Mid-terms: Here's what the curve(s) looked like

Lots of variation.  Most people did pretty well on at least one section and/or one essay.  Almost nobody did equally well on all parts of the test.

... but by checking your scores against these graphs, you can get a pretty good idea of how your work stacked up.  Scroll down to see the rubric that I used for grading the essays.

Note:  There's something weird about how the first graph displays-- there's all this blank space on the left.  I have no idea what that's about. 

 

 

How the Essays were Scored

Each essay question actually broke down into 5 smaller questions (tricky, huh?), so each smaller question was worth 4 points (4 points x 5 questions = 20 points per essay).

... and each smaller question broke down as follows:

Responsiveness:  Did you deal with the question at all?  1 point

Specificity:  Did you cite specific examples?  1 point

Relevance and Cogency:  Did your argument hold up reasonably well?  2 points

And here are the mini-questions:

Essay #1: Tribune Co.

TribCo recent history
Current media/biz environment
First move/rationale
Longer-term strategy
Examples of TribCo properties strengths/weaknesses

Essay #2:  Beachwood Reporter

Visuals and rationale
Content changes/retention
Frequency, format
2nd Person's role
Current Strengths/weaknesses

Essay #3:  Vocalo blog

Title, topic, tagline
Sample headline/entry
Frequency/formats
Audience
Competition and unique strengths

Essay #4:  Technology
Past Example #1
Past Example #2
Past Example #3
Current Trend & Change in practice
Significance of current change

... I'm having a bit of trouble generating individual reports from my spreadsheet, so I haven't given you a point-by-point breakdown. But if you want one, just ask.