Essay questions allow students to submit text responses or files within a quiz. When creating an essay question you can create a response template, which will display in the response field when a student goes to answer that question. This allows you to ensure students address all parts of the question, to provide guidance for student answers, or even to provide multiple questions and allow students to choose which one to answer.
Response format: Choose the format for the response. You will likely use one of these three:
Require text: Select "Require the student to enter text" if a student must enter text when responding. If you are allowing students to either upload a file attachment or enter text, set this to "Text input is optional."
Input box size: Use the dropdown to adjust the size of the response field.
Allow attachments: Choose if you want to allow file attachments.
Require Attachments: If you allow attachments, set whether file attachments or optional or required.
Accepted file types: If you allow attachments, you can choose to only accept selected file types. If you do not set the acceptable file types, all file types will be accepted.
Click on Response Template to reveal the Response template box. Enter your text into the Response Template text box. Whatever you type here will show up automatically in the response field when students go to answer. Keep in mind students can choose to delete/edit the provided text when answering the question.
Instructor View
Student View
If you have a TA or co-instructor that will be grading the responses, you can include relevant information for them to use when grading. This information will only be visible to graders when grading, not to students (either before or after the quiz).
When finished, click Save changes at the bottom.
