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Full disclosure: before COVID and eLearning, I, despite being an avid user of Google Classroom almost since its inception, still used paper rubrics to give students feedback. I would give comments and suggestions in their Google Docs but I would still circle and markup paper rubrics to show students where they were at in their learning. Students would read (or not) my messy writing or really just look for the grade. With the deep, deep dive into eLearning and my AP Lang students practicing timed essays at least once a week, I knew I needed a better system to give digital feedback.  

Welcome to Autocrat, an add-on for Google Sheets, created in 2014 by high school student Tim Cargan, who was 16 years old when he coded the add-on. 

A lot of people have seen the light before me and there are amazing tutorials online such as Noemi Gonzalez’s great post, Tziri Lamm’s video tutorial or, Rachel Medeiros’ post. Since there’s so much info on the technical aspects of Autocrat, I’ll focus more on how I used Autocrat for my specific classes: AP English Language & Composition, AP Capstone Seminar and AP Capstone Research 

Here’s how I’ve used Autocrat since March during eLearning (to keep you motivated to learn how to use this slightly more complex add-on)

1. To email traditional rubrics to my students. I fill in the form with each criteria of the rubric as a question in Google Forms; run Autocrat in Sheets; and, a beautiful rubric appears in my students’ inbox. 
   • Example from AP Lang Exam Rhetorical Analysis rubric with tags and form. Here’s an example of what the rubric looks like when sent to students
   • EOC (though I call it Argument, Claims and Evidence at the beginning of the year) for AP Seminar rubric with tags and form
   • Poster Presentation Feedback for AP Research rubric with tags and form

2. To give immediate feedback on Lit Circle discussions (online). Again, I fill in the form while listening to my students in their Breakout Rooms, and since Autocrat has already been set up, the rubric gets emailed to all group members as soon as I click submit on the Form.
   • Example for Lit Circle rubric with tags and form

3. To grade presentations as they happen, and send rubrics immediately after students complete their presentations which is actually what Noemi Gonzalez’s post describes. 
   • Example from AP Lang Presentation of an article from students’ Summer Assignment: rubric with tags and form
   • Seminar Summer Assignment reading presentations rubric with tags and form

4. To send Peer Feedback to my students after a presentation on Zoom. One student presents, 2-3 other students fill in the form for Peer Feedback; everyone receives the peer feedback in their emails shortly after the class ends. 
   • Example of Peer Feedback document with tags and the form and an example of what it looked like when sent to students

How to:

I recommend doing the prep work before you start grading to not have to do any additional work in the middle of the smooth flow of grading on Google Forms.  I promise that after the initial investment of time setting up the form and the rubric with tags, grading goes super smoothly. 

What you’ll need:

1. List of your students’ names
2. List of your students’ email addresses
3. A Google form which includes students’ names, emails and grading criteria
4. A Google doc with tags. Tags look like <> and they denote what you want Autocrat to read and send to your students. Take a look at the examples above. 
5. The Autocrat add-on for Sheets

Steps:

1. Watch a YouTube tutorial! ← This teacher knows how important it is to have hacks that will serve you the whole year!
2. To start grading, you really just need to have the Google form ready (take a look at the examples above). Make sure to include questions for whatever you want sent to the students, such as a score for each row of the rubric, comments, and final score. 
3. When you finish grading, open the Sheet associated with your Form and check if all your grades/comments are correct. Do this before launching the Autocrat add-on.
4. Follow the Autocrat steps and when it asks you for the rubric, make sure to use a doc with tags that match the criteria of your rubric and the Google Form questions.
5. Click Play!