Edit the assignment, use the assignment actions, or start giving feedback.
3. A quick overview of the assignment statuses to help you stay organized.

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Submission statuses

Re-submissions

If a student notices a mistake, or fixes something in their essay, they can submit it again.

• A student can resubmit on their own if you have not opened the previous submission and the due date has not passed.
• If you have already viewed their submission, or the deadline has passed, you are sent a request to approve or deny the new one.

When you accept a new submission it replaces the previous one. Existing comments are carried across where possible, which works well when the text a comment was attached to has not changed. If the student made significant changes, some comments may not come across.

The old submission is then nested under the new one in the student submissions table, with an arrow you can click to view it.

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Giving feedback

Click a student's submission in the student submissions table, or click Give feedback at the top of the assignment page and choose where you want to start.

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Choose a milestone and the order you want to work through, such as the oldest submission first or the most recently submitted. Click Confirm to go to the submission viewer and start reviewing your student's work.

Assignment actions

The three dot menu at the top right of the assignment page holds more assignment level actions.

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Bulk export

Export as a PDF, a Google Doc or a Word document. Choose which milestones you want and which students, and the submissions are exported together in a folder.

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Closing an assignment

When the assignment is done, you have reviewed the submissions and you are no longer accepting work, you can close it. Closing prevents students from handing in anything new.

Closed assignments get a Closed badge, which both you and your students can see. You can reopen the assignment at any point if you want to accept more submissions.

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Reviewing student work and tracking feedback

Review your student's work in a dedicated submission viewer with unique insights into their process. Your feedback stays private until you return it. Track your progress as you go so you always know where you are in the review process.

Getting to the submission viewer

Click a student's submission in the Student submissions table to go straight to that piece of work, or click Give feedback at the top of the page to review your student's work chronologically.

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A tour of the submission viewer

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1. The feedback editor, where the student's work sits and you leave your comments
2. Version history
3. Produce and Rewrite
4. The right toolbar: assignment, notes, references and comments
5. Preview and export
6. Navigation breadcrumbs, for moving between pages and students
7. The assignment tracker

1. The feedback editor

Highlight text to leave feedback. Choose one of seven categories to give specific insights on your student's work, then add a comment. You can also mark a passage as Needs work or Good work without typing anything.

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The seven categories

Each category has its own color, so a student can see at a glance whether you are pushing on their argument or tidying the flow of their sentences.

• General High level comments about the essay as a whole.
• Idea Does the writer present a single topic and convey a clear message?
• Organization Does the writer reveal ideas in a logical order? That might be a beginning, middle and end, a cause and effect, or a what and why structure.
• Sentence fluency Are the sentences complete, with variety in their length, complexity and structure?
• Spelling and grammar Does the writer follow the rules of spelling, punctuation, capitalization and grammar?
• Voice Does the writing engage the reader with the subject, suit the subject matter and audience, and feel personal and expressive?
• Word choice Does the writer use the right word in the right place to convey the right meaning?

2. Version history

You can look at a student's version history to see how their essay came together. A version of their work is saved automatically every 15 minutes while they are writing, so you can follow the progression. Students can also save versions themselves by naming them, and those named versions show up here too.

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3. Produce and Rewrite

The submission viewer has two main views.

1. Produce gives you a clean view of their writing.
2. Rewrite shows the student's sentence level edits.

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In the Rewrite panel the essay is broken down sentence by sentence. Click any sentence with a green rewrite badge and it opens up to show every version the student wrote, with the one they kept highlighted in green.

You can see how a clumsy sentence became a polished one, or see why a weak sentence stayed weak. Rewrites show effort that a finished draft alone cannot. A student who tried four versions of a sentence was thinking hard about it, even if the final version still needs work. That is worth knowing and gives you more insight to help them improve.

4. Notes, references and comments

The right toolbar holds a few more views, listed here from top to bottom.

1. Assignment. Read the assignment instructions without leaving the viewer.
2. Notes. View any research, quotes or ideas the student connected to the essay.
3. References. View each source the student cited in their essay.
4. Comments. Contains all the comments in one list. Filter to view specific feedback categories, as well as resolved comments. Change the comment visibility settings.

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5. Preview and export

Essay is a format-less environment to write in, but students format their work when they submit it. Click Preview & export at the top right to see the fully formatted version, with the title page, footnotes, citations and bibliography laid out properly.

You can also export the student's work from here if you want to print it or keep a copy outside Essay.

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6. Moving between submissions

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The breadcrumbs across the top of the viewer are the fastest way around.

• Click the class name to go back to the class page.
• Click the assignment name to go to the assignment page, where you can see every submission.
• Click the milestone name to open the submission panel filtered to that milestone, so you can jump to another student's work.

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• Click the student's name to open the submission panel filtered to that student's other submissions. You can quickly compare the current draft with a previous draft to see how the writing progressed, or to see whether a student addressed something you raised between drafts.

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• Click the arrows around the student's name to move from one submission to the next.

7. Assignment tracker

The assignment tracker lives in the top right corner of the submission viewer and helps you stay on top of the review process. It shows when the student submitted their work, their word count in relation to the requirement, and how much of the class you have got through.

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When you have finished with a submission, click Mark as reviewed. That updates the tracker and lets you either move to the next submission or return this one to the student.

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That gives you two ways to work. You can return each submission as you finish it, using Return to student in the tracker, then move on to the next one. Or you can review the whole class first and return everything together, so everyone gets their feedback at the same time. Once you mark the last submission as reviewed, the tracker offers to return them all at once.

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Templates

Templates give students a place to start, or a structure you want them to work in. Build a template and attach it to an assignment. Students can create new documents with that structure already built in.

Your template library

Click Templates in the left navigation panel. This is where you can find all of your templates. Create a new one with the + button, or open an existing one to edit it.

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Make a template from a document you already have

You can turn any document in your workspace into a template. Open it, use the three dot menu at the top right and choose Save as template.

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Importing a document

From Essay Home, click Create and choose Import document to bring in a file from your computer or your Google Drive. Then open it and use the three dot menu to save it as a template.

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The template editor

The template editor looks and works the same as the regular editor. Create outline topics, add headings, and write instructions for the kind of information each section should hold. This gives students a structure to work from, which they fill with their own material.

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Adding a template to an assignment

When you create an assignment, switch on Include template and choose one. Students can then start their essay from it.

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Use templates to teach students how to edit

It is difficult to get students to take editing seriously. They often hand in the first version they write, without taking the time to engage critically with their own writing. Even when you tell them to edit, most writing platforms have no way of showing whether a student actually went through their work with a fine-toothed comb.

Use a template to set an assignment where the whole focus is editing. Write a bad essay, paragraph, or series of sentences, save it as a template, and attach it to an assignment. Include spelling and grammar mistakes, a weak argument, and awkward sentences.

Students then use Essay's tools to fix it: rewriting sentences, reordering paragraphs, and marking the changes they make. When they submit, you can see exactly what they chose to change and evaluate the revisions themselves.

Write a bad essay and save it as a template

Give it grammar mistakes, spelling mistakes, structural errors and weak rhetoric. Or, instead of an essay you could focus on something smaller: a single poorly constructed paragraph, or a series of sentences with a range of mistakes in them.

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Create an assignment and attach the template

Have students save a named version called “Template”

Ask your students to save a named version called “Template” to their version history before they make any changes. This gives you a clean starting point so you can easily compare it against their progress.

Have students use the feedback tools to identify the mistakes

Have students use Rewrite to fix the sentences

Tell your students to rewrite the sentence, for example a minimum of three times, and select the best version.

Have students use Reorder to fix the structure by moving sentences and paragraphs around

Have students highlight the changes they made so you can track their edits

When they submit, you can see:

• Their comments. Whether they correctly identified the mistakes in the original template, and which parts of the text they chose to edit.
• Their rewrites. Every sentence level edit, the versions they tried, and the one they picked as the best.
• Their version history. How the essay changed from the original template into the final submission, in 15 minute snapshots.