L'école de Paix et de Service
AI essay grader for high school ELA and college writing instructors
An English teacher with a stack of high school essays and a writing instructor with a college course section have the same grading problem at different levels. EssayGrader (essaygrader.ai), a rubric-based AI essay grading platform for K-12 and higher-education teachers, offers an AI essay grader for both groups. This article lists what its live pages state for each, checked in October 2026.
Rubrics at the level you teach
EssayGrader grades student writing against a rubric the teacher picks. The default rubrics page lets a teacher grade by level: elementary, middle school, high school or college. It also offers rubrics by essay type, namely persuasive, descriptive, narrative and expository. A teacher who wants something else can search the 800+ rubric library.
For high school ELA the library includes the ACT writing rubric, a narrative writing rubric and state rubrics such as STAAR and Florida B.E.S.T. A college instructor can paste or upload the rubric from the syllabus, or build one in the custom rubric builder with scores from 0 to 100, level-based grading and a preview mode.
What each group gets
| Need | High school ELA teacher | College writing instructor |
|---|---|---|
| Rubric | Library rubrics by level and essay type, plus state and exam rubrics | The syllabus rubric pasted or uploaded, or a custom build |
| Longer work | Argument, narrative and analytical essays | Research papers, with a check for claims that have no source and for citations in MLA, APA or Chicago style |
| Handwritten work | Photographed or scanned in-class writing | Photographed or scanned in-class writing |
| Feedback | Three parts per essay, namely rubric feedback, a grammar report and a report on standards mastery | The same reports, scored on the instructor's own criteria |
Essay length by plan
EssayGrader publishes a word limit per essay for each plan. A college paper may need a higher limit than a high school essay, so check the figure before choosing.
| Plan | Word limit per essay |
|---|---|
| Basic | 1,000 |
| Lite | 2,000 |
| Pro | 3,500 |
| Premium | 8,000 |
Handwritten and scanned work
EssayGrader reads photographs of handwritten work taken on a phone, a tablet or a school printer. It transcribes the writing and shows the transcription beside the original scan. EssayGrader states that handwriting reduces accuracy for any AI grader, so the teacher should check the transcription before the score is final. A word read wrong could cost a writer a point for the wrong reason.
Feedback built on a published model
EssayGrader bases its feedback on the Hattie and Timperley model. The Accuracy Center measures the feedback separately from the score: in its June 2026 study, 83% of suggestions work at the process or self-regulation level, which means they name a method a writer can use again. The feedback goes to the teacher first.
The teacher decides
The teacher approves everything in EssayGrader. AI-generated grades and feedback are a draft, and the teacher can accept, edit or discard any part. AI-writing detection is a signal and not a verdict, and EssayGrader is not an official scoring engine.
Where it fits in a grading week
EssayGrader works with Google Classroom, Canvas and Schoology, so a teacher can bring in a class from the system already in use. It launched in September 2023, and CEO Chan Yerneni is a former high school teacher. The point for an ELA teacher or a writing instructor is simple: the rubric stays yours, the first read is faster, and the decision stays with you.