Tech Tuesdays: GradeProof–An Add-On Supporting Revision

by Kathryn Nieves

When it comes to integrating technology into the classroom, it’s best to give students a variety of options. You want to have several tools to accomplish similar tasks in order to give students a choice of which they like the best. If a student dislikes a particular app or tool, which happens frequently in my classes, they are less likely to use it. As a result, having a few back-ups for them to try is helpful until they find their favorite.

GradeProof, a Google Docs add-on, provides another option for students when it comes to revising and editing their work. It uses artificial intelligence to generate feedback on writing. Similar to other revision tools, it focuses on several key areas and users are able to look through the comments and make corrections.

Once GradeProof has been installed, it can be accessed from within a Google Doc. You should open a Doc you want to revise and click “Add-Ons” from the toolbar. Then select “GradeProof” and “Start.”

A sidebar will appear and GradeProof will run through the entire Doc, tallying the number of errors or areas for feedback. GradeProof will immediately give you the number of errors in each of the categories, including spelling, grammar, phrasing, and eloquence.

In addition to the areas of improvement, GradeProof also considers readability of your Doc, where the higher the score, the easier it is to read your work, and grade level, which lists the number of years of education a person would need to understand your work. Basic statistics like syllables per word, word count, character count, and words per sentence are also listed. Another interesting factor is reading time, where GradeProof averages how long it would take a person to read the Doc in its entirety. Speaking time is also listed for those looking into how long it would take the average person to read the Doc aloud.

When you are ready to start making corrections, return to GradeProof’s sidebar and select “View Suggestions.” A pop-up window will appear, requiring you to create an account or sign in. Once signed in, you will be able to move through the categories and find areas GradeProof considers as an error.

By clicking on each of the underlined words and phrases, you can see the suggestion GradeProof is making. Then, you can choose to ignore it or make the change. In most cases, GradeProof will also provide a brief explanation of why the change is necessary.

You can also opt to have GradeProof automatically fix all the errors in the Doc. If you select “Apply Changes,” the changes will automatically populate within the document.

The nice part about using GradeProof in the classroom is that it separates the different types of errors, so students can focus on one piece at a time for revision, and it gives them a little description so they can avoid these errors in future writing pieces. GradeProof is an easy tool for students to use and can serve as another option for the revising and editing part of the writing process.

New Jersey Council of Teachers of English, the New Jersey state affiliate of NCTE, the National Council of Teachers of English

Tech Tuesdays: Analyze My Writing — Making Student Revision Easier

The process of getting students to revise and edit their writing has always been difficult. In fact, it can be tough for anyone to return to a finished piece and continue to make corrections. In the classroom, this problem can lead to students submitting work without a second glance or making ineffective peer comments. There is a digital alternative that can make the process easier for students while teaching them different elements to look out for when revising. Using the free application Analyze My Writing can make a significant difference for students.

Once a student is on the website, they will immediately find the box to paste their writing.

Underneath the box that holds the writing are a variety of focus areas for the student to choose. Each area allows the student to make specific edits to their writing and include basic text statistics, common words and phrases, readability, Lexical density, passive voice, and cloze text.

Basic Text Statistics provides a numerical overview of the written piece. It shows word, sentence, character, and punctuation count, as well as the number of certain punctuation marks per 100 sentences. This area of focus also includes graphs of word and sentence length throughout the entire piece, showing the length of each on the horizontal access and the percent of items of that length in the entire text.

The Common Words and Phrases area looks for words that are used the most frequently in the entire text. When selected, the default setting is the 50 most common words and pairs, but that number is customizable based on student need. The website ranks the top words used in the writing by showing their number of occurrences and the percentage of the total words. While the first few slots are usually dedicated to words like “the” and “and,” this tool is a good way for students to pick up on other words or phrases that may appear too frequently in their writing and provides the opportunity to revise with better synonyms. A word cloud of the most common words also appears for a visual representation to help the student make revisions to their word choice.

Analyze my Writing also provides a readability index based on the complexity of the writing. A student, or teacher, could choose to look at these numbers to get a better overview of the quality and strength of the writing. Each score is averaged to generate one average and one median grade level for the writing.

• Fry Readability Score: plots the number of syllables per 100 words on the x-axis and the number of sentences per 100 words on the y-axis; provides an estimation of grade level
• Raygor Readability Score: similar to Fry, but looks at 3 100-word samples from the beginning, middle, and end of the text to gather the same information

Readability scores based on groups of 20 sentences are documented on one graph, including Gunning-fog, Flesch-Kincaid, SMOG, Coleman-Liau, and Automated Readability Index. Students and teachers can manipulate the Fry and Raygor graphs in order to look at a larger or smaller section of the writing.

Similarly, once a piece of writing is pasted, the lexical density can be immediately measured, which focuses on the number of content words versus the total number of words. The percentage for the entire text is displayed, as well as the density for every single sentence in the text. Examples of lexical words and their overall density in the sentence are also broken down as evidence for students as they revise their writing. While this tool is interesting, one of the useful graphs it includes is the breakdown of parts of speech in the writing.

The final two areas of focus, Passive Voice and Cloze Test, continue to provide focus areas for revision. For passive voice, the website extracts sentences that contain phrases in the passive voice. The sentences are available for student viewing on a single page, making it easy to review and make the necessary revisions. The Cloze Test is a final way for students to reflect on the difficulty of their writing. By removing certain words and putting blank spaces in their place, someone who is unfamiliar with the text needs to try to read the passage, filling in the blanks with appropriate words. Students are free to customize the number of words that are removed; the default is every fifth word. This test could be completed with a peer who has not read the student’s full text in order to show the student the true clarity of their writing.

For a free resource, Analyze My Writing has a lot of interesting tools for students and teachers alike. It’s an easy way to accommodate students who struggle to revise and edit independently by providing focus points to make those parts of the writing process easier. The ease of use and data collected make it a useful tool for the ELA classroom or any writing assignment.