Grading essays with AI
Collect essays typed, uploaded or scanned, and grade them against your rubric in seconds.
Updated October 16, 2026
How essays come in
- Students submit online: they write in the box or upload a file (a photo, PDF or text file, up to 10 MB) from Essays in their portal.
- You upload them: open the essay and click Upload Student Essays. Use Single Upload to choose the student, or Bulk Upload to upload many files and let the AI match each one to a student by the name on it. Word, PDF and image files work, and these are graded straight away. Students don't see those grades until you release them.
Grading
Open the essay to see Submissions: how many are submitted, graded and pending. Click Grade Submissions to grade every ungraded essay in turn, or click a student and choose Grade with AI for just that one.
For each essay the AI gives a score for every rubric criterion with a comment, an overall score and letter grade, a short summary, strengths, things to work on, and grammar notes.
Tip:Typed essays and clear photos work best. Handwriting is read from the image, so make sure it's sharp and well lit.
Note:Each AI grade counts toward your plan: 5 a month on Free, 50 on Pro, and unlimited on Power.
AI grades wait for you to check them before students see them. See Reviewing and releasing grades.