Manage & Grade Essays

This article will show you how to manage, grade, download and comment on submitted essays. To learn more about setting up essays within a quiz, please read our article on the Essay Question Type.

Accessing Submitted Essays #

1. Navigate to LearnDash LMS > Quizzes
2. Click on the “Submitted Essay”s tab

This page will list all essays that have been submitted by all users, for all quizzes.

Filter Essays #

You can filter the Submitted Essays list in a few ways:

1. Choose between Graded and Not Graded (shown in pink)
2. Filter by the course, lesson or quiz that the essay is associated with (shown in blue)
   1. Choose option(s) from the dropdown menus
   2. Click the Filter button

Grading & Awarding Points #

There are two ways to grade essays and award points.

From the Listing Screen #

This is the quick and easy way to grade an essay.

1. From the Submitted Essays listing screen…
2. Enter the number of points you’d like to award
3. Click the Approve button

The page will reload and you’ll see the status change from “Not Graded” to “Graded,” and the appropriate points will be displayed.

No further adjustments can be made from the listing screen, meaning, you can no longer change the grade from here, but you can open each individual essay if you need to make any changes.

Individual Essay #

This method is a little more time intensive, but provides more flexibility. You can change an essay from “Graded” to “Not Graded,” as well as adjust the points awarded.

1. From the Submitted Essays listing screen…
2. Click on an essay title to edit it
3. Find the Essay Grading Status section in the sidebar
4. Update the essay status (Graded or Not Graded)
5. Update the points awarded
6. Click the Update button to save your changes

If you previously set the grading of the essay to Not Graded, No Points Awarded, then the status and grade of the quiz will no longer be in Pending status after you award points and indicate that the essay is graded.

If the user did not meet the passing threshold prior to grading, but after the grading of the essay they meet the threshold, then they will be permitted to continue with the course.

Download an Essay File #

If you chose the Upload essay type, your submitted essay will include the file that the user uploaded.

1. From the individual essay screen…
2. Scroll down to the Essay Upload section
3. Click on the file to download it

Commenting on Essays #

By default, all submitted essays actually have their own page. You can access that page by clicking on the permalink at the top of the individual essay screen in the WordPress admin.

As an admin, if you’d like to leave a comment for the user:

1. Make sure Allow Comments is checked in the Discussion section
2. In the Comments section, click the Add Comment button
3. Type your comment
4. Click the Add Comment button to save your comment

Your comment will now appear on the essay page mentioned above.

NOTE: The design and layout of the essay page is managed by your WordPress theme. Please check with your theme to see the options to customize this page.