Flesch-Kincaid

     I have recently begun using the Flesch-Kincaid Readablilty Diagnostic for essays in my Western Civilization class.  If you are not familiar with Flesch-Kincaid you can read about it here (Wikipedia is great for some things):  Flesch-Kincaid (I give my kids a 'highlights' handout of this material and some other pieces from other sites).
     I have my students write all of their essays using Google Docs (which does not have the feature yet), so I have to cut/paste into a Word Document and run the diagnostic - I then transfer the 'numbers' to the comments I add on the essays in Google Docs (this takes less time than you think).  Given all of the recent discussion of rubrics and assessment, I would emphasize that I am trying to use the analysis as just another tool, like Turnitin.com, to help the kids review and reflect about their writing.  So far it has been helpful in allowing students to look at how their writing stacks up to some data analysis and gives them yet another feedback stream to use and think about.