AP Lit FRQ Suggested Grading Scale

A grading scale that translates an AP Literature FRQ numeric score to a letter grade is invaluable.  Of course, The College Board offers no such grading scale, nor do they endorse our scale, but then again, they do not endorse any scale.

Nonetheless, teachers need to place grades on essays.  Likewise, we also want to use The 2019 College Board AP Literature Rubric.  At English Teacher Takeout, we take the 0-6 point  2019 AP Literature rubric and suggest a grading scale for the teacher who needs to translate the score into both a numerical and letter grade in the classroom.  

We’ve generated a 10-point scale that we believe reflects what we think an AP score should tell a student.  Of course the AP rubric is absolutely specific in terms of what a student needs to do in order to reach a particular score.  Each score is clearly defined on the rubric; we take the rubric, look at how letter grades would align in terms of standards and offer numerical 10 point scale suggested equivalents. We suspect that our explanations may be as valuable as the actual scale, particularly for those teachers looking to justify grades as they align to AP standards.

We also recognize that students write their exams in May of their senior year.  Writing expectations might be different in October than in April.  For this reason, we offer two scales, a scaffolded scale, and then a direct translation of the score into a numerical grade.  We believe our explanations of the scales are as valuable as the actual numbers in helping teachers correlate what will work best in their own classrooms.