BIG HISTORY PROJECT
BHP SCORE GUIDE
BHP Score is a new essay scoring service developed in partnership with Arizona State University (ASU).
Available free of charge to any BHP teacher, it ensures teachers and students get high quality, consistent
feedback. And teachers get back what they need most—time.
Student Writing: Real Impact
Writing skills are foundational to the Big History Project. By
offering a wide variety of texts, Investigations (similar to DBQs),
and exercises teachers can regularly and purposefully help
students develop their writing skills. For more than three years, as
part of an ongoing research project in partnership with the
University of Michigan (UM), we have been carefully studying the
impact of the BHP course on student writing. The results have
been remarkable. Across public, Title I, and private schools,
students show significant gains from the beginning to the end of
the school year. The secret of this success is simple. Students
taking BHP write a lot and receive consistent feedback with
opportunities to act on it. To learn more about this study, see the
Summary of Big History Project Research 2014/15.
One of the most important outcomes of the UM study is that
teachers have been able to see students’ growth as a result of
their hard work. However, because individual student submissions
have been anonymous, neither teachers nor their students have
been able to see each individual’s progress. We’ve wanted to find a
way to provide this individual feedback, which we’ve known would
help students understand where, specifically, they need to improve.
So, we’ve created a new service. Working with ASU and UM, we’ve
developed a way to deliver solid feedback and create new
formative assessment opportunities that won’t place increased
demands on already overloaded teachers.
Sample BHP Score report - Overall Class Performance
How It Works
Students write responses to Investigations in Units 2, 6, and 9, and then submit them via the website. When the class essays
are ready for scoring, the teacher presses a button to submit the essays. A short time later, the trained evaluators at ASU will
return a result for each student against the standard BHP Writing Rubric. The ASU report includes a class summary as well as
a page detailing each student’s score for use of content knowledge, use of evidence, construction of argument, and writing
mechanics.
There are some limits on the service. Although we want BHP Score to be as accessible as possible, we do need to place some
constraints on the service in order to keep costs manageable:
• To manage costs this first year of the program, we’ve capped the offer to 1,000 schools. When 1,000 schools are
enrolled, we will remove the enrollment button from the website.
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• We’re limiting this program to classrooms teaching Big History as a semester-long or year-long course of at least
80 hours. We’d love be able to offer it more broadly, but it is just too costly.
• You may only submit an essay once. If a student is out sick and wasn’t included in the submission, we don’t have a
means of going back and adding them later.
How to Use BHP Score
First, you need to sign up for BHP Score. You do this in the Teaching Console. Simply go to the Classroom & Scores tab, and
you will see the section titled, “Introducing BHP Score.” Select Activate Service Now, and you’re all set.
Classrooms & Scores tab of the Teaching Console
Once you’ve signed up, students will submit their essays via the website using the Investigation Input Form in Units 2, 6, and 9.
Investigation 2 online submission form
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You can check on how many students have submitted at any time using the Teaching Console. When your class’s essays are
ready for scoring, you submit them by pressing the Submit Now button.
BHP Score student submission status and Submit Now button in the Teaching Console
A short time later, the trained evaluators at ASU will return a result for each student against the standard BHP Writing Rubric.
This report includes a class summary as well as a page detailing each student’s score for use of content knowledge, use of
evidence, construction of argument, and writing mechanics.
BHP Score classroom report pages (left and center), and an individual student report (right)
Note that these reports will be sent only to you, the teacher. It will be left to you to decide how to use this information with your
class.
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